Edit Kuper lives in Montreal and is working to form a 2nd G. group in her city. Her parents are from Poland, she spent her first few years in a DP Camp in Austria and grew up surrounded by Holocaust survivors in Montreal. Edit is the Immediate Past Co-President of the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre of Montreal.
Gut Yom Tov, Gut Yor! Khag Sameakh
On behalf of my co-President Pinchas Gutter and myself, I am delighted to be with you today during Sukkot, the holiday of our harvest. It is a time to say a Shekhyanu. We applaud CHES (Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship ) for this important initiative to honour survivors. I listened to each testimony on the CHES website and was so moved by your stories and even more by your uplifting conclusions.
As far as we are concerned there are never enough occasions to honour survivors, to honour their resilience, their spiritual resistance, their struggle to rebuild full lives, and their holding onto hope – despite everything. When I was growing up and for many years afterwards, nobody was interested in our stories. Our lives and our remembrances took place only among survivors and their children. It is wonderful that more and more of you survivors are speaking, testifying and writing and that others are listening. It is such an important legacy for the world. However, for ourselves, amongst ourselves, it is great for survivors and descendants to just get together. We only need a few words to understand each other. Yes, we made family out of friends from the ghettos and camps and our streets. However, as time passes, as we age, I feel today’s and yesterday’s losses more and more. Could my cousins, children of 6 aunts and uncles have sat at my holiday table or just been a phone call away?
Our organization, CJSHD, has first and foremost the mission to fill the gaps in service for Canadian Holocaust survivors, to provide some compensation for damages through representation on the Board of the Claims Conference, to prod Jewish federations to raise emergency funds for needy survivors, to bolster restitution initiatives and to support the full gamut of Holocaust remembrance. Most of all we, survivors and 2nd Gen, have special antennas, to catch the echoes of history, of racism, intolerance, Holocaust denial, and increasing Anti-Semitism in today’s world. We try to remain vigilant and responsive, working closely with CIJA. As the situations become more tense, we need to hear more and more of your thoughts and your voices.
I wish you a wonderful Sukkot, a freylikhn yom tov and success in your endeavours!