VOLUME 12 NO 2
MARCH 2023
Dear Child Survivors of the Holocaust, We understand how life can be challenging and the important role memories hold for so many survivors. This edition of Connections is about memories, those personal reminders of years ago before the war in happier times and ti d the th more difficult memories gained during the Holocaust. And with those memories, sometimes locked away for years, come questions. ‘Are my memories a true account of what really happened? Is it possible as a child that I can remember everything I saw and heard in such great detail?’ We are fortunate our founding CSH President, Psychiatrist and Traumatologist, Dr Paul Valent continues to pursue his life’s work about memory and the brain. Paul has written an article about memory for this edition
of Connections and even more reassuring, Paul will be our keynote speaker at the next CSH event, The Nature of Memory Across the Generations. The date will be Sunday, April 16th at 2.00pm. Your family members are welcome to join us; there will be plenty of time for Q&A. Please ease find your invitation in this issue. We trust you will enjoy this edition of Connections and we are ever grateful to our CSH contributors for sharing their lived experience; we understand and appreciate this is not always just a simple writing task. Look forward to seeing you April 16th. Warmest wishes Viv Parry and Lena Fiszman Co-Presidents
From Lena’s Desk : Q&A with Max Wald OAM What drew you to Jewish Genealogy and how many years have you been involved in the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society? At a meeting prior to and for March of the Living in 2004. A certain Lena Fiszman recommended we do a Shtetl Visit. This got me working towards contacting town offices in Biala Podalska and Bialystok to organise visits for records. The fuse was then lit and the rest is history. In those times there was not much internet connection with Poland, but I managed through much searching to get fax numbers for those offices. Thus began my own research and now research for others I now am Town Leader for JRI Poland for Biala Podlaska & Bialystok and have extracted Polish records for about 40 towns in the Lublin Gubernia in Poland. All Voluntary. Do you find it rewarding helping people research their family history? Needless to say, I feel personally rewarded to know that I have assisted many people in their family research.
I am currently Vice President of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society (Vic) and have worked on many projects within the scope of genealogy. You have also been a volunteer for many years at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, interviewing Holocaust Survivors and members of the second generation. What has that experience taught you about collecting survivors’ memories? In my opinion I cannot stress the importance of hearing from the mouths of survivors, their experience and often miraculous survival during those horrible years. Given that many Holocaust survivors are quite elderly and, in some cases, unwell – are you still finding survivors to interview? Surprisingly, we often come across someone born in the 1930’s who has strong memories of those times and have related their experiences to me with interviews. During the last two years, we have conducted many such interviews at the homes of the survivors as the Holocaust Museum was being rebuilt. Do you think it is ever too late to interview a Holocaust survivor due to age or infirmity? Never too late!