Introducing a new section featuring the experiences of Holocaust Survivors we see and visit today. This is to fulfill their requests,
“Remember us! Tell others of our experiences so we are not forgotten!”
My Lovely Lady Frida
Frida visiting the mass grave that includes her parents
My lovely lady Frida is my adopted Survivor. She is from the Ukraine and one of the few who survived the massacre of Jews in her town. Her life experience, language and culture are a world away from my own. She is Jewish, I am a gentile. Her grandparents escaped pogroms and my grandfather, a German, was an anti-Semite.
How do two such disparate people meet, begin to trust, to care, to embrace, to love? It was through the Adoption Programme of Abundant Hope International that Frida came into my life and I into hers. This is a vehicle through which the love of the Lord can become real in the broken lives of these precious people. We seek to remove the boulders and hindrances by selfless acts of unconditional love. Letter writing is one such act. It brings the writer into the home and life of a Survivor. Loneliness is endemic especially amongst the surviving population of those who went through the Shoah. Many Survivors are the only ones left, losing not only families but entire communities. Adopters become family, friendships are formed and the love of God begins to soften hearts, to bring hope and shalom.
The God of Israel is their Abba and is seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To partner with the Almighty in this work is a privilege and joy. We set out to bless and comfort and we are inevitably caught up in that blessing. The Jewish people are the apple of God’s eye. How tenderly we must approach this most sensitive place and the deeply wounded of Israel. The letters we write are like a tender touch because they show that someone cares, really cares.
When the letters arrive from other Adopters it is my joy to receive them, have them translated, printed out on lovely paper and placed in matching envelopes. Everything is done to honour the people who have been so despised.
I encourage you to become hope to a lonely Survivor. Time is short dear friends. Many will end their days in the same loneliness they have lived in since that terrible time which took away every vestige of hope and decency from them.
Contact me, Jan Slater, at adopt@ahi-il.org for more information or just for a chat. Get to know what being an Adopter is all about. It is easy, costs so little and will mean so much.
Jan visiting Frida in her home in Israel.
Oh, and I nearly forgot! Like me, you may get to Israel and meet your Survivor. That is special!
By Jan Slater, Survivor Adoption Director
Frida attended the Sukkot BBQ. It was the first time she had left her apartment in a very long time.
