VOLUME 6 NO. 3
Dear Child Surivors, Welcome to our souvenir edition of Connections Newsletter December 2018. Over the past two years the CSH group have participated in a portrait exhibition, anthology launch, panel discussions and the Quaker recognition ceremony. We felt it was time for a purely social occasion bringing together our members to catch up with the latest family news and happenings; and that is exactly what happened at our Sunday afternoon event. Dr Paul Valent the CSH founding President was our main speaker and reminisced with stories of the past years against a backdrop of nostalgic photos prepared by Lena Fiszman. Paul’s words follow to allow those not present to enjoy his thoughtful presentation. As the CSH Chairperson I am grateful for the messages
DECEMBER 2018
of appreciation I received but also sad to hear the reasons why some of our CSH could not attend. Life’s journey has a way of crossing all our paths one way or another and to those Child Survivors and their families who are unwell or trying to deal with the loss of loved ones; we send you are heartfelt wishes for an easier year ahead. Thank you to Mary Slade (JHC Board Director) for joining our group to lend a hand. Thanks to our CSH official photographer Margarita Riaikkenen we have a delightful spread of photos to share with you all. The following pages will give you an idea of how good our next year’s celebration is going to be when the group turns 30 years old!!! If you have changed your address or your contact details please let us know by phone to Lena, Office Manager at the JHC. Phone: 9528 1985, email: LenaF@jhc.org.au or email me at viv.parry@bigpond.com. My best wishes to you all for a wonderful 2019. Viv Parry, Chairperson, CSH
Child Survivors Group 29th Birthday Thank you Viv, for your introduction, and devoted work. We’ve been going since early 1990, for 29 years. We were mainly in our 50s. Now we’re in our 80s. I’m not saying this to depress you, but to indicate how precious and rare we are. We are a miracle of survival. Less than 100,000 of us around the world, <6% of those born between 1930 and 1945. We estimate that we have about 500 child survivors in Melbourne, of whom 267 are registered in our group. What have we been doing? Our mission was expressed well by the mission of the World Federation of Jewish child survivors of the Holocaust “We are the Jewish children of Europe persecuted during the Nazi era in ghettoes, in camps, in hiding, on the run or forced to leave Nazi occupied Europe. Our objectives are to keep alive the memory of 6 million Jews, including the 1 ½ million children, murdered during the Holocaust, and to pass on our legacy to future generations. We pursue these objectives by telling stories of our survival, community interaction, education and conferences.” I would add, that as well as passing on our legacy and telling our stories, which we have done in an atmosphere of mutual trust, we have tried to understand our stories,
heal each other, and extend our understanding to others. We have given pools of frozen greyness shape, time, and words. Memories begin with words. Let us speak, so others will not need to remember the unspeakable. We have imbibed the words of others. We were privileged to have the two discoverers of child survivors visit us Sarah Moskovitz in 1993 and Judith Kestenberg in1995. We heard Hedi Fried from Sweden, Edith Eger and Ervin Staub from America, Diane Armstrong and Ruth Wainryb from Sydney, Mirka Mora from Melbourne. There were many others, these are a few to jog our memories. We’ve had many workshops on topics like Arrival in Australia, Growing up in a survivor family, Differences between sibling survivors, Children surviving hurt, Children remembering hurt, Transgenerational transmission of trauma, The Psychology of perpetrators, the last workshop in August this year was on Intergenerational Trauma. We have been aware of second and third generation children. We provided words to others in our 4 anthologies, in the many of our members’ autobiographies, film Breaking