Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 25, 2020

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Holocaust survivor Henry Friedman was 14 when his family was given a place to hide from the Nazis by a Ukrainian family.

Friedman was born in Brody, Poland, a town with a Jewish population of about 10,000 before World War II. After they were liberated and returned to the city in July 1944, there were fewer than 100 Jews who had survived the concentration camps, Friedman said.

My family was the only one in the city that the husband, wife and children survived, he said.

Of the rest of his extended family, only a cousin survived, he said. Everybody else was killed.

Steven Geiger, founder of Mensch International Foundation, and Holocaust survivor Henry Friedman stand near the Desert Holocaust Memorial in Palm Desert, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020.(Photo: Vickie Connor/The Desert Sun)

Sitting on a bench at the Holocaust Memorial in Palm Deserts Civic Center Park on Thursday morning, Friedman recalled his experience and why it is important to him that people remember the Holocaust.

On Monday he will be among the speakers at the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day observance, hosted by the Gerald R. Ford Chapter of the Mensch Foundation International.

The day marks the 75th anniversary of the Jan. 27, 1945, liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, the largest concentration and forced-labor camp established by the Nazi Germans in what is now Poland.

It is estimated that more than 1 million people were killed at Auschwitz, most of them Jews, before the camp was liberated by Soviet Red Army troops. The liberation of the camp, however, didnt mark the end of World War II and other concentration camps continued killing Jews, gays and others tagged as "undesirables."

In 2010, the United Nations established Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day to remember those who died, celebrate those who survived and to remind all to never forget what happened.

They survived because Friedmans father was warned that the Gestapo would be coming for him, and in October 1942 they went into hiding, assisted by two Ukrainian families in the village of Suchowola.

Friedman, his mother and younger brother were sheltered in a barn attic, about as big as a queen-size bed and with no room to stand or walk around.

Holocaust survivor Henry Friedman stands in the Desert Holocaust Memorial in Palm Desert, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020.(Photo: Vickie Connor/The Desert Sun)

All I could do was lay down or sit up. When I was liberated, I couldnt walk, my muscles were all atrophied, he said.

His father hid out about a half-mile away in a barn that belonged to a business acquaintance.

They would get their news by listening to people talking on the street, he said.

When people wanted us to hear news, they would talk below us in the barn, he said.

They remained hidden until the Russian army liberated Suchowola in March 1944.

While in hiding, Friedman would try to help keep his brothers spirits up by telling him, If we survive, everybodys going to love us because we may be the only Jews that survive, he recalled.

I was right on one thing, very few of us had survived. But loving us is another story because the people that hid us didnt want us even to reveal their names because they were afraid that people may kill them, he said.

His family migrated to America in December 1949.

Now 91 years old, Friedman, a snowbird from Seattle and a veteran who served with the United States Army in the Korea War, has been speaking at the local Holocaust Remembrance Day observance and wherever possible for at least 30 years.

He hopes his experience will not only remind people of the Holocaust as the number of survivors dwindles but also serve as a message of what can happen in a society that is not tolerant of differences.

It does not matter the color of your skin. It does not matter what political affiliation you have. What matters is how we react to those things, Friedman said.

And this is the reason that I have dedicated the last 30 years of my life to teaching, speaking on the subject of the Holocaust, he said.

The Desert Holocaust Memorial is located in Palm Desert Civic Center Park in Palm Desert, Calif.(Photo: Vickie Connor/The Desert Sun)

He volunteers at the Tolerance Education Center in Rancho Mirage and started the Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle where and his wife, Sandra, live full-time. The center is named for the Friedmans.

History has a way of repeating itself, Friedman said. Look at whats happening today, all over the world. Christians are being killed by Muslims. Muslims are killing Muslims because of their different beliefs.

In 2017, the United States experienceda record 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents a 57% increase from 2016, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

That was down slightly to 1,879 in 2018, according to ADL statistics.

Statistics arent available yet for 2019, but in December, two men opened fire in a Jewish market in New Jersey, killing three people. The shooters, the New Jersey state attorney said, were fueled by hatred of Jewish people and law enforcement.

The New York Police Department reported that in 2019, the number of hate crimes in the city was nearly double that of 2018 and most incidents were anti-Semitic. Between Jan. 1 and May 19, 2019, the department reported receiving 176 hate crime complaints, an 83% increase over the same period in 2018.

Anti-Defamation League National Director Jonathan Greenblatt stated through Twitter that 59% of the complaints were anti-Semitic hate crimes.

While the Coachella Valley overall is accepting of different religions, minorities and the LGBTQ community, there have been hate crimes and acts of anti-Semitism over the years, including a fire started when a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a mosque in Coachella five years ago.

People were inside praying at the time, and all escaped without injury. Carl Dial was immediately arrested, convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.

There have also been incidents in local schools, including one in which a Shadow Hills High School student came dressed as a Nazi for Halloween in 2016.

The Coachella Valley is a fairly tolerant area, but schools have had incidents of anti-Semitism in the past, said Steve Geiger, who heads the Gerald R. Ford Chapter of the Mensch Foundation International.

You can never be complacent, and no one can remain a bystander. Its a fight that has to continue all the time, said Geiger, whose father survived a concentration camp, but his grandparents were gassed in Auschwitz along with 80 other relatives.

Friedman recalled a meeting in Rome with Pope John Paul II in commemoration of the Holocaust, and as he shook his hand, the papal told Friedman that anti-Semitism is a sin.

We have to hear those voices from the churches and the temples, from the mosques, that anti-Semitism is a sin, Friedman said.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

What: Observance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, with a variety of speakers including survivor Henry Friedman; Palm Desert Councilman Sabby Jonathan; Rabbi Benny Lew, Chabad Rancho Mirage; Monsignor Howard Lincoln, Sacred Heart Catholic Church; and Mayors Iris Smotrich of Rancho Mirage and Geoff Kors of Palm Springs.

When: 1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27

Where: Palm Desert Civic Center Park amphitheater, on the northeast corner of Fred Waring Drive and San Pablo Avenue.

Information: Email menschfoundation@yahoo.com or call (760) 416-3685

Desert Sun reporter Sherry Barkas covers the cities of La Quinta, Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert. She can be reached at sherry.barkas@thedesertsun.com or (760) 778-4694. Follow her on Twitter @TDSsherry

Read or Share this story: https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/palm-desert/2020/01/24/survivor-henry-friedman-speaks-at-palm-desert-holocaust-remembrance-day/4533649002/

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Attic size of a queen bed served as home for Holocaust survivor, family hiding from the Nazis - Desert Sun

Category: Anti-Defamation League
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