By TALIA SLONIM
Melbourne's Holocaust survivor community, the largest outside of Israel, is rapidly shrinking.
Three members of the community – Joseph Kaltman, Bella Rabi and Lucia Rosenzwieg – have been buried in Springvale’s Jewish Cemetery this month.
A fourth – Adolek Kohn, 95, who survived the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau – died yesterday. He and his family returned to Auschwitz several years ago, where they created a memorable and moving video as part of an art project that explored survival, celebration and mourning.
Today, about 1350 survivors remain from the original 30,000 who immigrated to Australia after WWII. Child survivors, defined as Nazi victims born in 1928 or later, are typically those who remain.
Jewish Holocaust Centre liaison Michael Cohen said although Melbourne had given a home to the largest number of Holocaust survivors per capita outside of Israel, the community would soon be non-existent.
“The survivor community is very elderly, even the child survivor community has declined in number,” Mr Cohen said. “The age range of survivors who give testimony to student groups at the Jewish Holocaust Centre is 88-93.”
The recent death of survivors is especially dispiriting to the Jewish community with Holocaust Memorial Day approaching on May 5, commemorating 71 years since liberation.
Child survivor Eva Slonim, born in 1931 in Bratislava, said she often thought about the urgent message she wished to impart to future generations.
“Now that we … are approaching the end of our lives, I ask myself: Is my survival a privilege, a reward, a punishment or a charging of great responsibilities?” Mrs Slonim said.
“It is all of that. It is our sacred obligation to be vigilant, to build, to commemorate, to perpetuate memory, to recount to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren the greatest tragedy that ever befell the Jewish people.”
Survivor Henry Kranz, born in 1939 in Boryslav in what is now western Ukraine, said despite the decline, survivors’ influence would persist.
“It’s inevitable that we are going to die out. That’s why we are making an effort to videotape our testimonies,” Mr Kranz said.
“I have given many testimonies so that they survive me once I am no longer around. We try to teach people about the Holocaust and pass our stories to others.”
As well as providing eyewitness accounts of the horrors they endured, Holocaust survivors have greatly shaped the Jewish community and wider society, contributing to the arts, business, academia, and medicine.
Mr Cohen said the survivors had had a major impact.
“Melbourne’s ramified Jewish day school network, its synagogues, charitable and philanthropic organisations, among others owe their establishment and/or growth in large measure to the passion of Holocaust survivors’ intent on rebuilding Jewish life in the aftermath of the Shoah (Holocaust),” he said.
The JCCV’s Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration evening will be held at 7.30pm on Thursday, May 5, at Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University.