Brooklyn organization aims to uplift Holocaust survivors through song on Yom HaShoah
They survived the unthinkable. Now, a new campaign out of Brooklyn is making sure Holocaust survivors – and their needs – are not forgotten.
Timed with Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island (JCCGCI) has launched a music-driven social media campaign called #iStandByYou, centered around an original song titled "Stand By You," performed by Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer.
The campaign aims to raise awareness about the needs of Holocaust survivors, many of whom are now elderly and homebound.
"That cause to me spoke very, very deeply," Lemmer said. "I'm a grandchild of Holocaust survivors ... Most of the people I grew up with in school, they're all children of Holocaust survivors."
The campaign launches as the Claims Conference releases its first-ever population projection for Holocaust survivors. Of the estimated 245,000 survivors still living worldwide, half are expected to pass away within the next six years.
Yom HaShoah began Wednesday at sundown, a solemn reminder of lives lost and those still holding on.
"We have to share that story"
Many rely on the services provided by the JCCGCI's Holocaust Survivor Support System.
"We try to be a one-stop shop for Holocaust survivors ... to provide anything and everything that they might need to live comfortably, to live with dignity, to live with joy," said Zehava Birman Wallace, the program's director. "That's the least that they deserve."
JCCGCI says its Holocaust Survivor Support System is one of the largest in the world, serving over 4,000 survivors in the New York area. The program offers transportation, housekeeping, case management and home attendant services, among others.
A portion of the proceeds from Lemmer's song will go back to JCCGCI to continue supporting these vital services.
"We have to share that story," Lemmer said. "The younger generation has probably not even met a Holocaust survivor and probably won't meet a Holocaust survivor to tell the story directly."
"There was no place to go because the world didn't open the doors"
Toby Levy, a 91-year-old Brighton Beach resident and Holocaust survivor, is one of the thousands receiving support from the JCCGCI. Born in Khodoriv, modern-day Ukraine, Levy survived thanks to a Polish woman named Stephanie Struck, who hid her and her family in a barn.
"We were nine people in a place of four feet by five – head to toe, head to toe," Levy said.
She added, "There was no place to go because the world didn't open the doors. The world didn't let the Jews in. You know what they did? They closed the doors with locks. And threw the keys away."
Looking back on the Holocaust, Levy described it as a departure from previous generations of persecution.
"Somehow we knew this is not the usual hatred of Jews," she told CBS News New York's Hannah Kliger. "This was different."
A lifetime later, and an ocean away, her life today is surrounded by photos of her two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren – testaments to resilience.
Have a story idea or tip in Brooklyn? Email Hannah by CLICKING HERE.
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