Jeanette Friedman

Northjersey.com: Students to interview Holocaust survivors living in Teaneck

May 26

Jeanette Friedmanlocal stories/community No Comments

Sunday, May 15, 2011
BY JAY LEVIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record

TEANECK — At Teaneck High School, students can visit a research center and a library collection dedicated to the Holocaust. Now, a group of 11th-graders will be interviewing Holocaust survivors, part of the worldwide campaign to recover the names of those who died.
The school is partnering with the Classic Residence retirement complex in Teaneck to collect information for the central database of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem is working to recover the names of 6 million Jews who perished; slightly more than 3 million victims are memorialized in its database.
Robin Granat, Classic Residence’s executive director, approached the high school about having students take testimony from her residents.

“I’m sitting on a gold mine of people who can offer information,” Granat said. Two dozen residents lived under Hitler’s regime and are considered survivors; a handful of those residents survived concentration camps.

Fourteen students from a U.S. History II class will visit the Classic Residence next Sunday. They will interview willing residents in the morning. Others who know of Jews killed in the Holocaust can give their testimony in the afternoon.

On Thursday, Granat prepped students for their interviews and showed them the one-page form from Yad Vashem they will fill out. She emphasized they are part of the last generation who will be able to speak directly to Holocaust survivors.

“Your children are never going to get a firsthand account of what happened during the Holocaust,” Granat said. “This is a significant opportunity to pass along what you learn to future generations.”

Emotional subject

Three of the 14 students said they have known Holocaust survivors. Lailah Perez said she gleaned a bit from her late grandmother, a Catholic from Austria who was incarcerated for helping Jews. Lailah said her grandfather, a French Jew, also was incarcerated. He died before Lailah was born.

“My grandmother couldn’t talk about it — it was hard for her,” Lailah said.

Granat told the students that Holocaust survivors are often reticent about their experiences. She also warned the students that their interviews could turn emotional.

“It’s OK if you well up,” she said. “Don’t be surprised if you feel very upset.”

Holocaust center

Teaneck High School was a forerunner in offering Holocaust studies, now mandated by the state. Ed Reynolds, then the social studies supervisor, created the school’s Holocaust center more than 30 years ago. The room, with photographs, articles, films and other resources, was rededicated in 2009. It is located in the school’s student center.

A New Milford couple, Jeanette Friedman and Philip Sieradski, recently donated hundreds of books about the Holocaust and genocide to Teaneck High. The collection is available in the school library.

Pearl Markovitz, a retired New York City teacher and Holocaust expert who volunteers at the Teaneck High School Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center, said she was thrilled the 11th-graders will come face to face with octogenarians and nonagenarians who survived the evils of Hitler.

“There’s nothing like meeting a person who survived, because it’s a personalized, sensitized experience,” the Teaneck resident said. And alluding to the age of the survivors, she added: “We don’t have much time.”