Stacy Long
AFA Journal staff writer
May 2016 – Isn’t she lovely… Music played as she made her way down the red carpet, and then silence reigned as she told her story: survival in the ghettos and concentration camps of the Holocaust.
“People were cheering as each woman walked; family members teared up, just crying to see their mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers honored in this way,” Kendra White of American Family Studios told AFA Journal. “As a pageant winner was announced, rose petals and confetti fell. The place was decorated like a banquet hall, each woman made to feel treasured, loved, special.”
For the men and women in the Haifa Home for Holocaust Survivors in Israel, events like the beauty pageant (photo above) White attended are just one aspect of how survivors are celebrated. The Haifa Home was founded in partnership with International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, a ministry of Christians from around the world who seek to support Israel and show Christian love fulfilling the scripture: “Comfort, comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1).
Shadows of Holocaust
Sadly, not all Holocaust survivors receive the compassion and care that are demonstrated at the Haifa Home. Many were uprooted from their homes and families, came to Israel after retirement and never earned a pension, or settled there before international negotiations provided for their financial assistance. Thus, many of those who returned to “normal life” after having had everything taken from them are living their last years alone and in need.
“Approximately one third of Israel’s 180,000 survivors are in poverty, struggling with illness, or living alone,” said ICEJ’s Yudit Setz in Jerusalem. “Research confirms that the psychological impact of the traumatic events they endured has not lessened but increased as the survivors have aged.”
Currently, the Haifa Home is able to care for about 70 residents who are all Holocaust survivors from countries throughout Europe and North Africa. Most are in their 80s or 90s and have little or nothing to live on, but are provided for exclusively through donations so that all can receive complete care and comfort.
“These are the last living witnesses of the Holocaust, but the trauma of the Holocaust is felt even in the second and third generations,” Setz said. “We have the opportunity to represent God’s love.”
Not everyone can travel to Israel to show love to a Holocaust survivor, but ICEJ’s Adopt a Survivor program opens an inlet into the life of a survivor through letters, photos, and monthly support. (See below for contact information.)
“These tokens of love and friendship often bring tears to their eyes,” Setz told AFAJ. “The fact that they are not forgotten and that they receive attention from people around the world is a great comfort to them.”
Light of remembrance
While recent years have seen a decided ambivalence in U.S. attitudes toward Israel, officially, the U.S. has been pro-Israel. Congress adopted Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on Nisan 27 in the Jewish calendar (May 8 of this year), marking the date of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 when 300,000 Jews were deported and murdered in honor of Hitler’s birthday.
“We must remember,” White urged. “At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., one can relive the experience of what it would have been like. The Holocaust Museum in Israel revives remembrance, testimony after testimony of real people – those like the women I saw in the pageant who have come full circle, from having their humanity stripped away to building a new, victorious life.” 
In Washington DC
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
In Israel
Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center
Haifa Home
Adopt a Survivor
int.icej.org
615-895-9830
