Yom HaShoah 2023

Gather with Greenwich clergy and the Greenwich Jewish community to observe Yom Ha Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, sponsored by the UJA-JCC of Greenwich and hosted by Greenwich Reform Synagogue.  The keynote speaker will be Aliza Erber, who will share her story as a hidden child in Nazi-occupied Holland.  Click here to RSVP; all are welcome and admission is free.

Here’s some background on Rabbi Erber:

“I am a rabbinic pastor, college professor, Hebrew teacher, playwright, actor and former podiatrist.

Once I became aware of what my family and I went through during the Holocaust, I went in search of answers,  and was ordained through Alefph Alliance for Jewish Renewal. Although I learned a lot about Rabbinic texts and Halacha, most of my questions were not answered.

I was born in April, 1943, in a small town in Holland where my mother was sent to escape the German invasion. That town was soon overrun by the Gestapo and although there were Righteous Gentiles who helped the Jews, there were also many others who denounced us.  My mother had to give me away to a doctor who created an underground bunker in the woods and together with a couple of nurses, cared for ten Jewish babies. I was told that when the Germans patrolled the woods our mouths were taped shut. Our diet consisted of mashed down roots and boiled grasses. Eventually the bunker was discovered, the nurses shot dead, and the children clubbed to death by rifle butts. I don’t know how I survived.

My father and grandfather had joined the resistance and the Dutch underground. My father was then caught and sent to the Terezin concentration camp. He was sent to a total of six concentration camps and finally died at Auschwitz of starvation and typhus.

Another story is how my mother and I were finally reunited after the war.

I am not only a ‘hidden child’ but also a child of a Holocaust survivor. At 80 years of age,  it has become my responsibility as one of the last survivors to share my story and that of my family.”