This year they are honored to have as their keynote speaker Bernard Gotfryd, world renowned photographer and autor of "Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust". He was born in Radom, Poland where he decided at an early age to become a photographer. He was hired as an apprentice at a family friend's photography studio shortly after World War II broke out, during which time he linked himself with the Polish resistance. He secretly acquired pictures of Nazi and Gestapo atrocities which were obtained from rolls of film dropped for processing and delivered them to the resistance until he was discovered in October of 1943 and deported to the Maidanek extermination camp. By the time of the Liberation in May of 1945, he had survived six different concentration camps. He emigrated to the US two years later.
Following his military service as a US Army combat photographer, he embarked upon a 30-year career as a photojournalist for Newsweek, establishing himself as a world renowned photographer whose works have been exhibited widely.
It was while working for Newsweek, covering the Holocaust Survivors Gathering in Washington, DC, in April 1983, that he was moved to write about his own experiences. First published in Newsweek, his stories were eventually published as a collection, titled "Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust". Since his retirement Mr. Gotfryd has been writing and lecturing about his experiences.
Their Yom Hashoah program will also include lighting of memorial candles by their own honored Survivors of the Shoah, selected readings by their Hebrew School Students, as well as the moving reading of the names of those martyrs lost in the Shoah from their Book of Remembrance.
Please make every effort to attend with your family.
For information, contact Sandy Strenger, PJC Yom Hashoah Chair, 516-642-9273.
