OUR NEIGHBORS.
THEIR STORIES.
Shira Stoll
Staten Island, often referred to as the “forgotten borough” of New York City, may be the best place to remember the Holocaust.
In 2011, selfhelp.net predicted that 453 Holocaust survivors would be living on Staten Island by 2018, and that the number would drop to 381 by 2020. It was a stark reminder that if we were to capture their stories, we needed to act quickly before the opportunity to recount their narratives slipped away. After all, their stories needed to be told, so that no one would ever forget. In June 2017, Staten Island Advance/SILive multimedia specialist Shira Stoll met 15 Holocaust survivors at the Café Europa event at the Bernikow Jewish Community Center of Staten Island.
Café Europa, a celebration of Holocaust survivors with Klezmer music and Yiddish karaoke, brought together survivors and their families to celebrate their resilience and the lives they rebuilt on Staten Island. The event was particularly meaningful to Stoll, who in 1995 met Helen Freibrun, an Auschwitz survivor who cared for her while her parents were at work. Freibrun inspired the young Stoll from the time she was 2 years old. The two grew very close over the years, and Stoll considered Freibrun her “third grandma.” Freibrun told Stoll her story of being taken from Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz. She was sent to the crematorium by Dr. Mengele during selection, but she miraculously ran to the “life line,” not once, but twice.
She recounted her Auschwitz experience as a way to encourage Stoll to talk about the Holocaust so that future generations would never forget. Freibrun rebuilt a happy life after the war, marrying her husband, Jerry Freibrun, and taking care of their daughter, Bonnie Sutherland. And, of course, she enjoyed being an adopted member of the Stoll family.
The author together with an Auschwitz survivor Helen Freibun.