This past Tuesday, Scheck Hillel High School students, grades 9th-11th, were fortunate enough to tour the Holocaust Memorial, in Miami Beach, where they were able to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day and learn more about the tragedies of the Holocaust and the effect it had on its survivors. In the memorial, students watched a short film on the personal lives of Holocaust survivors, met Holocaust survivors in person, and got to tour the site.

One Holocaust survivor the students met during their time in the memorial site was Fred Malbaur, who was born in Czechoslovakia. His story was very touching, sad, and sentimental. Malbaur began his story talking about the initial point of the Holocaust when him and his family were being sent away to a concentration camp. He mentioned that during this sad time his next door neighbors were celebrating on his and his family’s departure. This caused him to feel very disturbed and upset. After Malbaur was kicked out of his own home, he was sent to Auschwitz. He was very lucky to make it out of their alive, though unfortunately the rest of his family did not. After coming out of Auschwitz, Malbaur spent a year in Sweden in which he was staying in a hospital to be recuperated and treated back to health. As time ticked and Malbaur was healed, he was finally ready to leave the hospital and go back to living his life in the world. The only dilemma was that due to none of his family members making it out of the Holocaust, there was no one he knew that he could live with. Luckily, after some deep digging, Malbaur learned that he had an uncle in the United States and decided to go and live with him. For the rest of his life, Malbaur lived in America where he began a family and continued the Malbaur family line.  

When asking students to explain how they felt during their time touring the memorial site and learning more about the lives of Holocaust survivors, many of them offered wonderful and heartfelt responses. For example, Scheck Hillel 11th grader, Rachel Tulman, claims, “I felt sad because it made me realize what my people had to go through only around seventy years ago. Though it also made me feel really inspired and grateful for everything I have, and listening to the Holocaust survivors. The speaker made me realize that if he can get through all of the hardships he had to face, then I can also get through anything because my life can’t even compare to let in the other 6 million Jews had to go through.”

What about the teachers who were fortunate enough to tour the site with the students. What emotions did they feel as they were touring the Holocaust Memorial site? According to Upper School Hebrew Teacher, Mrs. Esther Ben-Shalom, she explains, “It was extremely difficult and sad to listen to the tragic stories of the Holocaust survivors, nonetheless, see photos that were taken during the Holocaust that were displayed around the memorial sites. However, I’m so grateful that the students were able to tour around the site and learn more about the Holocaust because it is important that we never forget this heartbreaking event in history.”

Thank you to the Director of Upper School Student Life, Oded Karavani for granting the Scheck Hillel High School Students to have the amazing opportunity to tour the Holocaust Memorial site, in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day.