Become a Member
News

Shoah survivors: Help kindle our hopes this Chanukah

As a Jewish Care’s Holocaust Survivors Centre holds a Chanukah appeal, survivors remember how their celebrations were brought to a halt by the Nazis - and their joy when they were able to resume

December 22, 2022 13:18
Suvivors
3 min read

“When I was a young girl, we held each other’s hands and sang Chanukah songs around the table. One day, the chanukiah and candles were put in a box in the backroom and not touched.”

This is Shoah survivor Theresa Levinson’s memory of how her family’s celebration of Chanukah in pre-war Germany was brought to an abrupt halt by the threat of Nazi persecution.

Jewish Care’s Holocaust Survivors Centre at the Michael Sobell Centre in Golders Green is one of the services reliant on extra funding from the organisation’s Chanukah appeal, with energy use over the last year costing Jewish Care an additional £1 million across it’s services.

Mrs Levinson still remembers her father sternly instructing her one day not to tell others that they were Jewish.

The family fled from Germany in 1938 and Mrs Levinson, 96, who lives in Surrey, recalled how their Chanukah celebrations were able to resume on their journey to safety.

“Shortly after, we were on a train to England,” she said. “I only found out later we had left only a few days before Kristallnacht.

“On the journey to England, I once again saw that box of our Jewish belongings. I remember my mother lighting the chanukiah on the train as another family and my own were huddled around it. I love candles, they fill me with hope and calm.

“They really do light up a room. I light one when I am feeling sad, and it always reminds me to be happy.”

Mrs Levinson was among former refugees and survivors — most of whom make daily use of the Jewish Care Holocasut Survivors Centre — who this week shared with the JC their childhood memories of Chanukah, as a preservation of tradition and the Jewish spirit.

Asked whether she was aware of Chanukah in Auschwitz, Rachel Levy, 92, said: “I knew nothing about dates, any kind of normal life events or Yiddishkeit during my time there.”