‘Too hard for them to talk about’: Grandson of Holocaust survivors tells their story while teaching history

Adam Zimmerman a th grade coach at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville Maryland teaches young people about the Holocaust at the local Hebrew school Zimmerman simplified his teaching of the Holocaust as a story about a series of events that happened a very long time ago in a place very far away well before they were born Greater part of the students have no connection to the events of years ago but Zimmerman does At this time of year at Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day the lessons Zimmerman shares take on even more meaning His grandparents Morris and Frieda Zimmerman were survivors of the Holocaust Morris was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp Frieda was liberated from Bergen-Belsen They met in a displaced persons camp in Belgium after the end of the war Zimmerman explained When they met they had no money and no family around them They got married in and eventually emigrated to the United States where they settled in New York and started a dry cleaning business There they raised a son Zimmerman s father Zimmerman explained his grandparents had been living in a concentration camp in In they were living in the United States Five years after that they are citizens What a turn of events to say the least he declared While Zimmerman teaches about the Holocaust now he commented he didn t hear about it directly from his grandparents My grandparents had a very hard time talking about their experiences They were approached by the Holocaust Museum in D C book authors documentary filmmakers to share their experiences They never mentioned yes to any of those general requests Zimmerman notified WTOP It was too hard for them to talk about Their losses were profound Zimmerman explained My grandfather had two sisters who died in the camps My grandmother lost most of of her siblings in the camps he declared Yet looking back now Zimmerman reflected on the elation his grandparents managed to find and create around them After their experiences in a few of the majority brutal concentration camps created by the Nazis Zimmerman often still wonders How in the world can you possibly put the pieces back together after those kinds of experiences I don t really know how they did it they just did it There was a lot of hard work but there was also a lot of love and a lot of happy moments and a lot of wonderful days spent together just being in each other s company and enjoying the simple things of life which their experiences what they went through was never very far away Zimmerman declared of his grandparents lives The increase in antisemitism nationally and within the D C region has created what Zimmerman calls a notable shift in how the students he teaches see the relevance of the lessons on the Holocaust Referring to the incidents of hate and bias directed at Jewish people in newest years Zimmerman declared his students are seeing it in their schools on social media feeds They re talking about it with their friends It s become real to them When petitioned what can be done about antisemitism when it seems to ebb and flow throughout history he tells his students they can show through their actions that all the hateful things that are explained about Jewish people are not true We can do that by doing very simple things being kind to family and friends being a helpful part of your population doing something to in provision of others he announced Showing that our Judaism leads to as we say tikkun olam repair the world make it a little bit better than how you detected it That s the way to fight back And each of us has the power to do that he added Those outside the Jewish faith have a role to play in fighting against antisemitism Zimmerman revealed adding that the Jewish area demands partners and allies We also need to be partners and allies that it can t just be asking people to stand up for us when we re targeted it has to be a two-way street And that s ultimately the way to build connections and group across different faiths across people of different races and ethnicities Zimmerman stated Source