That theme shaped the evening’s program, which wove together personal testimony, education, and ritual. Through the voices of clergy, students, and educators, and the participation of descendants who serve as living links between past and future, the commemoration demonstrated how Holocaust memory is carried forward and given meaning in the present.

 Dr. Milton Zweig, the evening’s guest speaker, brought this theme to life through the story of his mother’s family, sharing their experiences during the Holocaust and the refuge they ultimately found in Colombia. Zweig spoke about how their survival often depended on human connection and compassion. His remarks emphasized that remembrance carries an ethical dimension. 

 Education remained a central focus of the event with the presentation of awards to student honorees connected to the Elie Wiesel Writing and Visual Arts Competition. Student winners were recognized for their thoughtful engagement with Holocaust history and memory, demonstrating how young people continue to grapple with both the weight of the past and its relevance today.

 Teachers Kindra Mosher and Lisa Kilczewski were also recognized for their dedication to Holocaust education, highlighting the critical role educators play in fostering historical understanding, critical thinking, and empathy. Their work was acknowledged as essential to ensuring that Holocaust education remains rigorous, meaningful, and responsive to the challenges of the present moment. 

 One of the most moving moments of the program was the lighting of six memorial candles by descendants of Holocaust survivors. Stepping forward as representatives of their families and generations, they expressed remembrance through ritual – embodying the continuity of memory as something carried, shared, and sustained over time.

 The evening concluded with a moment of reflection and intention. As attendees quietly exited, they were offered yahrzeit candles to light at home. 

Elka Mednick is director of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Holocaust Commission. 

 That was the case in October 2020, when a representative of Rosenheim, Germany, contacted Ohef Sholom Temple about a former congregant and Holocaust survivor. He said the city wanted to honor her family and requested documents or photographs of her life in America and the name of any of her relatives. The temple put him in contact with her nephew, and the OST Archives provided the documents. 

 The former congregant was Charlotte Moos. Born in Rosenheim in 1914, she fled to Czechoslovakia in 1936 and the Philippines in 1940. She married another Jewish refugee, and following the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, she became a prisoner of war. Widowed after her husband’s death, she was released at the end of the war and transported to the mainland in a Liberty Ship. Moving to the Washington, D.C. area, she worked for the U.S. government, met and married a fellow Holocaust survivor, and moved to Norfolk, Virginia. 

 When Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, Rosenheim was a city of almost 20,000 inhabitants, 38 of whom were Jews. Six years later, on the eve of World War II, only seven remained. Moos’s parents fled in 1938 following Kristallnacht; her half-sister Katharina left in 1939. One couple committed suicide; the others had escaped or were arrested.

 Moos’s father, Alexander, had been born in Czechoslovakia, and perhaps that’s why the family sought refuge there. But when the Germans invaded, Moos’s mother, Frieda, was deported to the Zamosc ghetto in Poland and murdered. Alexander was killed in the Majdanek death camp.

 However, Moos was one of approximately 1,300 Jews rescued by the Philippines, then a self-governing commonwealth of the United States. The rescue plan was most likely proposed by U.S. High Commissioner Paul McNutt, who got the idea from a friend whose brother worked for a Jewish relief agency. McNutt took the idea to Philippine President Manuel Quezon, and with the help of the Philippine Jewish community, Quezon put the plan into action. The original plan included visas for 10,000 Jews, but the 1941 Japanese attack and occupation of the islands halted all immigration for the remainder of the war.

 Moos was interned in a POW camp in Manila, probably the former Santo Tomas University. She would have been surrounded by many other refugees, including the cantor of Manila’s Temple Emil. Initially, conditions were fairly good, but they quickly deteriorated. As a citizen of a Japanese ally, Moos would have been exempt from internment, but the 1935 Nuremberg Laws had revoked the citizenship of all German Jews. 

 The camp was liberated in February 1945. The war ended in August, and that fall, Moos, recently widowed, left the Philippines and found a new home in Alexandria, Virginia. Her husband, Leo, had been part of a group of 14 Czech civilians who had fought with the U.S. Armed Forces. Captured on Bataan, he endured the infamous Bataan Death March, was transported to Japan on the “Hell Ship” Hokusen Maru, and died in a Japanese POW camp in Fukuoka in April 1945. He’s buried under a Star of David in the American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila. 

 Living in Alexandria, Charlotte found work as a secretary for the federal government, and in 1950, she married another Holocaust refugee, Henry Moos. He had immigrated to the United States in 1938, sponsored by his father’s first cousin, Albert Einstein. The couple moved to Norfolk, and in 1954, they joined Ohef Sholom Temple. Henry was active in and an officer of the Men’s Club, and Charlotte served on the Sisterhood Board. Charlotte died in 2000 at the age of 85, and Henry died in 2009, aged 96.

 In 2021, the city of Rosenheim memorialized Moos and her family by installing stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”) for them. Each “stone” is a 4” x 4” block, topped by a brass plate engraved with the name, birth date, and fate of the honoree. The blocks are installed in the street where someone victimized by the Nazis lived or worked. The idea was initiated by German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, and today there are more than 107,000 stolpersteine in 30 countries. In Rosenheim, there are stones for Moos, her parents, and her half-sister, Katharina. Katharina, known here as Kate, and her husband, another Holocaust survivor, had also found refuge in Tidewater. Moos’s story had come full circle; the city she had fled almost 100 years ago is now one of 1,900 municipalities helping to ensure the Holocaust is not forgotten. 

For International Holocaust Remembrance Day, German historian Thomas Kemper will visit Tidewater to speak about his discoveries while investigating the history and fate of the Gonsenhauser and Bachenheimer families during the Holocaust – the families of Tidewater’s Mark Gonsenhauser and Joan Joffe.

 Among the many stories he will share, Thomas will talk about Augusta Gonsenhauser’s last weeks during which she was transported to and murdered in Estonia, as well as history on Helmut Gonsenhauser and his half-brothers, and the shocking truth about Helmut’s childhood friend who turned out to be a rabid Nazi.  Thomas will reveal some of the documents he unearthed such as a letter from Helmut’s father to the school principal begging in vain for him to allow Helmut to stay at the school.  Thomas will also explain why, as a Catholic, he became so interested in what happened to the Jews of the neighboring towns during the Nazi era, especially that of the Gonsenhauser family.  How Thomas met and became friends with the Gonsenhausers and his personal struggle to understand the entire tragedy, will also be disclosed.

 In late September 2024, members of the Gonsenhauser family, travelling from various countries, met in Frankfurt, Germany to start an amazing journey organized by Thomas. The culmination of the trip would be at the laying of seven Stolpersteinen (stumbling blocks) outside the house originally occupied by the Gonsenhauser family in the small Northern German town of Bad Berleberg.  Stolpersteinen have metal plaques attached to them, and they replace cobble stones outside houses previously occupied by Jewish families who left Germany or were murdered during the reign of the National Socialists (Nazis).  They can be seen in many cities and towns throughout Europe.  Each Stolperstein has the name and fate of individual family members inscribed on them.   

 Everyone had arrived at the Frankfurt hotel by the morning of September 20 and was handed a beautifully produced booklet containing hour by hour details of the journey we were about to embark on. Produced by Thomas, the booklet was typical of the care and time he put into every aspect of his research into the Gonsenhauser family.  The booklet also contained more than 30 pages of Gonsenhauser history.  For that first day, Thomas had arranged for an afternoon tour to what had been a huge covered market that was also used as an assembly point for the deportation of Frankfurt’s Jews. The part of the building – underground and empty and eerily quiet – where the doomed Jews were assembled, is now a memorial to those lost. Thomas arranged for a member of the Jewish museum to lead the tour. 

 The next day, Thomas took us to the site of the Jewish hospital where Augusta Gonsenhauser worked. Augusta Gonsenhauser (nee Bachenheimer) was the third wife of Moritz Gonsenhauser (Joan Joffe and Mark Gonsenhauser’s grandfather).  Augusta’s sister, Johanna Gonsenhauser (Joan and Mark’s grandmother), had died giving birth to Joan and Mark’s father, Helmut. We also visited the Jewish children’s home where Augusta’s son, Werner Gonsenhauser, had lived. By coincidence, this building was close to the Frank family home before Anne, her sister, and parents fled to Holland.  

 On the third day, we departed Frankfurt and drove to our next hotel in a small town called Oberkirchen. On the way, two of our stops were at buildings in separate towns where Helmut Gonsenhauser had served his apprenticeships. Later that day, Thomas gave an organ recital in memory of Augusta Gonsenhauser. 

 The next day, we went to the small town of Wetter where we visited the old synagogue, now a museum, displaying artifacts donated by descendants of the Bachenheimers who had lived in the town.  We also visited the nearby Jewish cemetery where Bachenheimer ancestors were buried in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

 On the fifth day, we made our way to the town of Bad Berleberg for the laying of the Stolpersteine. A large contingent from the local population attended, including the press, with TV cameras. The town’s mayor addressed the crowd, and high school students sang Shalom Chaverim, which touched us all.  There, we visited a school which Helmut Gonsenhauser attended, as well as two local cemeteries, which contain the graves of many Gonsenhauser ancestors. 

 The following day, we toured the larger town of Schmallenberg which is near Oberkirchen and Bad Berleberg, where we also saw some Stolpersteinen dedicated to family members, and the Synagogenstrasse memorial. 

 Thomas Kemper’s presentation on January 27 offers Tidewater the chance to witness this history through the eyes of the researcher who revived it. His work reminds us that remembrance is more than reflection—it is an effort to restore dignity, confront truth, and ensure these stories continue to guide future generations.

For more information and to register, visit jewishva.org/IHRD, or contact the Holocaust Commission. The program is free.                                                                                                                                            

And Phillipe, his mother, and maternal grandmother, went into hiding in the south of France. Not surprisingly, no one knew what had become of them during the war and with so many murdered, the assumption was that they too had perished. The Jews of Transylvania fared somewhat better while the country was ruled by the Romanians; but in 1944, when Hungary took over, all the Jews were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps in Poland. On the train platform in Auschwitz was the last time my grandmother, Rozalia, after whom I am named, and my aunt Lia, after whom my sister Tamar Lia is named, were ever seen. To our knowledge, except for my father and my grandfather Fred, every other member of the Lazar clan had been killed. 

That is what we thought until a few years ago.

One Sunday morning I came downstairs from teaching Confirmation to lead Tefilah and stopped in my office to pick up my kippah and siddur. Looking down at my desk, I noticed there was a message on my phone from my sister. Since she doesn’t call often, I decided to take the minute it took to listen to the voicemail. What I heard was astounding. She had received a phone call from Paris, from Phillipe’s wife, Dominique, who told her that, after years of genealogical research, she had uncovered documents that proved that our father, Gusti, and her husband, Phillipe, were first cousins; that unbeknownst to either of us, they had both survived the war, and that they were very anxious to meet with us. 

I could not believe my ears. Could this be true? Could my father, who had been gone over a decade at the time, have family members that we didn’t know about? I didn’t know much about my grandmother except that my father loved her very much, enough to name his firstborn child after her. And I knew almost nothing about her family of origin. We corresponded for a while and planned a trip to Transylvania for July of 2020. The tickets were purchased and all the arrangements made and then COVID hit and the trip was cancelled. 

Life intervened until this past fall, when my second cousin, Anne-Emmanuelle, Phillipe and Dominique’s daughter, emailed me saying that her father, Phillipe, was very ill and his dying wish was to meet my sister and me. We set up a zoom meeting immediately. I could not control my emotions. I cried through the entire call. I had dreamed that Phillipe would look like my father and, in many ways, he did. (All of us have dumbo ears). 

I don’t know what it was, but, after a lifetime of living in the shadow of the Shoah, I could not believe that before me were my cousins, my real live cousins. I can’t explain it. I felt like a part of my heart had been restored, that there was a way to know my father and his story, my story, that I never thought possible. It was truly a miracle. 

A few days later, I had a thought. I had already planned to be in Israel November 29th for my mother’s 85th birthday. Maybe I could add on a few days in Paris to meet them in person. Another miracle occurred in that my calendar allowed for the extra time and I reached out and asked if it might be possible to spend from a day to a week with them completely understanding if it wasn’t because it was only two months or so away. They responded immediately that they would welcome me with joy and that I should stay the full week.

This is how your homebody rabbi, who isn’t much of a traveler, had never been to Paris, and spoke almost no French, took a leap of faith and got on a plane to meet people I had met once on a zoom call to stay with them for a week. Crazy, right? But that is exactly what I did. And the trip was life changing in so many ways. 

I stayed with my second cousin, Anne-Emmaneulle and her husband Olivier in their apartment in Versaille and, immediately, I felt like I had known her all my life. She was more like a sister than a cousin; we had so many things in common in terms of our values, feelings about family, and likes and dislikes, that we became fast friends. Thanks to Linda Fox-Jarvis, who provided me with an amazing itinerary for what to do in Paris if you only have one week, I was able to see so much of the city on my own, while my cousins were at work. What a beautiful city. 

But the most moving part of the trip was meeting my dad’s first cousin, Phillipe, who is not in good health; neither of us could believe the miracle of our reunion and it was hard to let go of our embrace of one another. It was a heartwarming meeting, and I learned much about my father’s family of origin and the beautiful life they had led before 1944. I met my other second cousin, Benjamin, Anne-Emmanuelle’s brother, a well-known actor, director and producer of theater and opera, and Anne-Emmuelle’s daughter, Helen, and step kids, Julien and Tibaud. And we celebrated several times the wonder of being together after 80 years of separation. My only regret was that my father wasn’t alive to witness the miracle himself. But I knew I was meant to pick up his story where it left off and I was!

The hardest part, of course, was saying goodbye, but plans are already in the works for a reunion, this time with a trip to the south of France where my family has a country home in the area that hid and saved Phillipe, as well as a trip to Malam and Cluj, the Transylvanian village and city from where half of my family comes. This is a story with much more meaning and joy to unfold and I intend to live it for the rest of my life.

In this secular new year, I pray that each of us is willing to risk the unimaginable rewards that opening one’s heart and taking a leap of faith can bring, a year of health, fulfillment, joy, and peace. 

Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg is the senior rabbi at Ohef Sholom Temple.  This story was excerpted from a sermon delivered in late December 2025.

 Named in honor of Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the competition challenges students to engage with Holocaust history not only as an academic exercise, but as a personal and creative journey. Through essays, poetry, visual arts, and videos, students are encouraged to examine the moral and ethical questions raised by the Holocaust and consider how its lessons apply to contemporary issues such as injustice and disinformation.

 Open to all middle and high school students, the competition serves as a powerful educational tool for teachers seeking to inspire critical thinking and creativity in their classrooms. While many students participate through classroom assignments, entries are welcomed from students who wish to submit independently. The competition provides a meaningful opportunity for students to express what they’ve learned in ways that resonate with their own experiences and perspectives. 

 Entries are judged blindly by professionals in the fields of education, writing, and the arts, ensuring an impartial and thoughtful evaluation process. Winners in each category receive cash prizes and a copy of To Life: The Past is Present.

 The winners will be honored at the community’s annual Yom Hashoah commemoration, which will take place on April 13, 2026. 

 All information necessary to enter the competition, including detailed guidelines, background information, and submission instructions, can be found at JewishVA.org/Wiesel. 

To learn more about the Holocaust Commission, go to HolocaustCommission.org or contact Elka Mednick, director of the Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater at EMednick@ujft.org. 

The White Rose Project has been a vital presence in school libraries for 30 years. Named in honor of the White Rose resistance group formed by university faculty and students in Nazi Germany, this initiative has enabled generations of students to gain access to books focusing on the Holocaust. These books enrich discussions as well as encourage independent exploration, allowing students to connect with the stories of victims and survivors on a deeper level.

Each spring, the Holocaust Commission raises funds for the project through the White Rose Campaign, an annual giving initiative that invites community members to make contributions of $360 or less. Every dollar helps ensure that more students can access books that preserve the memory of the Holocaust while cultivating a spirit of empathy and justice.

As antisemitism has drastically increased around the world, initiatives such as the White Rose Project serve as a reminder that education is one of the most powerful tools to combat hate. The ongoing dedication of the Holocaust Commission, UJFT, and the generosity of community donors ensures that the legacy of the White Rose lives on, inspiring students across Tidewater to learn about the Holocaust and to stand up for what is right.

To learn more about the White Rose Project or to donate, contact Elka Mednick, director of the Holocaust Commission, at emednick@ujft.org, or Kyleigh Eyl, coordinator of Advocacy and Community Engagement, at keyl@ujft.org.

This 1,100-square-foot exhibition explores how American society—including the government, military, refugee aid organizations, media, and the public—responded to Nazism, war, and the Holocaust during the 1930s and 1940s. The Virginia Beach Public Library is hosting a series of related programs in partnership with the Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. All programs are open to the public and designed for both teens and adults. https://libraries.virginiabeach.gov/programs-events/aath.

More than 350 people gathered at Ohef Sholom Temple on Wednesday, April 23 for an inspiring and moving evening, which was presented by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Holocaust Commission. The program included a very stirring D’var Torah by Rabbi David Bockman, which reflected on the atrocities of both the Holocaust and the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

One of the evening’s highlights was the presentation of awards for the Elie Wiesel Writing and Visual Arts Competition to middle and high school students who were challenged to reflect on the best ways to address and maintain the historical accuracy of the Holocaust as the world moves into a more digital environment. The Holocaust Commission received more than 1,300 submissions this year, which included essays, poems, pieces of artwork, and video presentations. While many students from Tidewater entered, there were also entrants from as far away as Washington, Oklahoma, Texas, California, and Pennsylvania, and even from Afghanistan. To share a sample of some of the winning pieces, Holocaust commission member Elyse Cardon read Experience vs. Interpretation, the first-place winner in the senior poetry category by, a 10th grader at the San Jacinto Leadership Academy in San Jacinto, Calif.

Two dedicated teachers, Megan McKittrick of Norfolk Academy and Jenna Conner-Harris of Lake Ridge Middle School, were honored with the Esther Goldman and Ruthie Sherman Kroskin Awards, respectively, for their innovative approaches to teaching the Holocaust to their students. A record number of entries for these awards were received, which speaks to the influence and value these educators place on this important history.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Irving Berkowitz, a Holocaust scholar and the son of Holocaust survivors. Most recently retired as the dean of Academic Affairs at Palm Beach State College, Berkowitz gave an inspiring speech that wove together personal reflections, the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust, and how they spearheaded the creation of the state of Israel. Berkowitz stressed that it is more important than ever for Jews to remember this brutal era and to stay united in the face of rising antisemitism.

The evening ended on a solemn note as six candles were lit and the names of those who perished and those who survived scrolled on a large screen.

Wendy Auerbach and Ellen Rosenblum were the co-chairs for the Holocaust Commission’s 2025 Yom Hashoah event.

She was beloved by many educators, but like her fellow WWC speakers, David Katz, Hanns Loewenbach, Kitty Saks, and Mary Barraco, she was a particular favorite of Esther Goldman Award-winning master teacher at Indian River High School, Craig Blackman. At Dana’s funeral, he and I reminisced about the special days he organized for Mary, Kitty, and Dana at IRHS, bringing hundreds of students together to honor these brave women. He made sure the students knew how special the ladies were, and they created and performed art for them, cooked dishes from their native countries for them, and showered them with love. At the end of each day of honor, the students planted a tree in a memorial garden. Their trees still flourish, reminding faculty and alumni, and educating current students, about the powerful lessons these women shared.

It is the end of an era when perhaps we need the voices of survivors more than ever.

We are living in a time when the few who are left are seeing parallels to things they witnessed in Germany’s nascent democracy, that eventually led to the Holocaust –government officials tried to erase parts of the country’s history, stirring patriotism with scapegoating “the other.” This seems hauntingly familiar, as cultural conversations that were not long ago bringing us together to acknowledge our country’s checkered past and move forward with more unity, have shifted. History has many examples of how this can end, and none are pretty.

Kitty Saks, in her What We Carry film, talks about living through the Anschluss in Vienna and what came after, and her father’s “not seeing the writing on the wall.” When they came for his business, “THEN he saw the writing on the wall!” But of course, by then the snowball was already headed downhill and picking up steam. All of our beloved local survivors believed that America was a land of opportunity, and were grateful to have been able to make their lives here after their countries capitulated to dictatorship. But they knew that its success depended on the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.

Let us listen to the voices of history’s witnesses, its historians, and our hearts, and know that in our Democracy, we are all created equally, and our Constitution applies to us all. Survivors all tell a cautionary tale. We all need to remember that the Constitution itself, like the least powerful in our country, has no voice. Both need our defending. As Dana’s fellow survivor Hanns Loewenbach always ended his presentations, “Evil does not need your help. Just your indifference.”

Elena Barr Baum is a former director of the Holocaust Commission, and the current president of the Ukrainian Humanity Center (www.ukrainianhumanitycenter.org).

As the world continues to grapple with the complexities of history and its ongoing impact on society, the Virginia Beach Public Library, at the TCC Joint-Use Library is set to host a thought-provoking exhibition that will challenge visitors to reflect on America’s role during one of the world’s darkest periods. For six weeks beginning May 21, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibit, Americans and the Holocaust, will be on display at the library, offering an exploration of how Americans responded to the Holocaust during the 1930s and 1940s. This exhibition is presented in partnership with United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, highlighting a shared commitment to education and remembrance.

Americans and the Holocaust delves into the knowledge and reactions of Americans to Nazism, genocide, and refugee crises during World War II. By examining a wide range of primary sources, including newspapers, personal accounts, and government records, the exhibit encourages visitors to confront the complexities of historical responsibility and consider their own roles in addressing injustice today. This journey through history sheds light on the past and invites reflection on how to learn from it to build a more compassionate and just world.

In celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater has curated a series of engaging events to complement the exhibit. A To Life: The Past is Present book talk on Thursday, June 5 at 6 pm will provide an opportunity for community members to engage in discussions about the experiences of Holocaust survivors who made their homes in Hampton Roads.

The collaboration between UJFT and the Virginia Beach Joint-Use Library represents a powerful commitment to fostering a more informed and empathetic community. By bringing this exhibit to Virginia Beach, both organizations aim to deepen a collective understanding of Holocaust history and encourage critical thinking about today’s challenges.

The Virginia Beach Public Library TCC Joint-Use Library is located at 1700 College Crescent in Virginia Beach.

To learn more about exhibit hours or programming details, contact the Virginia Beach Joint-Use Library or the Holocaust Commission.
To learn more about Virginia Beach public libraries, visit: https://vbpl.librarymarket.com/tcccity-joint-use-library, and to learn more about the Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, visit Holocaustcommission.org or contact Elka Mednick at EMdnick@UJFT.org