HEPHZIBAH RUDOFSKY for HIDDEN IDENTITY PROJECTS and A SKY OF STARS EXHIBITION Curated by POLINA ANGELOVA
In mid-August, I was contacted by a friend, Emily Marbach, one of the artists featured in the exhibition, who introduced me to the ‘Hidden Identity Projects’ and ‘A Sky of Stars’ exhibition. She explained that she was working on a Bulgarian Holocaust art project and mentioned that the curator, Polina Angelova, was hoping to interview Holocaust survivors as part of the project. Knowing that my mother, Zahava, is a Holocaust survivor who has been speaking publicly about her experiences in recent years, Emily asked whether she might wish to become involved with the project. I explained that sadly this wouldn’t be possible – but I could reach out to other survivors who might be willing and able to become involved. I received information about the exhibition – its focus was on how almost 48,000 Bulgarian Jews had been saved from deportation to the death camps during the Holocaust. To be honest and to my embarrassment, this was something of which I had been unaware – but I was interested to learn more.
I offered to speak with Polina to see whether I could put her in contact with other survivors. We agreed to meet and just a few days later, we were sitting in my garden – socially distanced of course – enjoying the late afternoon sunshine, sipping Bulgarian rosebud tea and discussing her project. She shared with me her vision: the concept of the exhibition and the artistic content she was hoping to include. The photographs were striking and beautiful; I realised this was no ordinary portrait photography exhibition. It was an exciting interpretation of a painful subject.
Polina’s passion, warmth and humanity were magnetic and I felt myself being irresistibly drawn into this project, even though my connection with its theme was tenuous to say the least. By the end of the meeting, I found myself agreeing to become involved and to be interviewed as the daughter of a survivor. This is where the interpretation of the theme was extended and varied so that it could include my family story.
Although I had at first thought it would be difficult to involve Zahava in the project, I had a change of heart and with my mother’s agreement, proposed that she could be involved in a visual context rather than giving an interview. Polina was delighted with this suggestion.
My mother, Zahava Kohn, is a Holocaust survivor. She was born in Palestine in 1935, which at that time was under British control. Her parents moved to Palestine from Holland in 1935. My grandparents found living in Palestine challenging. My grandmother Rosy became so unwell that the doctors advised her to return to Europe. They left Palestine in April 1937 and moved to Amsterdam, unaware of the irony that they were returning to Europe for health reasons. Life was difficult for Dutch Jews due to the anti-Semitic laws being passed and the Kanarek family had to adapt to all these changes. My grandparents tried tirelessly to leave Holland for Central America but sadly the papers for Honduras citizenship they had managed to arrange in April 1943 arrived too late. My grandparents had already handed over their 16-month-old son Jehudi to the Dutch Resistance in December 1942.
In May 1943, the SS came for Zahava and her parents and they were sent to Westerbork, a transit camp in Holland. They were held there until January 1944 when they were selected to be sent to Bergen- Belsen, a concentration camp near Hanover in northwest Germany. In the brutal conditions of Bergen -Belsen they were starving and close to death. Against all the odds my mother and my grandparents survived this horrendous ordeal. For reasons we still don’t know today, they were released from Bergen- Belsen in January 1944 – and after a few days in Weingarten, south west Germany, they were sent to Biberach, in southern Germany where they remained until the end of the war. In June 1945 they were able to go to Zurich and live with Zahava’s maternal grandparents. They all needed a great deal of rehabilitation and recuperation and only returned to Amsterdam in November 1946. Jehudi had also survived his ordeal in hiding – he was now living with relatives in Sweden. In January 1947 the family were finally reunited in Amsterdam, where they began to rebuild their shattered lives. When we were growing up, Zahava never spoke about her childhood experiences. I can’t remember when I first realised that my mother was a Holocaust survivor and had been through this unimaginable ordeal. I have often wondered about her silence. Was this a way of protecting herself from the memories of her past or was this a way of protecting us as a family – not burdening us with what she had been through?
Survivors have different ways of dealing with trauma and I believe Zahava’s coping mechanism was to block off this part of her life. However, the silence was broken after Rosy’s death in 2001. Zahava discovered a bag filled with documents, letters and photographs from the war years and from the camps, that her mother had kept hidden. Zahava had been unaware of the existence of any of these documents and was amazed that her mother had kept them secret all these years. Why had Rosy gathered all these artefacts documenting her ordeal? Why, instead of showing them to the family after the war, had she tucked them away and hidden them at the back of a cupboard? Possibly like Zahava – to put the past behind her. Zahava loved and respected Rosy and attributes her own survival to being with her mother throughout the war. We are still not sure how and where Rosy kept these documents during her ordeal. But uncovering this bag of documents proved to be a watershed moment. Zahava started to talk about this period in her life, culminating in her writing her memoir, ‘Fragments of a Lost Childhood’. She translated all the documents and letters into English – no mean feat – and I suspect reading the letters and looking at all the photographs unlocked many buried memories.
In recent years, when I asked Zahava why she hadn’t discussed her past with our family, she told me that she didn’t want us to feel burdened with her past or to feel sorry for her. She wanted to be hopeful and wanted us to be optimistic and look forward to the future, not back to the past. This has always been her mantra – be positive – and this is still how she speaks today despite all she has been through.
For the past 11 years, through our schools’ programme, ‘Surviving the Holocaust’, Zahava and I have been sharing her story with schoolchildren and adults of all backgrounds and faiths throughout the UK and in Germany. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. When we started our project I was more of the listener – but over time I have become more involved in telling and retelling the story.
We all experience memory in different ways and we edit memory accordingly. Certain events trigger memory, which I believe is what happened when my mother discovered this trove of documents.
It provided her with a deeper narrative and a physical narrative of her experiences that allowed her to piece together and perhaps make sense of what her family had experienced. Memories change and time has dimmed certain memories – these days, she often remarks, ‘my memory isn’t as good as it was’. Maybe this is for the best.
Why is it so important to tell our story today?
A study published in 2019 by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust revealed that millions of Britons do not believe the Holocaust took place. One in 20 of those questioned thought the Nazi genocide never happened while one in 12 felt the scale had been exaggerated.
Almost 45% polled did not know how many Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
That is why.
While Zahava is no longer able to retell her story, and her memories have faded over time, I have decided to take on the mantle. Thankfully, I have not lived the experience. However I feel it a duty to ensure that these stories are never forgotten. As a second- generation survivor, I will continue to tell the story of the Kanarek family – this remarkable story of survival against the odds. Some memories have faded over time, but thankfully I have held on to the memories Zahava has related, which is why I am able to continue to tell her story. I’m not entirely sure that the process of narrating Zahava’s story has helped her heal but I do know that she feels strongly about talking about this period of history in the hope that such atrocities will not be repeated. She always speaks about being ‘one of the lucky ones.’ Her story, whilst devastating, is also full of hope.
Remarkably, Zahava doesn’t demonstrate any self-pity or bitterness at what she went through. She is simply grateful that she and her family survived and has channelled all her energies into her family in the hope that they would be blessed with a happy and good life. Zahava’s story is one of survival, resilience, good luck and fortune. It is also a story of hope, courage, dignity, and strength.
Hephzibah Rudofsky, 04.10.2022 London
