On Plainview

Holocaust Photos Still Weigh Heavy for New Yorker

A Holocaust survivor remembers his "Alexandra" a resistance fighter you'll never forget.

When Bernard Gotfryd and others like him are gone, who will tell the stories? He still has the photos -- all but one: He pulled them out at the Plainview Jewish Center Wednesday, 70 years after they were taken: Grisly proof the Holocaust was real. When he was just a teen in 1940 German-occupied Poland, these pictures were more than mere history. They represented proof of Nazi genocide. Gotfryd had to tell the world. He found a way. Her name was Alexandra, and theirs is a love story for the ages. It is a fitting tale for Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Day of Remembrance Thursday set aside to recall 6 million souls who perished in the Holocaust. Survivors like Gotfryd are speaking everywhere this week to bear witness to Nazi atrocities. The temple'…

•  5 Comments
• Photos (5)

Joe Dowd

1:58 am on Sunday, April 22, 2012

Agreed, Scott: Everyone must know these stories.   more ›

Yom Hashoah Event Tells Gripping Holocaust Story

TODAY's 5: PJC hosts speaker who worked for the Polish Resistance, then survived a Nazi death camp.

The Plainview Jewish Center is the setting for a Yom Hashoah observance Wednesday night at 7, where a world-renowned author and photographer will tell his gripping tale of espionage and survival. Each day the "5 Things" column offers five essentials about your day in Plainview. We want to engage our audience in the topics, events, and hot-button issues that are important to them. Help us do that by adding your voice. Add it to the calendar or send us a news tip. Post a comment on the news and the issues that matter most to you. On Wednesday: 1. The Plainview Jewish Center's Yom Hashoa keynote speaker is Bernard Gotfryd who, while working for the Polish resistance, acquired photos of Nazi attrocities and delivered them to the freedom …

• Photos (4)

Week in Review: April 7-13, '12

Patch looks back on the biggest stories of the week in Plainview.

Here's a look at the top stories on Plainview Patch during the last week. Helping Spencer: The first of several benefits for Spencer Reis, a Plainview JFK freshman stricken with cancer, was a huge success on Friday, drawing about 300 visitors to the Plainview Fire Department Headquarters and garnering about 140 donors, organizers said. Young Man Dies: The benefit events for Spencer were sobered this week by the death of Joseph Sadowski, a Mattlin Middle School 7th grader who died Monday from cancer. Holocaust Rememberence: The liberation of the Nazi death camps was remembered Monday at the American Airpower Museum in East Farmingdale. Holocaust survivors and some of the U.S. veterans who helped liberate them, told their stories. All …

• Photos (4)

Liberated & Liberators Remember Nazi Atrocities

At Republic Airport, Holocaust survivors and WWII veterans implore future generations to "Never Forget."

Levittown's Thea Rumstein looked back nearly seven decades and recalled the irony of her starvation while cherry blossoms scented the spring air. It was just another day amid unspeakable horror, another morning to survive the iron grip of Nazi captivity. She remembers standing emaciated and nearly naked, hearing distant gunfire and explosions. At the time, the 16-year-old didn't think much of it. "We were just trying to survive another day," she said Monday. The Americans had just busted through the last remnants of nearby German resistance. A tank appeared outside the barbed wire. Then another, and another. The armored vehicles of khaki green bore a single white star. Atop their mounts were America G.I.s, stunned by the horror they had …

•  1 Comment
• Photos (7)

Today's 5: Liberating the Nazi Death Camps

Holocaust survivors and veterans will gather at Republic Airport to remember those lost.

Holocaust survivors, veterans, members of the clergy and students will commemorate  the liberation of the Nazi death camps on Monday at the American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport. Each day the "5 Things" column offers five essentials about your day in Plainview. We want to engage our audience in the topics, events, and hot-button issues that are important to them. Help us do that by adding your voice. Add it to the calendar or send us a news tip. Post a comment on the news and the issues that matter most to you. On Monday: 1. The event at the Airpower Museum begins at 11:30 and will be preceded by an interfaith prayer service. We'll have a report. 2. Plainview schools are off this week for spring break. 3. Since the kids are home, …

• Photos (4)

Nazi Camp Liberation to Be Commemorated

Airpower Museum event includes Holocaust survivors, veterans.

Holocaust survivors, veterans, members of the clergy and students will commemorate  the liberation of the Nazi death camps on Monday at the American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport. The program will occur during the same week of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. An interfaith program will be set against American armor similar to what was used to knock down the gates of the camps. The story of enslavement and liberation told through the Passover holiday coincides with the anniversary of inmates freed from Nazi camps. An estimated 56,000 prisoners are believed to have died in the brutal conditions that prevailed in the Nazi camp. The event is scheduled for 11:30 a.m.

•  1 Comment
• Photos (2)

On Plainview

Plainview Patch Celebrates First Birthday

One year ago today, Plainview Patch went live and there's no turning back.

One year ago today, a senior editor on a teleconference from New Jersey hit a button.  Plainview Patch went live. Poof: Just like that. Beats me how. I'm a guy with three decades of newspaper ink on his hands. I come from the days of smoke-filled newsrooms and editors who still cursed at their reporters. Sometimes the reporters cursed back. The editors cursed as they read the stories and the copy editors grumbled about butchering the language. Phones got slammed and chairs got tossed and nobody thought there was anything wrong with any of this behavior. Then the colleague who cursed at you would take you for a beer. Other times you'd linger late and hear a rumble through the building. Thundering presses were spitting out an assembly line …

•  13 Comments
• Photos (9)
• Videos (1)

2 Faiths; 1 Voice: 'Never Again'

Tuesday night, Plainview's Good Shepherd will unite with the Manetto Hill Jewish Center in an interfaith remembrance of 'Kristallnacht'

It will be 73 years this week when Nazi thugs defiled synagogues, destroyed Jewish businesses and murdered innocent people, the point of embarkation for Hitler's "Final Solution." On Tuesday, Two Plainview congregations will remember the atrocities of Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," and vow that they never happen again. "Kristallnacht represents the beginning of one of the darkest chapters in human history," said Rabbi David Ross Senter, the spiritual leader of the Manetto Hill Jewish Center. "The Nazi regime used propaganda and bigotry to initiate a campaign of mass genocide remembered as the Holocaust." Members of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church will march in a solemn procession to the synagogue on Manetto Hill Road …

• Photos (10)

5 Things You Need to Know Today

LIRR Expecting Delays Into Wednesday

Morning commute to be troubled; Tonight is Candidate's Forum at Plainview Middle School

The Long Island Rail Road is not expected to return to normal service until at least Wednesday, meaning at least another full day of cancellations and packed trains. Just after midnight Tuesday, there were no planned cancellations westbound on the Ronkonkoma or Port Jefferson lines, the two branches running through Hicksville station. But other branches will be affected this morning. The problem is attributed to the aftermath of a derailed Amtrak train in an East River tunnel shared by both railroads, according to the MTA. The stricken train has been righted, but the track has suffered extensive damage, MTA reported. Each day the "5 Things" column will tell you five essential pieces of information you need to know today, like events …

• Photos (7)