Jacksonville Holocaust Survivors

“I worked so hard to stay alive as a child--my grandmother and mother fought so hard for me to survive,” Bob Fischer told me when I asked him how he was able to exude such joy.  “Why would I waste a moment being bitter?”  I entered homes that reflected the joyful people inside of them—beautiful, rich colors and décor, walls lined with family photographs. Delicious meals and treats and coffee. The survivors I met and photographed were infants and children during the Holocaust. They treasure the few heirlooms that were rescued—the one remaining family photograph or a father’s ring saved by neighbors and retrieved after the war.  My time with the survivors was spent poring over these precious mementos as they shared the joy of their love stories and the sorrow of their memories of the Holocaust.  They dearly want the truth of history to be told and remembered, but each equally embraces living fully as a way of honoring life and the lives of loved lost in the Holocaust. 

 Their stories, the horrible and the joyful, live side-by-side inside of them and the families they created.