AP: Children of Holocaust survivors inherit the role of witness

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150413/ml-israel-holocaust-the-next-generation-346a054e63.html

By ARON HELLER

KFAR HAROEH, Israel (AP) — When David Hershkoviz was a child, he used to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of his mother screaming in her sleep, knowing that she was reliving the horrors of the Holocaust.

In time, he learned of the traumatic wartime experience that haunted her most — being torn away from her own mother at the Auschwitz concentration camp's selection line, where at 21 she was forced into work and her mother dispatched to death.

"That separation never left her," said Hershkoviz, 54, his voice quivering as he choked back tears. "She said, 'I think my mother is angry at me because I left her. ... My mother never comes to me in my dreams. I haven't dreamed about her since we parted. How is that possible?'"

When his mother, Mindel, died two years ago, he wanted to carry on her legacy by bearing witness to the Holocaust. He found help in a first-of-its-kind course teaching the children of Holocaust survivors how to ensure their parents' stories live on.

FULL story at link.



In this Monday, April 6, 2015 photo, David Hershkoviz listens to Avraham Krieger, the institute director of the Shem Olam Holocaust, as he speaks about the Torah scroll from the Warsaw ghetto in Kfar Haroeh, Israel. When Hershkoviz was a child, he used to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of his mother screaming in her sleep, knowing that she was reliving the horrors of the Holocaust. In time, he learned of the traumatic wartime experience that haunted her most being torn away from her own mother at the Auschwitz concentration camp{2019}s selection line, where at 21 she was forced into work and her mother dispatched to death. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)