VOLUME 11 NO 5 Dear Child Survivors of the Holocaust, We trust you and yours are well and enjoying the warmer days. Had the pleasure of visiting the new Melbourne Holocaust Museum building last week. (Built on the old museum site in Selwyn Street El Elsternwick) t i k) Th The iinterior t of the museum, including the exhibition space should be completed by May/June next year. Please read on to discover the CSH Invitation to a preview of the new Museum, we do hope you will join us.
NOVEMBER 2022 I have had the privilege as executor on behalf of the Estate of the late Leslie Klemke to make a donation to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. These funds will be used exclusively for the benefit of the Child Survivors of the Holocaust, Melbourne group. Our CSH group can look forward to continuing support from the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for years to come. Wishing you all a Chag Sameah! Viv and Lena.
From Lena’s Desk: ‘Holocaust survivor left on a bench as a baby finds new family at 80’ When Alice Grusová was a baby, her parents left her on a train station bench, with no idea of what would become of her. It was June 1942 and this was the last desperate act by Marta and Alexandr Knapp to save their daughter as their attempt to escape what was then Czechoslovakia ended in disaster. The couple had fled Prague, but when their train drew into Pardubice, eastern Bohemia, Nazi soldiers boarded in search of fleeing Jews. Grusová – her married name – never saw her parents again. They were arrested and sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where they were later deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Her brother from her father’s previous marriage was also killed there. It might have been their infant daughter’s fate too, had it not been for their high-stakes gamble. This year, Grusová celebrated her 81st birthday – as well as her 60th wedding anniversary with husband Miroslav. Living in Prague, they have three sons, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. This, she had always felt, was the sum total of her family, but earlier this year the retired pediatric nurse traveled to Israel where she reconnected with her Jewish heritage and met her only surviving first cousin – as well as a wider family she didn’t know existed. “I was most shocked when I found out, when I was 80, that I have such a large family,” she said in an emotional video call with CNN.
“I am just sad this didn’t come earlier,” added Grusová, who has battled cancer, hepatitis and a spinal surgery. The reunion occurred thanks to the efforts of a curious woman 5,000 miles away in South Africa, during the initial stages of the pandemic. The incredible Alice Grusová as a baby. story has now been shared by online genealogy site MyHeritage. With so much of life on hold, Michalya Schonwald Moss delved into her family history on MyHeritage. She had always known her family had been decimated in the Holocaust, but nothing prepared her for the discovery that 120 of her relatives were murdered at Auschwitz. Yet out of the unimaginable darkness, a tiny and most unexpected ray of hope emerged. With the help of professional genealogists in both Slovakia and Israel, she unearthed the incredible tale of one survivor: Grusová. Having been found on the station bench, the one-yearold girl was initially placed in an orphanage. Grusová, who has no memory of her parents, was later moved to Theresienstadt. She recalled: “There was a nice woman who was taking care of us. I only remember glimpses from that time. “And then I remember when I got sick with typhoid