In her piece for Times of Israel blog, Esther Erman, a Life Member of Hadassah Central Pacific Coast, talks about why Hadassah's work with Ukrainian refugees is so important. Erman, the German-born child of Holocaust survivors, recently received a call from a woman named Eileen claiming to be her cousin. Erman didn’t believe her until Eileen asked about Uncle Harry, the same man who sponsored Erman and her parents, Gucia and Mulek, when they wanted to immigrate from Germany in 1947. Initially from Poland, the couple survived ghettoization, slave labor, Auschwitz and, in Gucia’s case, the death march to Bergen-Belsen. They met in 1945 in a displacement camp and decided they wanted to go to the US. The camp's chaplain arranged for an ad to be placed in the Forverts (The Forward) asking someone to sponsor them. After seeing the ad and recognizing Mulek as his brother's son, Harry agreed to sponsor the couple. Three months after Erman's birth, she and her parents left on a transport ship and, after some trouble with their ship, they arrived in New York Harbor. Because they arrived early on in Holocaust survivors’ exodus from Europe, few people understood what they went through. Knowing what her family went through, Erman feels for the Ukrainian refugees. She is proud that Hadassah's hospitals have sent so many doctors to help, although she can’t help but wish that her parents and the other Holocaust refugees had had access to care like that. “I wish there weren't the need for individuals and organizations to step up in this way now. But I'm so grateful," she says.
Esther Erman is a member of the HADASSAH WRITERS’ CIRCLE, a program of Hadassah’s Media & Public Relations Office that offers Hadassah’s volunteer leaders, members and professional staff a way to share their thoughts and feeling about Hadassah’s work in the United States and Israel.