During the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, officiated by the UN in 2005: once again Tarbut Sighet Foundation was delivering presentations to almost 1000 high school students across Romania.

First and foremost, I would like to commend the school principals and their teachers for incorporating in their history studies “A Time to Remember”.

On January 27, 1945 the Red Russian Army liberated Auschwitz camp. My mother was a prisoner for close to a year before being recruited by the Nazi officers to take part in the “Death Marches,” starting on January 18, 1945. My Dear Mother Sary Walter and her sister Agi were finally liberated in Bergen Belsen on April 15, 1945 by the British Army.

One of Tarbut Sighet Foundation’s mission is to educate the junior and high school students about the Romanian Holocaust.

Only in 2002 following the Elie Wiesel report, the government of Romania took responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust in Romania. In 1940 there were 850,000 Jews who were affected by the Romanian Holocaust.

During the Communist Regime for close to five decades, holocaust was not a subject people would speak freely about, people were afraid to even mention- let alone to teach the subject.

Thirty-three years after “1989 December Revolution” the story must be told!

The official Romanian Holocaust Commemoration is on October 9th, representing the beginning of the Bukovina deportations to Transnistria: Remembering the 450,000 Jews who were murdered, starved, and killed in Transnistria and Auschwitz camps, as well as at the Bucharest, Iasi, and Dorohoi Pogroms.

We honor those we loved - even if we did not meet them ever - they were part of our families.

We Never Forget- Remember Us

The students, are our “Ambassadors” high school graduates who will be traveling abroad, or move across Romania, it is important that they will say:

“I heard a survivors Testimony, I heard the story of a Jewish Family from my town, city, village” They become witness via story telling.

We have been faced with Anti-Semitism for decades – my personal feeling however is that “Anti-Semitism was, is and will continue.” It is like a virus that comes in waves pending on the international political situation.

Nowadays, distorting history is the new culprit and most problematic issue, that has arisen in the past five years across some European countries.

Since distortion happens not only regarding the Holocaust, but many European governments are distorting their own historical facts- therefore we devote and dedicate the time to explain the importance of the matter.