Ithaca Area United Jewish Community hosted its annual Holocaust commemoration at Temple Beth El. This is a widely attended community event which focuses on survivors and their families. The event drew hundreds of people of all ages and backgrounds. Our guest speaker was Lea Malek of Rochester, NY. Lea was born in Janoshalma, Hungary in 1939. Her father died in a labor camp before her younger sister was born. Lea was 5 years old when her family was loaded onto cattle cars bound for Auschwitz. Along the way, the train suddenly stopped and was split. A large land owner needed some slave laborers and the people in Lea’s car were sent to work the farm instead of to Auschwitz. Lea would not have survived if that hadn’t happened. Her train was part of the failed "Blood for Goods" deal where Eichmann put 20,000 Jews “on ice” for future trading by sending them to work camps in Austria instead of to Auschwitz. Only 3 Jewish children – Lea, her sister and one other girl - survived to return to their hometown in Hungary. Lea witnessed the brutality of the Hungarian revolution in Budapest at age 16, hoping to be able to come to the United States, but the U.S. had closed its borders so she went to Israel in 1957 where she married and came to the US in 1959. She retired from her well-known bakery, "Malek's" a few years ago and has only recently begun to speak about her experience.
There was a candle lighting ceremony with the participation of local people whose parents survived the Holocaust. A performance by the Ithaca Children and Youth Chorus was featured.
Appropriate for children ages 10 and above.
Made possible by the Jacob and Jeannette Geldwert Holocuast Memorial Lectures Fund, Temple Beth El, Tompkins Trust Company, Wegmans, Congregation Tikkun v'Or and Area Congregations Together
