VOLUME 10 NO 1
Dear Child Survivors of the Holocaust, We do hope you are well and your loved ones are managing a little better now that we are once again out of lockdown. Even though we are apart physically we have been thinking about you and how resilient our Child Survivors are. You have been through so much from your earliest years; at the least it must have been some sort of preparation for knowing the world isn’t always as perfect a place as we hoped or wished for. Irma Hanner OAM: One of our own, Irma Hanner has received an OAM for her service to the JHC including her devotion to guiding (Irma also inspires the Aboriginal men I bring to the JHC) Irma we congratulate you and wish you many more years in your wonderful role, for all our sakes. CSH brand new website! We are delighted to let you know the new CSH website is up and running. We acknowledge Jayne Josem, JHC Director; Jennifer Maxwell Levitt, JHC Engagement Manager; and Robbie Simmons, JHC Digital Media Producer, for their support for this important project.
WFNU World Federation News Update
The WFJCSH&D (USA) asked for a message from each CSH group; here is our CSH letter that has gone out worldwide today! Thank you for all the responses from our member groups! We will be sending copies of the news from all of you once a week in these emails. Below is the response from Viv Parry in Australia: Greetings from the Child Survivors of the Holocaust Group, Melbourne, Australia. We are grateful for this opportunity to say hello to our global CSH family. 2020 has been a very difficult year for Melbournians;
MARCH 2021
we spent many months in strict lockdown because of the covid 19 situation. We had a nightly curfew (could not leave the house after 8.00 pm at night until 5.00 am the next morning) as well as no visitors to the house, only allowed out for 2 hours a day for exercise and shopping and masks to be worn indoors as well as outside. It was lonely for so many of our CSH separated from family and friends but we got through to the other side and now our members await the vaccine that will hopefully give us greater freedom this year. We still managed to mail out our CSH ‘Connections’ newsletters to keep our members up to date and in touch. Having the time in lockdown to focus on areas in need of a refresh we are excited to share with you all our Child Survivors of the Holocaust Melbourne website. Here is the link: https://www.jhc.org.au/childsurvivors-of-the-holocaust/ This website created by Jewish Holocaust Centre’s Digital Media Producer, Robbie Simmons, with content supplied by myself and Lena Fiszman (our Vice President). I am particularly pleased and proud of the result. You will find all the CSH newsletter ‘Connections’ editions there (2013 - 2020) as well as other interesting sections including ‘In Memorium’, where we include our dear departed CSH members. It is a sad section but our members are pleased they will stay within our group, in perpetuity. We missed out on the opportunity to have our CSH 30th Birthday party; we are ever hopeful this longawaited reunion to celebrate our group’s milestone anniversary will happen at the end of this year. On behalf of our 265 Child Survivor members here in Melbourne, we send you all a warm hug and want you to know we are thinking of you and wishing you a happy healthy 2021. Kind regards, Viv Parry, President & Lena Fiszman, Vice President Child Survivors of the Holocaust Group Thanks for sharing!