Heart-shaped buns: On the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, students in Jerusalem and Haifa embarked on an exciting project, in which they baked bread rolls together with individual Holocaust survivors, in their homes or in assisted living and nursing homes. The age gap is sometimes close to seventy years, but that doesn't stop the parties from feeling most at home in the world.
''Golden Time' - this is the name of the project that brings together students from various colleges in Jerusalem, initiated by the Chabad Kollel and Chabad on Campus. As part of the project, students from both Jerusalem and Haifa join together in various initiatives with Holocaust survivors at various points in their cities of residence.
""If until now we have made regular visits to those survivors, talked and made them happy, now we have decided to do something creative and shared together," says Rabbi Shai Wiesel, who is coordinating the project on behalf of the Chabad kollel and Chabad on campus. "Talking about the survivors on Holocaust Remembrance Day is important, but we need to be there for you all year long. They need us.".
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""These home visits are simply essential," said one of the students involved in the project. "Making the rolls allows us to interact with those survivors. This is a real need that allows these elderly people to have a social life. Some of these elderly people don't have anyone to come to them, and this initiative allows them to come in for Shabbat, and even on a weekday, with a big smile and genuine happiness that someone is thinking of them.".
The bread roll initiative joins a series of initiatives that students are running with Holocaust survivors. The most recent of these was a birthday celebration for each individual survivor.
Alona Rotem, one of the volunteers in Jerusalem, said: "Seniors who are dealing with sensitive medical conditions and suddenly a young person comes with life and joy, music and balloons, it brings not only smiles to them, but great happiness. Some of them do have family members, but when someone from outside comes and transmits care – it moves them very much.".
According to Alona, "The elderly really like to host us, and some of them, those who are mobile, serve some snacks at the table. We come with cake, and sometimes there are sugar problems, so we come with products that they are allowed to eat.".
""They prefer to talk about us as little as possible""
The project was launched, as mentioned, on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and one of the survivors who was visited was Ran Nezer, a lone Holocaust survivor who currently lives in Jerusalem. Nezer is pained by the situation of the survivors.
""After the war, there were over half a million Holocaust survivors in Israel, and today there are a little less than 130,000 survivors," he says. "It's time to stop talking about Holocaust survivors only on the days that commemorate the Holocaust and then forget them. There are many survivors, that I know, who have nothing to put on the table, and that hurts terribly. Unfortunately, day by day, the survivors are becoming less of a 'problem,' as they are becoming fewer and fewer. The feeling is that they prefer to talk about us as little as possible, and I hope that changes.".
Nezer says, "Being a lone Holocaust survivor is a daily challenge. There are medications that I need that, unfortunately, are not in the health basket, and I have no way to buy them, since I have nothing left from the meager allowance I receive.".
On the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Nezer calls on the public to take a greater interest in survivors. "Not just to be interested for the sake of being interested," he urges, "but also to listen to their memories, to their stories. The day will not be far off when there will be no one here to pass on these living memories. If you don't listen and hear, who will in the next generation?".
