Children of Holocaust survivors form new group in Montreal

Lucy Verebes Shapiro, right, poses with guest speaker Eva Fogelman. (Italo Camerino photo)

Montrealer Lucy Verebes Shapiro is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, but she’s considerably younger than those who were in the vanguard of the second generation.

Born in 1963, she was still in high school when children of survivors began forming groups to share their common experience, and health-care professionals and sociologists started studying the phenomenon.

For that reason, Verebes Shapiro was immediately interested in a new group dedicated to Holocaust remembrance called Montreal Voices of Holocaust Descendants.

It held its first public event on Oct. 28, when New York-based psychologist Eva Fogelman, a pioneer in the treatment of survivors and their families, spoke on “Relations Between Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants: Myths and Realities.”

Much of it was news to Verebes Shapiro, but not because her parents did not speak about the Holocaust. On the contrary, the subject was discussed continuously by Fogelman and Verebes Shapiro’s husband, Robert Verebes, a violist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for 40 years, who passed away in 2016.

“My Canadian husband used to ask, ‘Is there ever a dinner at your house that does not end with talk of the war?’ ” said Verebes Shapiro, who has been interviewing survivors in videotaped testimonies for the Montreal Holocaust Museum and is the education director of the Foundation for Genocide Education.

READ: SECOND GENERATION CHALLENGES

But because she did not grow up with many other children of survivors, she has only belatedly taken an interest in exploring why she felt “a little different.”

“There’s a whole segment of people my age who were never involved in any of this,” she said. “We’re waking up now to the realization that this is something we have to deal with.”

Verebes Shapiro is on Montreal Voices’ 10-member organizing committee, which is considering where to take the group. They range from the earliest wave of children of survivors like Edit Kuper, who was born in 1944, to those born well after the Second World War.

Kuper noted that there has not been an active second generation group in Montreal since the 1980s. She is pleased that more people than she expected – about 120 – came to the inaugural event, which was held at Congregation Dorshei Emet and drew a number of younger people, including a few grandchildren of survivors.

“I found Eva really fabulous,” said Verebes Shapiro, a relocation consultant by profession who has a background in design and marketing. “I think she dispelled some of the myths about survivors’ children that were around 20 years ago. As time has passed, we see that they have led productive lives. That was the big takeaway for me.”

Montreal Voices is a spinoff of Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants (CJHSD), a national, grassroots organization that is affiliated with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, but is an independent group, said Kuper, who has been its co-president since June.

There is common ground – an understanding among children of survivors that does not need to be explained.
– Edit Kuper

Participants were asked to fill out an evaluation form, which will help the committee decide what direction to take Montreal Voices, said Kuper.

“We received a lot of different responses as to why we should revive second generation activities now,” she said.

“First of all, there is common ground, an understanding among children of survivors that does not need to be explained. Secondly, massive trauma does reverberate through the generations. Some said that as time passes, they miss more the family they never knew.

“Others, whose parents are no longer here, felt they must tell their story, that the facts of the Holocaust have to be known, especially with how things are now.”

Kuper, who was born in a displaced persons camp outside Salzburg, Austria, to Polish parents, identifies with those feelings.

“The older I get, the more I miss not having more family (both her parents, who escaped to Russia, lost their entire families, except a sister). The shivahs are small,” said Kuper, a well-known stalwart of the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre.

We have shown tremendous resilience. But that does not mean we do not have to talk about our feelings.
– Edit Kuper

“We also have special antennas that catch echoes in the denial and increasing anti-Semitism today. Maybe we have a special role to remain vigilant and responsive.”

Montreal Voices is looking to develop an online information and social networking platform to connect descendants of survivors living throughout Canada.

The group might also be active in honouring or advocating for survivors in different ways, or in restitution issues. “There is no shortage of ideas,” Kuper said.

Kuper does not envision Montreal Voices becoming a support, or a social, group.

“I think it has been established by now that we are not a psychiatric problem. Studies have shown that is not the case. We have shown tremendous resilience. But that does not mean we do not have to talk about our feelings, which are not easily understood by others,” she said.


Anyone interested in Montreal Voices may contact Kuper by email at [email protected].