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Speaker urges RE students to never forget the Holocaust
The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor shared her grandfather’s story of tragedy and survival with Ransom Everglades upper school students in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Brought to campus by RE’s Jewish Students Association, Caryn Pardo detailed the horrific childhood journey of her “Zaida” – Harry Feldzamen – through five concentration camps.
Between the ages of 11 and 14, Feldzamen endured the murders of his four siblings and mother before submitting to an excruciating existence in work camps marked by near-starvation, frequent beatings and illness. When he was finally liberated by Soviet soldiers, he was among only 230 of the 40,000 Jews from his hometown of Lublin, Poland, who had survived the Holocaust.
“He survived the unimaginable,” Pardo told students at the Lewis Family Auditorium Jan. 30. “This cannot happen to anyone moving forward.”
Pardo is a speaker with 3GMiami, an organization co-founded by RE parent Julie Paresky P '25 '29 that facilitates talks from children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors to pass on and memorialize their experiences and stories.
“We are reminded of one of the darkest periods in human history,” said Reid Rosenberg '25, the secretary of the Jewish Students Association. “It is important never to forget the atrocities committed during the Holocaust … and to ensure we never forget the lessons of the Holocaust.”
At the conclusion of the event, Rabba Myriam Gollan, the administrative assistant to the head of school, led the traditional Jewish hymn for funerals or memorials, "El Maleh Rachamim," as the names and images of Holocaust survivors with ties to members of the RE community were displayed on a large screen.
Said Eden Harris ’24, the vice president of the JSA. “Let us do honor the survivors and their families and do our part to build a better world.”
Middle School
2045 South Bayshore Drive, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 250 6850
Upper School
3575 Main Highway, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 460 8800
Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.