8/23/2016

100-year-old Holocaust survivor Yehuda Hammer shares his story | www.jewishvoicesnj.org | Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey

Published
by
the
Jewish
Federation
of
Southern
New
Jersey

2016-08-03 / Local News

100-year-old
Holocaust
survivor
Yehuda
Hammer
shares
his
story
By KAYLA SCHORR Samost JFCS intern
When we hear people tell stories about their journeys through times
of grief, we thank them for opening up to us. We thank them because
we learned something. We thank them because they made us feel
something or want to do something to provoke societal change. In
the case of Yehuda Hammer, a 100- year-old Holocaust survivor, he
thanks the listener for hearing his story.
Recently, Samost Jewish Family and Childrens Service (JFCS)
collaborated with the Jewish Community Relations Councils Esther
Raab Holocaust Museum and Goodwin Education Center to hold a
Caf Europa intergenerational luncheon for Holocaust survivors. At
Holocaust survivor Yehuda
Hammer shares a special
moment with the author,
Samost JFCS intern Kayla
Schorr.

this particular Caf Europa luncheon, students from Gloucester

Catholic High School came to speak with over 30 survivors about
their journeys through the war and immigration to America. Thirty
high school students attended the event, with many families and
volunteers also coming to speak with the survivors.

The day also featured a special birthday cake made by the JFCS
Soups and Sweets Programto honor survivor Yehuda Hammers 100th birthday. JFCS and JCRC
asked Hammer to speak about his story so that others might learn from it.
I have a lot to say, but its hard, said Yehuda. There is so much to remember.
Hammer was never in a concentration camp, but he experienced the horrors of the war through
other channels. Growing up in Poland, he felt the threats of anti-Semitism every day. At a young
age, he began studying at a yeshiva. Upon experiencing ostracism and discrimination as he grew

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8/23/2016

100-year-old Holocaust survivor Yehuda Hammer shares his story | www.jewishvoicesnj.org | Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey

up, he decided that the only way the Jewish people could live peacefully would be to have their
own homeland. He became a Zionist.
Hammer was already an adult when the Holocaust began. He was striving to stay with his family as
the Nazis invaded his town and sent the Jews to the Lodz ghetto. Despite his tenacity, he was
stripped of his family. He sacriced everything he had to stay alive.
I didnt know where [my] family was, said Hammer. You just try to live.
Hammer survived the Holocaust by escaping. He made false documents, created fake identities,
and ran from any threatening circumstances that appeared. He never saw his family again after the
day he escaped the Lodz ghetto. After working in a gulag in Russia, being sent to Siberia as a
prisoner, and just trying desperately to stay alive, the war ended.
After the war, Hammer traveled all over Europe in an eort to transport Jews to Palestine, and was
also responsible for getting many passengers onto the ship, the Exodus. He helped create a home
for so many people who were dehumanized, stripped of their identities, and in need of a new place
to call home. He was in Israel when the state was declared.
Caf Europa gave students access to many stories just like Hammers. In school, students continue
to hear the words never again in regards to the Holocaust. They learn that it is integral to learn the
history behind this tragic genocide that changed the entire world and almost wiped out a religion.
Like anything else, it is dicult on what they have overcome.
People have asked me to write my story in books, but Im not interested, said Hammer. It is not
something to be written. It is something to be told.
For more information on Caf Europa or any of the Holocaust survivor services JFCS oers,
contact Gail Belfer, director of senior services, at (856) 424-1333. s
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