Holocaust Survivors: Stories And Recipes

There are probably two universal elements that bring all of mankind together: Food and Music. The former helped to unite all the victims of the Holocaust. In the excerpt below from an article by Ginny Beagan, it’s easy to see how many of our best memories revolve around food and our favorite dishes.

Commemorating the stories and culinary histories of Holocaust survivors, Joanne Caras of Port St. Lucie has written two cookbooks and soon will be starring in her own cooking show on Jewish Life Television (JLTV)

“The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook” and its sequel “Miracles & Meals” are collections of kosher recipes from Holocaust survivors and their families. The recipes come from all over the world and each comes with a story of survival and courage — stories Caras is determined to get out there to honor the victims and to teach tolerance to the rest of us. All profits from the books are donated to the Jerusalem soup kitchen that first inspired Caras and other charities around the globe. The books have raised $600,000.  Here are some of the recipes and stories you can find in the “The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook:”

Moishe Perlman

One night a soldier stopped my grandfather and demanded his ID number. Faced with no other choice, he slipped off his bracelet and handed it to the soldier. The next day a list of numbers were called to be shot, as a lesson to the rest of the camp. All but one person came forward. The camp ledger was checked out but the number did not exist! My grandfather looked down at his bracelet and realized that his number comprised digits that could be read upside down as well as right side up.  He had given his bracelet to the soldier upside down, and the soldier dutifully copied down the wrong numbers. All the people who had been called up were killed. Thanks to a piece of leather and some crude metal I am able to have a grandfather.  It is a pretty ugly bracelet to look at, yet more precious than any other jewelry our family can own.

Rose Meller Price

Rose Meller left Checkocheen, Poland, to escape the Nazis. Lured out of the forest she was hiding in by the false promise that her mother would be spared if she came forward, she ended up in a labor camp in Czechoslovakia for 3 1/2 years and her mother was killed. Rose spun thread used to make Nazi uniforms. When Russian soldiers liberated her, she returned to Poland to discover she was the only one of her family to survive.

Preserving life, especially the lives of Jews, was a grave challenge for Corrie Ten Boom and her family. To learn how they met that challenge, read her book THE HIDING PLACE, and/or take a virtual tour of her home in Haarlem, Holland where they hid people from the Gestapo, and which has since been turned into a museum at www.tenboom.com. Today we can emulate the Ten Boom’s other effort on behalf of God’s chosen people, as they prayed for a hundred years prior to WW II. We, like they, can pray according to Ps. 122:6 and pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

To read the rest of Ms. Beagan’s article, including several of the recipes she included, go to: Recipes commemorate stories and culinary histories of Holocaust survivors