COVID-19 & Holocaust Survivors

Holocaust survivors faced COVID-19. See their resilience and historical parallels.

They Survived the Holocaust. Now They're Confronting the Virus. (chunk 1) One got out of Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train to Sweden, never again seeing his parents, who were exterminated in the death camps. One survived two notorious concentration camps, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and was discovered by British troops on a pile of bodies, half-dead with typhus. One endured freezing temperatures and near starvation in a slave-labor camp in Siberia.David Toren, Faye Becher and Joseph Feingold survived the Holocaust, bearing witness to the seismic events of the last century. Last month, all three died by the same tiny microorganism, isolated once more from their family members. Mr. Toren, who spent his late years fighting torecover paintingslooted by the Nazis, was 94; Ms. Becher, matriarch of a close Brooklyn family, was 95; Mr. Feingold, who was the subject of the 2017 Oscar-nominated documentary short “Joe’s Violin,” about his gift to a young Bronx girl, was 97.The New York area is home to just under 40,000 Holocaust survivors, down from nearly twice that many in 2011, according toSelfhelp Community Services, which serves Nazi victims. Now those survivors, mostly in their 80s and 90s, face a new menace that targets people like them: In New York State, the coronavirus has killed more thantwice as many people age 80and up as it has people under 60.“This pandemic is the greatest threat to this generation since the Second World War,” said Stephen D. Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, which interviews survivors of genocide. Many are only now telling their stories in full, he said. Which concrete detail in chunk 1 was the most shocking or interesting to you? Explain your reasoning. They Survived the Holocaust. Now They're Confronting the Virus. (chunk 2) For Diana Kurz, 83, the virus brought back memories. Ms. Kurz, who has not been infected, escaped Vienna with her mother when she was 4 years old, and grew up steeped in her mother’s stories of constant danger. When the coronavirus hit New York, she likened it to those years in Vienna, when any random encounter might be deadly.“I guess I picked that up as a child,” she said, “that feeling of dread all the time. That’s what it is like now. You never know if other people on the street are going to give you the virus, or were going to turn you in to the Gestapo because you were a Jew.” What is the author's purpose for including a memory moment in chunk 2? to persuade the reader to wear a mask properly to inform the reader that COVID-19 only happened in New York to entertain the reader with a warming childhood story to reveal that past and current events are always connected They survived the Holocaust. Now They're Confronting the Virus. (excerpt 3) “He didn’t talk about it much at all,” his niece Raima Evan said. “It was really painful for him.” But when the filmmakers of “Joe’s Violin” asked him about his past, he was more comfortable opening up to strangers, Ms. Evan said — even giving an extensiveoral historyto the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.The risk now is that old age and the coronavirus will make these stories into artifacts rather than living accounts of the world we inhabit, a prospect that is especially troubling as Holocaust denial has risen around the world, said Diane Saltzman, the museum’s director of survivor affairs. Gathering CDs and CMs Now that we have finished the reading, we will begin brainstorming and thinking about our one-chunk response.Remember that before we write, we must think. In the table below, select 3 CDs that relate to our essential question, How do catastrophic events affect people differently?. Then type your brief (2-3 words) commentaryabout this concrete detail.REMINDER: Commentaryis about why the concrete detail is important, how it made you feel, the connection you have to it, or how it is important or relates to the essential question. Concrete Detail Commentary EXIT TICKET | Which line below best illustrates why we must continue to learn about the Holocaust? That feeling of dread all the time. That's what it is like now. Holocaust denial has risen around the world The New York area is home to just under 40,000 Holocaust survivors He didn't talk about it much...it was really painful for him. What did you discover about yourself as a learner?