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PAGE 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE May 23, 1986
The Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jes'-'rv
Since 1925
Vida Goldgar
Editor and Publisher
Leonard Goldstein
Advertising Director
Luna Levy
Associate Editor
Eschol A. Harrell
Production Manager
Lutz Baum
Business Manager
Published every Friday by The Southern Israelite, Inc
Second Class Postage paid at Atlanta. Ga (ISSN 00388I (UPS 776060/
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Southern Israelite. P O Box.
7~388. Atlanta. GA 30357
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 77388, Atlanta, Georgia 30357
Location: 188 15th St., N.W., A11.. Ga. 30318 Phone (404)876-8248
Advertising rates available upon request.
Subscriptions: $23.00, 1 year; $41.00, 2 years
Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Religious News Service,
American Jewish Press Assn.; Georgia Press Assn ; National Newspaper Assn
Letter from Ellen
Many months ago, the readers of this newspaper responded
generously to the desperate plight of a Houston woman whose
only chance for life was a liver transplant, with the enormous costs
involved. Not long ago, we reported that the transplant hadfinally
taken place and Ellen Woodall was recovering. This letter, just
received, is for all of you. —Editor.
Houston, Texas
Dear Friends,
My family and I thought this would be the best way to reach the
overwhelming number of people who read The Southern Israelite
and so generously helped finance my liver transplant.
It is now five months since my surgery and although the
healing process is slow, I feel better and stronger every day and
look forward to a long, happy life.
My recent checkup in Boston (where the transplant was done)
went well. My doctors are very pleased after seeing the current test
results and I am checked weekly here in Houston to make sure the
medications I must take every day for the rest of my life are doing
their job.
A simple thank you is not adequate to express the feeling in my
heart for the families, individuals, congregations, organizations
and businesses who cared enough to help me. Of course, without
the efforts of the editor of this paper and other editors throughout
the country, my story would not have been printed. So, a special
thanks to them.
With gratitude and love, I thank you all for giving me a second
chance at life.
L’Chaim,
Ellen Woodall
•—«JTA©
ELECTION) TIME IN AUSTRIA
Vida Goldgar
Because they care
Lour months ago. a half dozen or so Atlanta
women, each of whom is deeply involved in other
professional or community commitments, saw a need
and put their heads togethei to do
something about it. None said, ‘ I
already have too much to do."
Tuesday, at the Ritz-Carlton, j
Buckhead. these women could look
around the packed room and kveil.
The occasion was the charter
membership high tea ot the brand-1
new Auxiliary of the Jew ish Home.
As Maggie Arnold, a vice presi-l
dent of the auxiliary, said, “In our most optimistic
fantasy, we could not have imagined an immediate
charter membership totalling over 500.” J hat includes
about 170 life members at S200 each. Not all 500 were
there, but my guess is that over hall were. They ve
chosen a motto, and perhaps it, as much as anything
care; because we love; because we are their children."
All across the country, services for the elderly are
an increasingly important aspect of communal life,
partly because improved medical knowledge means
that segment of the population is growing, while
governmental funding is being cut. In Atlanta, the
Jewish community is fortunate to have a number of
programs which provide a continuum of care for our
aging population. The Jewish Home’s role in this is to
care for the chronically ill who require a full-time
residential facility with skilled nursing care.
The role the auxiliary has undertaken is to enhance
the quality of life for the Home's residents over and
above what can be provided bv the general operating
budget. The two are not interchangeable. They’re
starting off with a greenhouse so residents can enjoy
the beauty of growing flowers, perhaps even have their
own small garden to tend. Where it will go from there
is limited only by the imagination and volunteer
efforts of the auxiliary and suggestions of residents
and staff.
Primarily, the goals of the auxiliary were simply
put by Jane Weinstein, president: “You will bring to
our residents a greater sense of their own worth. This
auxiliary w ill set new goals and expanded horizons for
our residents. Your membership,” she told the gather
ing, “serves as a tribute to all of our parents and
grandparents."
If anyone there could talk about “expanded horiz
ons," it was the main speaker, Barbara Morgan. Since
the tragic accident that claimed the lives of teacher
Christa McAuliffe and the six astronauts aboard the
Challenger shuttle, Morgan is the Teacher in Space
scheduled for “lift-off’ when shuttle flights resume.
She is the niece of Jean and Herb Cohen and since
both have a deep interest in the Home, I suspect they
had something to do with her appearance here. Barba
ra’s parents are Herb’s sister, Marian, and her hus
band, Dr. Jerome Redding of Fresno, Calif.
What she had to say is reported in more detail on
the next page.
Barbara Morgan can’t be the first woman in space;
nor can she be the first Jewish woman in space. But it’s
safe to assume that when she lifts off, she will be the
first honorary charter life member of the Auxiliary of
the Jewish Home to make the trip.
Welcome aboard.
The chess game
by Stanley M. Lefco
Dad spent about two weeks in
Buchenwald. In their final days the
Nazis would load their victims onto
cattle cars and move them from
one concentration camp to another
to escape from the advancing Allied
troops.
It was near the end of the war
when Dad arrived at Buchenwald.
By then little was left to be done
there other than wander aimlessly
around the camp. At least in the
other camps the forced work to
some measure kept their minds off
their seemingly hopeless state. In
this sense the Nazis claim that
w ork makes one free may have had
a twisted meaning.
In the morning he and his fellow
inmates were given a piece of bread.
T his was breakfast. Lunch was a
cup of watered-down soup. That
was all they were fed for ihe day. It
was no surprise that the inmates
were always hungry. The empty
time only made their condition
worse. Dad hated Buchenwald. He
was glad when they were put back
on the cattle cars and moved to
another site.
Buchenwald was located on the
Ettersberg, near Weimar. It was
opened on July 19, 1937. Its first
inmates were professional crimi
nals, who were soon followed by
political prisoners. Most Soviet
prisoners of war sent to Buchen
wald were killed on arrival. In 1942
it became a forced labor camp for
war production. After December
1942. German criminals were
handed over to the SS. Most of
them became victims of the psuedo-
medical experiments performed in
the camp hosptial.
During the last weeks of the
camp’s existence, an armed under
ground movement was formed
among the prisoners, and when the
Americans arrived, they were in
control and handed the camp over
to them. Buchenwald had held
238,380 prisoners; 56,549 died or
were murdered there.
On April 11, 1945, William Scott
III entered Buchenwald and with
his fellow soldiers gained the title
of liberators. Almost all of the
Nazis, however, were gone from
the camp by that time. Scott was 22
years old, serving in reconnaisance
in the Third Army. Scott’s father
had founded the Atlanta Daily
W orld, and Scott works there now
as its advertising manager.
From a distance, Scott thought to
himself, Buchenwald didn’t look
so bad. Maybe all those horrible
things they had said about this
place were not true or exaggerated.
As he entered the camp, his opin
ion changed. Several survivors
showed him around in the brief
couple of hours he spent there. He
saw human skin that had been
fashioned into lamp shades. He
saw people who had been literally
cut in half, and their brains pressed
against glass. In one barracks all
the men had been castrated. Skel
tons were in the furnaces, for the
SS in their haste did not have an
opportunity to burn the remains.
Scott has spoken a number of
times about his experience. He
gives credibility in the face of those
revisionists who claim the Holo
caust never happened. On his
speaking engagements he brings a
picture with him. It shows ema
ciated bodies piled one on top of
another in a heap. Scott strays
when he speaks about this chapter
of his life. Maybe its horror is so
overwhelming that his psyche tries
to block it out.
Although he was a w itness to the
horror, he says he can understand
why some do not believe. Ihe
Germans were a cultured nation.
How could they commit such a-
trocities? He tries to explain and
make reason where none seems to
exist. Maybe some psychotic ele
ment had taken control, he offers.
Scott cannot forget. To this day
he will not buy a German car. He
vividly recalls seeing prisoners in
the camp playing chess. It was as
though they too could not conceive
the horror of what they were expe
riencing and in some small fashion
were trying to blot it from their
consciousness.
Yet, those who survived and
those who witnessed will never
forget.
/More underground leaders freed■n
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Two more members of the Jewish ter
rorist underground were released from prison on the eve ot Inde
pendence Day.
Of the 27 men originally convicted and sentenced for a series of
violent crimes against Arabs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
only seven remain in jail.
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