‘The story has to be maintained’: Holocaust survivors to speak at Atlanta event

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Atlanta resident George Rishfeld, who is almost 87, fled with his family from their home in Warsaw, Poland, to Russian-occupied Vilna during the Nazi invasion. When the Nazis attacked Vilna, his family was forced into a ghetto. Before the Germans could take them, his parents tossed Rishfeld over a barbed wire fence to a waiting gentile family that hid him for the remainder of the war.

As Rishfeld has gotten older, he’s found himself traveling to share his story with as many people as he can.

“The more I do, the younger I feel and the more energy I have,” said Rishfeld, who now lives in Atlanta. “It really rejuvenates me, because that’s what I’m saved for.”

When he first came to Georgia in 2007, there were at least 20 survivors, he said, but that number has vastly dwindled, leaving many more second- and third-generation descendants of survivors to take up the mantle.

“Pretty soon, we’ll be gone, and the story has to be maintained,” he said.

Rishfeld said he hopes he inspires people to continue to talk about what happened.

“Don’t just be quiet, because if you’re quiet, you’re doing an injustice to the past and to history,” he said. “That’s the whole point — you can’t forget this, because what happens then can happen again. And if you don’t talk about it, it will happen again.”

During the ceremony, there will be rituals to both remember those who died in the Holocaust and to honor the legacy and lives of the survivors.

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman

The event will begin with the carrying in of a star to represent the life of the Jewish people, followed by opening remarks. The six survivors, who range in age from 87 to 96, will “deliver words of wisdom” and lessons from their lives, Prass said.

Multiple survivors will share their stories at the event for the second year, in an effort to platform as many firsthand stories as possible.

Children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of survivors will bring flowers to the memorial at Greenwood, and survivors will light candles in remembrance of loved ones they’ve lost.

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman

“There’s not a survivor alive who didn’t lose family members in the Shoah, in the Holocaust,” Prass said.

The event will also feature a youth choir made up of children from several of the Jewish day schools and the reciting of the Kaddish, which is said for the deceased and “in Jewish tradition speaks only of life.”

“We remember our dead by praising life,” Prass said.

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman

The Memorial to the Six Million monument was designed by Holocaust survivor and Atlanta architect Benjamin Hirsch 61 years ago after a group of Atlantans saw a need for a physical place to grieve and remember their murdered loved ones.

Many of the survivors speaking at the event have already shared their stories with around 150 school groups that come through the Breman Museum & Cultural Center during the year.

“What can be learned from this, what words of wisdom from these people who have shared perhaps the most horrific event in modern history, what do they want us to take away?” Prass said.

He said about 350 attendees, a mix of Jews and non-Jews, are expected at the event.

Prass said he hopes people leave the ceremony with two important takeaways.

“They need to remember the events and the lessons of the Holocaust,” he said. “The second thing I think they walk away with is an imperative to be active agents in society — to see when people sat back and did nothing, and that just is not an answer for a civilized society.”

If You Go

Yom HaShoah Commemoration. 11 a.m. Sunday. 1173 Cascade Circle SW, Atlanta. thebreman.org/events/yom-hashoah-61st-community-wide-holocaust-commemoration