Survivors and progeny speak out in book
In publishing Echoes of the Holocaust, Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg of Edison said his aim was to create a book “that would give hope, and not only sadness, to Holocaust survivors.”
He told NJJN that he hoped the work, a collection of essays, poems, memoirs, and photos from survivors and their children and grandchildren, “would be excellent for use in a class on Holocaust literature at the university level.”
The 681-page book features essays by Rosenberg, rabbi emeritus at Congregation Beth-El in Edison, and testimonials and stories from both well-known figures and New Jersey residents.
Among them is Abe Schwartzbard of Edison, whose parents and grandparents survived by fleeing across Russian lines from Poland.
They met in a displaced persons’ camp after the war and married in the United States. His father, Simon Schwartzbard, published a Hebrew-language book, Mabul Hadumim, in the 1950s, becoming one of the first survivors to write about his experiences.
“The priority for my parents and grandparents was to rebuild their lives in America and to raise Jewish children and grandchildren…. If only my parents were around to see their great-grandchildren are growing Jewish in fully committed Jewish homes,” writes Schwartzbard, a former president of Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva in Edison, in Echoes of the Holocaust.
Also in the book is material by Kean University political science professor and NJJN blogger and columnist Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn that includes his ideas on the proper way to commemorate the Holocaust and its victims.
Rosenberg himself is the son of Auschwitz survivors and was born in a displaced persons’ camp in Germany.
Also a member of the NJ Commission on Holocaust Education, Rosenberg has written hundreds of articles and authored or edited numerous other publications about the Holocaust.
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