Teenagers carry stories of Holocaust survivors

Aly Ketover's senior year at Hopkins High School has been packed with the typical checklist of soon-to-be graduates: Studies, sports, Facebook, exams, travel -- and one unique addition: remembering.

Ketover, 18, is one of 11 Jewish high school students chosen for a school-year program called "Adopt-A-Survivor," to be showcased during Sunday's Twin Cities annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul. The students and Holocaust survivors have met regularly since September, the elders filtering some but sharing much, the teens diligently documenting and carrying their stories forward.

The urgency of the program cannot be minimized. Three weeks ago, 89-year-old participant Michael Engel died. His partner in the program, Alexis Fishman, 18, attended his funeral and shiva, the week-long period of mourning, and will honor him alone on Sunday.

"They didn't want to be looked at as just a survivor, but a person, too," said Fishman, also a Hopkins senior. The initial awkwardness of their monthly meetings passed quickly, she said, as the two shared cake and memories of Engel's happy childhood in Czechoslovakia before he endured labor camps in Hungary and Romania from 1943 to 1945. He returned home to find that 44 members of his family had perished.

"Through Michael's stories, it is clear that putting others first is in his nature," Fishman wrote recently, with no inkling of how little time she had left to learn from and about him. "After six months, I would call Michael my friend," she said. "He's inspired me."

Selecting and matching the 11th- and 12th-graders, all students at the Talmud Torah of Minneapolis, was an exacting process, said Susie Chalom, who directs the Jewish learning center.

"They're very busy, so we told them, 'You're not dropping a class here. You're dropping a person.' They have really shown commitment. They feel it's a sacred mission," she said.

The theme, appropriately, is "A Transfer of Memory." In the most dramatic transfer of memory, all 10 students have pledged to travel to Washington in 2045 -- the 100th anniversary of the liberation of the camps -- to tell their partners' stories at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"I appreciate what they're doing," said Joe Rozenberg, 84, of St. Louis Park, who was a close friend of Engel for more than 50 years. Rozenberg, who survived Auschwitz, was paired with Malcolm Kelner, whom he calls "a very intelligent boy. I wish I would live now and be a young man," Rozenberg said.

While the Holocaust is not foreign to any of these teens, many were surprised to learn about the happy, normal, culturally vibrant lives most survivors lived before the war.

Jessica Koolick, 17, a junior at Armstrong High School, was unaware of life outside the camps. Her partner, Edith Goodman, of St. Paul, "taught me to approach the war in a new way. She explained her story of being shipped from place to place throughout Romania as it was occupied by the Germans with such compassion that I find a personal connection to the war and everyone affected."

Elana Kravitz was moved by the deep desire of her partner, Dr. Robert Fisch, "to tell the stories of people who showed love and humanity during a time of darkness and hatred."

"She was always asking the right questions," said Neuman, 86, whom Ketover wrote about in one of her college essays.

"How did you escape? Did you think you would live? How did you do it, physically and mentally? She's just a little girl starting life," said Neuman, seated next to Ketover in her St. Louis Park apartment filled with watercolor paintings and photographs. "What I went through, she cannot imagine."

But Ketover tries. She is haunted by a story of Neuman running through a sewer as a teen with 600 people; only three escaped.

"I was just like you," she remembers Neuman telling her.

"That really stood out for me," Ketover said. "We are so lucky we can hear from them first-hand. But it will be our job to carry on their stories. It could be anyone at anytime."