Brooklyn, according to the Brooklyn Community Foundation, has the most Holocaust survivors of anywhere in the world. And on April 19,2012, they commemorated the Holocaust Remembrance Day (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה) on April 19, 2012.
Elihu (Elly) Kover, vice president, Nazi Victim Services, says that 40,000 survivors of the Nazi atrocities live in New York City, over 60 percent in Brooklyn. That is more than a quarter of all the survivors living in the United States. As they age, more more of them need assisted care services—and Selfhelp Community Services, Inc., a 76-year-old organization affiliated with Kover’s organization, provides it. The group, he says, has been helping emigres from the World War Two era since 1936.
“We just served 1,000 new survivors this year,” Kover said.
“The goal is to help these people stay at home,” Kover added. “Many are still in the apartments they moved into when they came to this country.” He said that Holocaust survivors in particular, due to their past traumatic experiences, prefer the relative freedom of staying at home. Additional services they provide include shopping, housecleaning, helping them fill out forms for reparations from Germany, and providing assistance in applying for Medicare and other social services.
Selfhelp started out by providing recent immigrants, who were professionals in their European home countries, find gainful employment as caregivers in the U.S.
One Selfhelp client, Samuel Schanzer, recently turned 104 in his Bensonhurst apartment. Read more here.
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