Page 20 - TORCH Magazine #14 - July 2019

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Memories in the
D Living Room
( Zikaron BaSalon)
es and I had the remarkable refreshments before gathering in the living privilege of being invited into room where we were introduced to 93-year- a Jewish home to meet with a old Susan Pollack MBE, a Hungarian Jew who
Holocaust survivor. The occasion was survived Auschwitz. A passage of Hebrew was
a Zikaron BaSalon, or “Memories in the Living Room” evening in May, and I want to share with you this precious experience.
Zikaron BaSalon is an annual event around Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day where Jewish families open up their homes, inviting family members and friends to meet with and listen to a Holocaust survivor. These intimate gatherings usually involve the reading of a reflective poem or a story, the singing of a song or the reading of scripture. It is an opportunity to hear firsthand the experiences of a Holocaust survivor and try to understand why it happened.
At our Zikaron BaSalon we had some
read and then Susan told her harrowing story of how she, as a child, became separated from her parents who she never saw again and how she lost so many of her family.
Susan is a remarkable woman, composed yet not afraid to share her feelings and how she deals with those dark and desperate memories that sometimes haunt her. She courageously spends her life talking to others, including preparing young visitors before they visit Auschwitz and the traumatic experience of visiting a former concentration camp. I felt so moved to see how she draws on divine inner strength and has had to overcome such a living horror and then retell it over and over again so