As a young girl growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, I have many wonderful memories of my time at synagogue in Charlotte, North Carolina. In fact, since my mother was the religious school director for many years, I was at the synagogue almost as much as I am at HEA now. There are mundane memories, funny and fun memories, and memories of moments that remain so impactful to me today that I am brought back to the room where they occurred, stale 100-year-old synagogue smell and all.
Mr. Mond was everyone’s favorite teacher. He was also a businessman, father, and grandfather. He was also a holocaust survivor. Even though I am the granddaughter of a survivor, his was the first story of survival that I heard as a child. Irving Mond was born in Antwerp, Belgium, and took a dangerous journey to Lyon, France, where he was hidden under great peril for the remainder of the war. As many stories of survival, his was one of escape, danger, underground networks, and devastating loss before his eventual freedom. I must have listened to this story a dozen times as a child and never got tired of it. It was beyond my comprehension that anyone could survive such harsh and dangerous conditions.
Our beloved Mr. Mond’s story was only one of the numerous stories being told by Holocaust survivors in our Jewish Community in North Carolina, and we listened to each of them with shock and horror. Witnessing them share their arduous history with us was an honor.
Each year as Yom HaShoah approaches, it is our duty to remember the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust by bearing witness to the stories of survivors and of those who did not survive. As the years move along, there are fewer of these amazing stories told first-hand, and my own children, who are 12 and 14, have only heard a handful of them. I consider it a huge blessing that they have had these experiences because their children will never meet a Holocaust survivor.
Luckily for us, our wonderful member, Osi Sladek, who recently wrote a wonderful book detailing his story of survival, will be speaking about his amazing story of survival this Sunday at 4:00 p.m. at the HEA Holocaust Memorial program. We also will be presenting the heroic role of the Jewish Partisans in the war, with whom Osi and his family co-existed in the mountains during the war. This service will be full of music, poetry, stories, and dedication. You can find all the information for this program HERE. This program will be appropriate for middle schoolers through adults. We hope you all join us and consider bringing along your children and grandchildren to help them remember for generations to come.
