Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 70th anniversary of the day that Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated.
Though I’ve known about the Holocaust since my early Hebrew school days, reading Number the Stars and The Diary of Anne Frank, I don’t have any personal connections to this tragic period in our Jewish history. My great-grandparents had already left Poland and Russia before the Nazis came into power.
However, working at The Jewish Federation, many of my colleagues have family members with the telltale tattoo that designates them as survivors. There are also some whose parents managed to elude the Nazis—survivors just the same. Among their children is our Associate Chief Development Officer, John Magoulas, whose mother Jannie was just a child when first her father, then her mother, two brothers, and eventually over 100 of her extended family members were killed in concentration camps.
Jannie narrowly escaped the same fate when, at age 5, a Protestant family hid her in their Amsterdam home. She was effectively adopted by this family, the Wulffs, who explained her sudden appearance to neighbors by saying she was a divorced sister’s child. Though her true identity was disguised, Jannie was still not safe living with the Wulffs. Nazis would come by looking for Jews, and Jannie would be sent to the neighbors’ house to hide under the bed or to a church across the street.
For John, his mother’s survival is nothing short of a miracle—he wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the Wulffs’ selfless act and continued love. “I’m lucky, but it’s hard not to have a big, extended family,” said John, whose two great-aunts, both survivors, one of whom he considered his grandmother, passed away several years ago. “My mom is now the sole living survivor of her family.”
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, John thinks about “how life could have been different. The atrocities of what happened during the Holocaust not only impacted my family, but millions of others—and still will.”
For his mother, however, today is just another day that brings up memories of war and loss. Said Jannie, “I remember my family every day.”
“People should never forget what happened,” added John. “But it’s a day to remember the difference we can make today for all the people who can’t.”
To read more about Jannie’s incredible story, click here.
