A Family Journey Of Survival And Discovery
By Howard Jeruchimowitz, 3G Chicago
My paternal grandparents, who were both from Lithuania, both survived the Holocaust in different camps through very different experiences. My grandfather died in Cuba before I was born and my grandmother was very introspective about her experience of the Holocaust until my teenage years, so my interest in the Holocaust and my family’s involvement in it was started in earnest then and more focused when I was in college.
Around that time, though she probably never wanted any publicity about her story, my grandmother started opening up more, and I think she felt an urgency as she aged to make sure that at least her family knew the details of what happened to her and our extended family / My father, stepmother, brother and I decided to journey to Lithuania to visit her past. We spent most of our trip in Lithuania (Smilgiai where she was born, Birzai where she lived, and Vilnius where she studied and ultimately forced into the Vilnius ghetto), and ended our trip in Eckernförde, Germany, where my grandmother was displaced after the war rescued from a German U-Boat, and where my father was born. We made many incredible discoveries about our history while traveling, and my family was engaged in learning more.
After our trip, my father continued researching our family and we continued to find amazing records to piece our family history together. As my father was not comfortable to be a public spokesperson for our history, I wanted to take it a step even further to honor my grandparents and my father’s hard work. Therefore, I started speaking through the Illinois Holocaust Museum as soon as I could.
Telling my grandparent’s story is not just an honor for me, but also an obligation I feel to them, especially my grandmother.
An obligation to keep her (and my grandfather’s) story alive, Her only surviving oral testimony started from our garbled interview so many years before, and became in clearer focus with not only further conversation, but with further research, records and a trip to her homeland. It is my honor and responsibility to preserve that as her grandson not just for my family but for all the lost souls or survivors of the Holocaust. Speaking gives me the opportunity to do that in a robust, public, and meaningful way.
We’ll teach you how to share your grandparent’s story.