Descendants of Augsburg's Jewish Community ...THE NEXT GENERATIONS
This Newsletter is being sent to both generations!!!
In order to initiate our Book of Remembrance Project, I thought it best to send the Newsletter to both generations. This way everyone can participate
in the project if they so desire.
OUR WEBSITE KEEPS GROWING: Over 700 people have checked it out so far... Check it out for yourself!
If you want to find our group on the internet, OUR WEBSITE ADDRESS: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/cervone/descenda.htm
Since a reunion is impractical in real life, why not have a meeting in cyber space? Just click in to the chat area of the website and give us your
comments or questions. Maybe we can get a real discussion going. I know that the Holocaust Revisionists can keep their chat boxes going all day.
DO I HAVE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS?
If I do not have your e-mail address, or if you changed it, please contact me. In the future I hope to avoid having to go to printers and stuffing envelopes. I will try sending this out both by e-mail and snail mail.
Features of our Website:
There has been an enthusiastic response to creating some sort of compilation of what happened to our families before, during and since the
Holocaust.
It can be compiled in two different ways and I will ask each submission to clearly write how they want their story to be distributed.
Attached to the Newsletter is a page to help you with this project. Please use it as your cover sheet and return it with your final submission. Please
do not send original photographs. Have all photos or artwork photocopied first, so all I have to do is run them through a printer. For your ease of use, we have
included a copy of this form within this website.
It is my intention to compile your family's stories in a flexible and loose format, with each family taking up, to 10 pages (including pictures) to
submit what you think is important. I will include some guidelines and sample questions on the attached cover sheet, but will leave the final
submission up to you.
In essence, you can write about life in Augsburg before you left including a description of family members who didn't survive. Then you can describe
what happened to your family during the war and what your family is doing now. For second generation people, you can include (if you want) writing about
what influences you think you felt because you were the child of Holocaust Survivors. For our definition, a Holocaust Survivor is any Jew was forced
out or who left Augsburg to avoid Nazi persecution, or survived the era in Augsburg.
COPYRIGHT ISSUE?? I am asking everyone if they think we should copyright this document, in the event that someone in the future wants to print parts
of it. Please write or e-mail me your comments.
We now have approximately 40 members in our group, with a few more trickling in each month. If you know of another second generation person
who is not on the list, please send him/her a copy of the newsletter or give them our website address, in case they want to join. In the event of any
errors, please contact me. A hard copy of the membership list is being sent with this month's newsletter to all members.
ANOTHER AUGSBURGER FOUND: THE PAUL GRUBER STORY
I got a voice mail message asking if I was related to a Heinz Landmann. He said he read about our group in another periodical and figured that I must
be related to Heinz. It was Paul Gruber who now lives in Florida. No one had his address to invite to the reunion years ago, or knew of his
whereabouts. Now thanks to our group, he can contact as many Augsburgers as he wishes, and his children are members of our group.
A class action law suit against German insurance companies is being started the law firm of Anderson Kill & Olick, P.C. at 1251 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, N.Y. 10020-1182, (212) 278-1733 . If anyone has any documentation about life insurance policies, etc. for which premiums were paid, and then
stopped due to the Nazi era, they should contact the law firm.
NUREMBERG'S SECOND GENERATION GROUP
Coming from a mixed marriage (my mother was a refugee from Nuremberg and my father is from Augsburg) I have learned that another second generation group
is being formed. Since Nuremberg had a much larger Jewish population, they have over 100 members. I have jokingly suggested that we consider a
Coalition of Children of Bavarian Holocaust Survivors. A topic like that should definitely make Oprah.
Gernot Romer, from Augsburg, started a Holocaust Remembrance project similar to Steven Spielberg. He came to America with a full film crew to
video interview several of our parent's generation. This way school children in Augsburg can learn first hand what happened to their neighbors
not from text books, but from actual people who once sat in their chairs. It is amazing how much is being done in Augsburg as compared to other places in
Europe to remember their lost friends.
Jeffrey Englander's son Jacob, wanted to give some Tzedakah (charity) in honor of his Bar Mitzvah and thought of sending a donation to the Augsburger
Jewish cemetery. It seems if we keep on talking about a monument for the cemetery or in the yard in front of the synagogue, it might actually happen.
Here is a translation of part of the response that he got from the people running the Synagogue and Cemetery. From the Israelitische Kulturgemeinde Schwaben -Augsburg, Halderstrasse 8, D-86150 Augsburg, Germany.
Fax: 0049-821-515500
"We intend in the foreseeable future to erect a monument near the fountain for the 6 million victims of the Third Reich. To realize this, we need
naturally every little amount, and are therefore especially thankful."
I am not seeking any dues for our group, since the costs associated with it are my father's birthday present. (He hates ties, and has enough tennis
stuff for two lifetimes.) So if anyone wants to make a donation, I have included the address of the Israelitische Kulturgemeinde Schwaben -Augsburg.
DO YOUR CHILDREN WANT TO HAVE A PEN PAL?
If there are any interested children, I thought I could ask if there are school aged children in Augsburg that would want pen pals. I'm sure that
there are English classes there so language may not be a problem. There are also probably Jewish classes there, so we could probably have both types of
pen pals, Hebrew School students, and Public School students. If you are interested, contact me, and I'll see what I can do.
I received a list of Swiss Bank accounts which were not claimed. I am trying to see if we can scan it and put it on our website.
In this section I will give small reviews of books that are on topics relating to our group. If anyone else has read anything on point, please
add it to our website or give it to me for the next newsletter. I read:
The Cry of Mute Children: A Psychoanalytic Perspective of the Second Generation of the Holocaust, by Ileny Koger. It can be obtained by New York
University Press at 1-800-996-6987 for $24.95 in soft cover.
It relates a few anecdotal tales of patients with a heavy dose of analysis lingo. If you are interested in that kind of stuff you'll like it. For me, it was way
over my head.
Several people have contacted me about studying us. It seems that children of Holocaust Survivors is an "in" topic for researchers. I have told them
that I would include a small insert to our newsletter and allow them to solicit people through the website. One such student is Vivian Pronin, PO
Box 633, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. 10706-0633, or e-mail her. There are a number of requests for information listed on our comments page.
She is looking for people who survived the Holocaust for a visual arts installation. This project will be a homage to people who survived the
concentration camps, were hidden or those who hid, and individuals who fought with the partisans. This installation is to honor and acknowledge
and tell the stories of the survivors. She is inviting you to participate. This installation will be exhibited in 1998. She can be reached at (212)
727-1756 or Francia Tobacman, 55 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014.
AHO MENTIONED US IN THEIR NEWSLETTER
Word is spreading about our group. We have been mentioned in several publications including the Newsletter of the Association of Holocaust
Organizations and the Martyrdom and Resistance paper. In addition, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is keeping our newsletters
on file in their archives. We are creating history by remembering it.
Please feel free to write to me or use the website to give me your
opinions, suggestions, or regards.
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