JCC luncheon in Lawrence honors Holocaust survivors

More than 50 Holocaust survivors and their families attended a luncheon in Lawrence hosted by the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC, marking Holocaust Survivor Day, which is recognized internationally on June 4, according to the Nassau Herald. JCC director Stacy Feldman opened the event, telling the crowd that an estimated three million Americans are descendants of Holocaust survivors and thanking attendees for what she called their perseverance and the lessons of their lives.

Guest speaker Gary Kennedy, a retired geriatric psychiatrist, said his career was shaped by the resilience of survivors and their families, pointing to his mentor George Myers, who escaped to the United States with his parents and became an academic psychiatrist.

Among the survivors was Lawrence resident Regina Goodman, born Sarah Rivkah Buterwaser in Warsaw, Poland. Goodman said her father had his beard cut because he was Jewish, and her family moved through Siberia, Russia, Germany and Israel before she was sent to Paris at 16 as Israel began drafting young women. She later married Hungarian fashion designer Mendel Goodman in Paris and the couple moved to the United States in 1961. Goodman, who attends a weekly JCC support group, said passing on Jewish identity to children matters most: showing them to be Jewish and proud.

Valley Stream resident Suzanne Kucharz, 83, who grew up as a hidden child on a farm in Grenoble, France, while her father worked with the French Resistance, said she has valued the group's camaraderie for more than a decade. She noted the group has celebrated members reaching 100 years old, calling the resilience of fellow survivors unbelievable.