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After Arab plumbers learned their client was a Holocaust survivor, they gave her a ridiculous bill: nothing

"Her life story touched my heart."

Via Good Deeds Day / Facebook

It's estimated that only a few hundred thousand Holocaust survivors are still living. Sadly, in the coming years that number will eventually make its way to zero.

Nazi concentration caps were liberated 74 years ago, so a twenty year old who made it through the atrocity is now 94. Elihu Kover of Nazi Victim Services for Self-help Community Service spoke of the conditions many of these elderly survivors face as they advance in age at a Senate hearing in 2013.

"Holocaust survivors are growing older and frailer. … She may be coping with the loss of her spouse and have no family to speak of. In addition to the myriad problems associated with so-called 'normal aging,' many survivors have numerous physical and psychological problems directly attributable to their experiences during the Holocaust. … And many of these problems only surface in old age, having been hidden during their working years when the survivors struggled and made a new life for themselves as productive citizens of this country."

This sympathetic view of the tragedy isn't as popular in the Arab world where Holocaust denial is rampant and many cynically accuse the Jewish people of exploiting Western sympathy surrounding the tragedy to establish the State of Israel.

However, in 2019 two Arab men in Haifa, Israel made a beautiful show of respect to a Holocaust survivor who found their gesture "uplifting." And with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, it's a powerful reminder that good people are everywhere.

Simon and Salim Matari, who are brothers, were recently called to the home of Rosa Meir, 95, to fix a leak.

"When we got there, we saw there was a large blast of water and we started fixing it," Simon told the Times of Israel. "At some stage, while working, my brother Salim started to talk to Rosa about her life. She told us she's 95, a Holocaust survivor, and that she has a daughter."

"Her life story touched my heart," Simon continued. "At that moment, I decided I won't take a cent from her."

After the brothers finished their work, they gave Meir a bill that read: "Holocaust survivor, may you have health until 120, from Matari Simon and Matari Salim," adding that the cost of the service was "0 shekels."

"May you live until 120" is a Jewish blessing that carries the implication that the receiver live a happy and healthy life until the age of 120.

The gesture brought Meir to tears.

"The brothers really surprised me," she said. "It was so moving and uplifting, and I thanked them a lot."

The brothers also told the woman that if she needed anything else they would be by to fix it for free.

This article originally appeared on 10.9.19

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Holocaust survivor shares how he evaded Nazis as a boy by hiding in the woods for 2 years

It took him over 70 years to tell his story.

via Schilf/Wikimedia Commons

Children in a Jewish ghetoo in POland during World War II.

Maxwell Smart, born Oziac Fromm, was 9 when World War II began in 1939, turning his life upside down. He was from a Jewish family in Buczacz, a small city in Poland, now part of Ukraine.

The Nazis occupied the region in July 1941, and one day, a notice was given for all Jewish men ages 18 to 50 to register for labor camps. They were separated into professionals (teachers, doctors, lawyers) and tradespeople. The professionals, including Smart’s father, were taken to a nearby hill and shot to death.

The rest of Smart’s family was forced into a ghetto and in 1943, when it was cleared, they were violently loaded onto a truck, but his mother wouldn’t let him join them. Instead, she urged him to run.

“I was angry. I said: ‘What do you mean you don’t want to take me? You are my mother,’” Smart told The Guardian. “This saved my life,” he said. Smart removed his Star of David armband and went to find his aunt and uncle, but a German officer stopped him before he could reach them.

“He takes out the gun, points it at my head and he says to me: ‘Tell me the truth, are you a Jew?’” Smart denied that he was Jewish and somehow, the officer believed him. His aunt and uncle paid a local farmer, Jasko Rudnicki, to hide Maxwell in the forest with his wife and 2 boys at their mud hut in the forest. But after his aunt and uncle were killed and authorities began to question Rudnicki, Maxwell was forced to live in the woods.

At 10, I fled the Nazis to live starving and alone in the woods. For two years, detection meant death https://t.co/XIw0nu4bcU
— The Guardian (@guardian) May 28, 2024

Before Maxwell went into hiding, the farmer taught him basic survival skills, such as what to eat, how to build a fire and trap a rabbit. Rudnicki allowed him to sleep in his barn at night when it was cold. “I built a bunker in the woods but was very lonely,” he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Maxwell lived off of tree bark, half-eaten rabbit corpses and worms to survive. Occasionally, he would stop by Rudnicki’s hut for some milk or a piece of bread. He was 13 years old, alone and hiding in the woods from Ukrainians and Nazis searching for Jews. The only time he felt safe was when it was raining.

“It was a sport to kill a Jew,” he told The Guardian. “[Your typical Nazi] is not going to go in the mud and get dirty and filthy; he is doing it for happiness, for enjoyment. So when it was raining, I knew I was safe.”

Eventually, Maxwell found a friend in Janek, a boy of around 10, who had been hiding in the woods with his parents before they both disappeared. The boys became friends and lived in the bunker together. "He shared my sorrows, he shared my problems," he told the BBC.

However, their friendship was short-lived. One day, the boys heard gunshots and after they investigated, found the bodies of several Jewish people on the other side of a river. They saw something moving amongst the dead bodies and after crossing the river, found a baby in a dead woman’s arms.

'A boy – now 93 – tells his story of incredible survival hiding from the Nazis in the forest' the inspiring and heroic #MaxwellSmart spoke to @JewishChron on his harrowing experience #theboyinthewoods film @becsnow is out on digital on Monday @101FilmsUK https://t.co/kRsNuleGHT
— Aim Publicity (@AimPublicity) May 23, 2024

Soon after, they found the baby’s aunt in the woods, who took the baby into her care. Smart would later be reunited with the baby, Tova, in a TV special, “Cheating Hitler.” Sadly, after crossing the cold river, Janek became sick and died. "That was the biggest loss of my life. This young little boy was such a help to me to survive the war. My mother was gone, my sister was gone, my father was gone. I somehow accepted it. I still cannot accept Janek's death,” Smart told the BBC.

A few months after Janek’s death, Smart visited Rudnicki and learned that the Nazi occupation was over and that he was free. “It was April 1944, I was almost 14 years old and I finally felt no fear. I was a human being once again,” he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

In 1944, he successfully joined a group of Soviet soldiers, accompanying them through Romania and Hungary. In 1948, he relocated to Canada via the War Orphans Project, a refugee resettlement program overseen by the Canadian Jewish Congress. After relocating to Canada, he changed his name to Maxwell Smart to leave his tragic past behind him and focus on his new life. He chose the name years before it was popularized in the 1960’s James Bond parody, “Get Smart.”

He would build a successful real estate career while pursuing his lifelong passion for art.

After 70-plus years of keeping his harrowing experiences during the war to himself, Smart shared his story in the book “Chaos to Canvas” published in 2018 by the Azrieli Foundation. In 2019, he appeared in the documentary “Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust,” which ran on the Discovery Channel.

Smart’s story of survival was recently made into a film, “The Boy in the Woods.”

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Germany to pay Holocaust survivors over $1 billion in reparations. Here's where the money will go.

Over 128,000 people will receive some form of compensation.

via Stroop Report/Wikimedia Commons

Polish Jews captured by Germans during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The youngest Holocaust survivors are now in their late ‘70s, and the challenges that come with aging mean their needs have never been greater. That’s why the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany has agreed with the German Federal Ministry of Finance to provide $1.4 billion in direct compensation and social welfare services for survivors across the globe.

The agreement will bring the overall compensation that Germany has paid in Holocaust reparations to over $81 billion.

More than 128,000 Holocaust survivors will receive annual payments for the next 4 years of $1,370 per person for 2024, $1,424 for 2025, $1,479 for 2026 and $1,534 for 2027. The agreement also provides tens of millions for Holocaust education.

As the number of people who witnessed the Holocaust first-hand goes down every year, the greater the need to keep their memories alive to prevent it from happening again.

The beneficiaries of these payments are primarily survivors from the former Soviet Union who escaped the clutches of the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile execution squads of the Nazis tasked with annihilating whole Jewish populations. These units killed over 1 million Jewish people, mainly through mass shootings of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people at a time.

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Claims Conference Delegation for negotiations with the German government

via Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany

Nearly $105.2 million in compensation will go to home care programs to address survivors’ increased needs through 300 social welfare programs in 83 countries. These agencies will provide in-home care, food packages, medical needs and transportation for survivors in need.

“Every year, these negotiations become more and more critical as this last generation of Holocaust survivors age and their needs increase,” Greg Schneider, Executive Vice President of the Claims Conference, said in a press release. “Being able to ensure direct payments to survivors in addition to the expansions to the social welfare services we are able to fund is essential in making sure every Holocaust survivor is taken care of for as long as it is required, addressing each individual need.”

The reparations agreed upon by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the German Federal Ministry of Finance are a continuation of 71 years of the historic Luxembourg Agreements. The agreements were the first time in history that a defeated power compensated civilians for loss and suffering.

Train tracks leading to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

via Dieglop/Wikimedia Commons

The atrocities of the Holocaust are beyond any measure of compensation, but the agreements highlight Germany’s commitment to take responsibility for Nazi atrocities.

“I am inspired that, as shown by the extraordinary results we have achieved this year, so many decades after the end of World War II, far from waning, the German government and its people continue to feel a deep responsibility to provide additional care to Holocaust survivors,” Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, Special Negotiator for the Claims Conference Negotiations Delegation, said in a press release.

“It has been nearly 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and the need to negotiate for survivor care and compensation is more urgent than ever,” Eizenstat continued. “Every negotiation is a near-last opportunity to ensure survivors of the Holocaust are receiving some measure of justice and a chance at the dignity that was taken from them in their youth. It will never be enough until the last survivor has taken their last breath.”

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Holocaust survivor uses banknote clue to find the family of 'kind' soldier who liberated her

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In 1945, Lily Ebert, now 90, was liberated from a German munitions factory where she worked as slave labor after being transferred from the Auschwitz death camp.

A few weeks after being liberated, an American soldier shared some words of positivity with her, "The start to a new life. Good luck and happiness," he wrote on a German banknote.

The simple gesture was life-changing for Ebert and the banknote became one of her most treasured keepsakes.

"This soldier was the first human being who was kind to us," she told NBC News. "It was the first time after this terrible life that somebody was kind and I knew that somebody wants to help."

Lily Ebert is the woman with the soldier's arm around her.via Dov Forman / Twitter

Ebert's mother, brother, and sister were all killed at Auschwitz. Her two younger sisters were liberated with her at the munitions factory. She believes that she survived the ordeal due to her responsibility to take care of her sisters.

"I promised myself that if I survived by some miracle, I would tell the world what happened there," Ebert said. "The next generation and next generations should know the story so that something like that should not be repeated to any human being ever."

Ebert kept the banknote in a photo album at her home in London where it was discovered by her great-grandson, 16-year-old Dov Forman. Forman had taken it upon himself to start documenting his great-grandmother's stories as a survivor so they would never be forgotten.

"My great-grandma obviously isn't going to be around forever and her story will eventually become my whole family's responsibility to carry on," Forman said.

Intrigued by the transcription on the banknote, Foreman tweeted out a photo of the bill along with photographs of the unknown soldier and Ebert taken a few days after liberation.

The only clue to the man's identity was an inscription on the banknote that reads: "Assistant to Chaplain Schacter."

— (@)

The "Chaplain Schacter" eluded to on the bill was Chaplain Herschel Schacter, an American Orthodox rabbi who served as a chaplain in the Third Army's VIII Corps. Schacter participated in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp and helped relocate survivors, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.

The tweet went viral and Forman received responses from all over the world. Eventually, he learned the identity of the solider, Private Hyman Shulman from New Jersey.

In late 1944, Shulman was removed from the front lines after being injured in the Battle of the Bulge and assigned to to serve as Assistant to the Jewish Chaplain to the US Army, Rabbi Herschel Schachter.

— (@)

Unfortunately, Shulman died seven years ago at the age of 91.

However, Forman was able to locate and contact Schulman's children in New York and bring the families together digitally through Zoom. "It was really special. It felt like we were family, we just clicked," Forman said.

Image: Lilly Ebert and Dov Forman (right) hold a Zoom call with Arlene and Jason Schulman, descendants of the American GI that liberated Lilly during the war, along with Lilly's daughter and husband Bilha and Julian Weider.via Dov Foreman

"I know that this soldier told his family, he wrote to his family every day the stories that he saw," Ebert said. "With that, I feel some connection to them."

Shulman wrote over 1100 letters home during the war. Some of them are archived at POBA.

The families re planning another Zoom call soon and have discussed meeting in person when coronavirus travel restrictions are lifted.

"I hope one day that I will meet them personally, I would very much like to have that," Ebert said.

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The other night as the votes rolled in, I started to get really upset my parents were seeing what was happening.

It sounds weird, but those were my first thoughts. And they’ve been sticking with me. It’s partly my own damaged psyche, but I feel ashamed this happened.

My dad survived the Holocaust, lost his entire family, fought with the partisans, and is a full-fledged hero. My mom survived Kristallnacht 78 years ago. She escaped to a children’s home in France and eventually made her way to America, where she’s been working to help educate people and end prejudice against all types of people for her entire adult life.

They endured the absolute worst life could offer. They saw the worst in their fellow citizens right down to their next-door neighbors. Imagine bad — it was worse.

But somehow, they’re not angry people. They’re not hateful.

They are good, smart, deeply aware of international issues, and news junkies. They’ve never looked away from the world, no matter how bleak the view.

After all they’ve encountered, it pained me that they were home watching the same results as I was. I thought maybe their experiences could help put this election into perspective — and maybe even make me feel a little better.

I called my dad, who's seen it all. He’s experienced loss; he crawled on his hands and knees from his town to the Polish forest where he survived alone for months; he fought back; he came to America with nothing; he made himself into a remarkably successful real estate developer and philanthropist.

After we shared our common disbelief at the choice Americans made, he told me he didn't understand how people could have voted for Trump.

I called my mom.

Her message was clear: “Yes, it’s a bummer, but the real message here is that we all need to become activists. Today.”

She thought back to her experiences as a child. “You know, maybe if we had organized and fought back against Hitler’s rise right from the beginning, we could have prevented what happened. We could have made it more difficult for him to do what he did if we hadn’t waited and just assumed that ‘this too shall pass.’”

I’m not arguing that Trump is Hitler. He’s not. I hate the constant comparisons and feel they are counterproductive. Trump deserves a chance to lead. But he can do a lot of damage to progressive values and important democratic institutions in a short time.

We can look forward to 2018 and 2020, but in the meantime, we should all become activists and make it as difficult as possible for him to enact policies counter to our values.

If we don’t, this too shall not pass.

At the end of the conversation, my mom said, “Sorry, I don’t think I did a very good job of cheering you up.”

Pretty amazing, right? She thought it was her job to cheer me up.

Don’t underestimate the resilience of good people. Don’t underestimate your own power to make things better.

And don’t forget to take my mom’s advice. She’s almost always right. It runs in the family.

Solomon Moshe was only 4 years old when Hitler's armies invaded his home country of Greece.

He recalls spending his childhood fleeing from house to house with his mother — never having friends, never having a home, and constantly seeing the fear in his mother's eyes.

Before long, 60,000 Greek Jews would be murdered in World War II, nearly 80% of the country's Jewish population. Moshe moved to Israel in 1956 to try to start a new life.

On Monday, May 2, 2016, Moshe got to celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah, finally, at the ripe old age of 79.