Orange County Holocaust survivors share stories of suffering, survival and hope
LAGUNA WOODS — Dora Zipper tears up as she talks about the 18 months she spent as a child with her parents and two siblings, holed up in a crawl space under a barn, hiding from the Nazis.
“We came up for fresh air at night, if it was safe to do so,” said the 91-year-old Holocaust survivor who had to flee her home in Poland. “But, most of the time, we were in the dark.”
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The barn belonged to a Ukrainian farmer who worked for her father. The family saw daylight only after the war ended.
About 6 million Jews are believed to have been murdered by Adolf Hitler’s army, and about 1.5 million of those victims were children.
Harrowing stories of European Jewish families’ suffering, loss and survival during World War II were punctuated by laughter, tears and hugs during a rare event held Monday, May 6, at Leisure World in Laguna Woods.
Featuring a gathering of 52 Orange County Holocaust survivors ranging in age from 80 to 97, the special dinner was hosted by Jewish Federation & Family Services’ Meal Partners Program, which brings Holocaust survivors together with community volunteers who engage with each other by sharing meals.
According to the organization, there are about 300 Holocaust survivors in Orange County.
With most survivors in their late 80s or early 90s, this group has offered a unique opportunity for younger generations to hear accounts of the Holocaust first-hand, participants say. They’ve also created meaningful bonds.
Foothill Ranch resident Donna Turner, who met Zipper through the program last year, said they’ve gone beyond just being friends who meet for meals.
“She’s our bubbe,” said Turner, using the Yiddish word for grandmother. “I call her every single day and she’d come to our home for every family celebration.”
She has learned Zipper worked as a beautician, a blackjack dealer and owned a restaurant. She also lost two daughters to cancer, Turner said.
“Despite all the tragedy, she’s maintained a zest for life, which is truly amazing to me,” she said.
Turner’s son, Nolan, 17, said he’s learned more about the Holocaust from Zipper than he has from books and trips to museums.
“When she told me that she and her family hid under a barn where the pigs were, I was disgusted by all the trauma they went through,” he said. “She said the pigs had a better life than they did. That stayed with me.”
Fred Emmerich, 91, of Laguna Woods, and his wife, JoAnn, say the Meal Partners Program has been “life-changing” for them because they get to meet people and share their life stories with them. Fred Emmerich, who was born in Germany, said his parents left him and his three brothers in an orphanage in Germany before they fled with their sister to China.
“We were safe in the orphanage and reunited with our parents in the Philippines,” he said. “But I was only 4 years old when my parents left me. While it was really difficult, at least our family was safe.”
Eddie Herskowitz was not as fortunate. A native of Czechoslovakia, his family was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp. But while he and his father were sent to a labor camp, his mother, five brothers and two sisters remained in Auschwitz and were eventually murdered in one of the camp’s gas chambers.
“For 13 months, we worked under horrible conditions,” said Herskowitz, 91, of Laguna Woods, who was 15 then.
But, when the war ended, his father remarried, and Herskowitz found himself without a family. He eventually emigrated to the United States and moved to California. For 40 years, he worked as a barber and beautician.
Herskowitz said he and other Holocaust survivors have tried to get the most out of life because they got a second chance at it.
“I eat healthy, I walk two miles every single day,” he said. “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol. I play bridge. This is life.”
Lori Heering, Michelle Lieberman and Ana Sevilla, a group of friends and Irvine residents who have dinner with Herskowitz regularly as part of the Meal Partners Program, say they are in awe of his indomitable spirit despite what he has gone through in life, including the trauma of losing almost all of his family members.
“When I talk to Eddie, I realize that no matter what I’m going through, it’s not even close to being as stressful or as significant as what he endured,” Lieberman said.
Sam Silberberg wrote about his experience of going from working in a Nazi labor camp to living on a kibbutz, or communal settlement, in Israel in a book titled “From Hell to the Promised Land.”
Silberberg, now 89, lives in Laguna Woods, but he still has a tattoo on his left arm — his prisoner number — that reminds him of his time at the Blechhammer camp. He worked in hellish conditions at the industrial complex for two years, from age 13 to 15.
But Silberberg says he is unfazed by the global resurgence of anti-Semitism today.
“As a people, we’ve always had what it takes to survive,” he said. “The existence of Israel is proof of that. I’m sitting here, telling you my story. What more proof do you want?”