Monthly Archives: May 2018

Belarus Holocaust Memorial Project

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How does one keep the memory alive of the 800,000 Belarusian Jews killed during the Holocaust? For two Jewish families with links to Florida., along with a couple from England, the answer was simple: One monument at a time. 

In the first half of the twentieth century, the Jews in Belarus were its third largest ethnic group in this Eastern European country. The population of cities such as Minsk, Pinsk, Mahiliou, Babrujsk, Vitsyebsk, and Gomel was more than 50% Jewish. Tragically, some 800,000 Jews—80% of the Jewish population—together with transports of Jews brought for extermination from the remaining communities in Western Europe, were killed in Belarus during the Holocaust. Many were killed by mass shootings, or “Holocaust by bullets,”  in which executioners massacred the victims in their own villages before the eyes of the neighbors.

In 2006 Dr. Michael Lozman, a Capital District orthodontist,  introduced Dr. Warren Geisler, a Capital Region dentist, to the Holocaust By Bullets in Belarus. As a one time partnership they, together with personal donations with the help of community donations as well, built a memorial to the 433 victims of the Holocaust in Grozovo, Republic of Belarus. The late Dr. Miles Kletter, a Capital District dentist and philanthropist as well as a dear friend of Geisler, generously donated to the site.

“Miles and Warren felt strongly about the injustice of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Shoah,”said Marilyn Kletter. “They knew more needed to be done to remember the victims and serve as a warning to the future generations of what hate and bigotry can create when the people fall silent.”

Kletter researched and located Michael and Diana Lazarus in London, England, who had been building these memorials since 2003 through their Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation. After multiple discussions, Miles and Marilyn Kletter and Warren and Beverly Geisler and their respective families each formed foundations in 2008. Their donations, together with the Lazarus family, would be placed into what was called the Belarus Holocaust Memorials Project (BHMP) through the American Jewish Committee in New York City. 

These three foundations, together with Jewish communities and organizations across Belarus, established the Committee for the Preservation of Holocaust Victims’ Memory in the Republic of Belarus. The Committee, comprising dedicated and steadfast members of the community’s representative bodies, provides crucial support in identifying the locations and coordinating the construction of Holocaust memorials. 

In 2012, Cary and Joni Kletter, the son and daughter of Marilyn and Miles Kletter, took over their father’s work when Miles died of cancer. They are involved with BHMP on many levels: facilitating the foundation’s financial involvement, designing and managing the BHMP website; traveling to Belarus for ceremonies; coordinating with officials in Belarus; and working on the content and layout of the website.

The Geisler family is no longer is involved with the BHMP as Geisler is now   dealing with serious health issues. The Kletter children now manage the project. “The Geisler family was part of an incredible existential exercise into replacing the lost humanity on the ground,” said Geisler. “It was an incredible learning experience bonding with the Belarus Jewish Community. I walked the talk. No regrets.”

Beverly and Warren Geisler and Marilyn Kletter now split their time between homes in Upstate New York and Florida,  in West Palm and in Boyton Beach respectively.

Through research and the help of those individuals who lived in the area during the war, over five hundred mass killing sites have been identified. The number of Jews that died at each site ranges from 2  to thousands. Each year, the Belarus Holocaust Memorial Foundation selects up to six sites to place a memorial. As of May 2018, 110  Holocaust memorials designed by Belarussian architect Leonid Levin have been erected at Holocaust massacre sites in cities, towns and villages throughout the country. The goal of the BHMP:  To have memorials at every site.

At each killing site, a black granite tombstone, set on a flagstone platform mounted on a pedestal. Each contains inscriptions in three languages – Belarusian, English and Hebrew – stating that this monument was erected in memory of the victims of Nazism. Where known, names of the victims are noted.

On July 26, 2009, a plaque was placed on a bridge abutment by a river  where 3,400 Jews  from the Baranovichy Ghetto were pulled off the cattle cars, shot, and dropped in the river in the Zeliony Most region. Another memorial has been placed in a rolling field near Bagerovo, Belarus, village  in which where approximately 4,670 Jews were forced to strip to their underwear, lined up, shot and buried in an anti-tank trench.

Dedication ceremonies drawing hundred of people are held at each killing site upon completion of the memorials. Many are from Belarus: representatives of the local authorities, members of the Jewish community, and representatives of Jewish  organizations functioning in the region. The Israeli ambassador to Belarus as well as ambassadorial staff members from Germany, United States, Great Britain, Israel, and the United States have also attended. Kletter said that at a dedication in 2017 the ambassador from Germany to Belarus publicly apologized to him and all the attendees for the atrocities that were committed.

Representatives of the Geisler, Kletter and Lazarus families have attended every ceremony, “Families suffered unspeakably tragic losses in Belarus during the Nazi occupation,” said Cary Kletter. “It is our earnest hope that knowledge of these memorials, in the cities, towns, villages, farmer’s fields, and forest clearings, the very sites where the massacres took place, will afford some small comfort.” 

Geisler said one his most unforgettable moments was when the last living survivor of the Minsk ghetto came to a dedication. After introducing himself, he thanked Geisler and BHMP for what they are doing to make sure that the Holocaust would not be forgotten.

Those who lost relatives or witnessed the atrocities also attend. A member of one of the grieving families said, “Now we have somewhere where we can stand to remember and mourn.”

Participants in the ceremony light candles in memory of the victims, say prayers, including Kaddish and El Malei Rachamim, and place flowers and stones on the monument. “It is a Jewish value to honor the dead,” Kletter said. “I feel like I am fulfilling a mitzvah.”

Geisler stated that there is urgency to build more of these sites as survivors and witnesses to these crimes of humanity pass on. Along with the 500 recognized sites in Belarus, more than 1,200 exist in the Ukraine alone. “There should be a memorial for the people, a memorial for where it happened,” said Kletter. “If nothing is done, these locations are lost to history.”

The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe has been disconcerting, noted Dr Geisler. In 2014, the Belarus Government requested that a memorial be placed at a site where 2,500 children from the Orsha Ghetto were killed in November 1941 soon after their brutal separation from their parents. The dedication was attended by numerous Belarus government officials and was broadcast on national television. Within a short time, the site was burnt and vandalized. Although it was rebuilt, the specter of hatred remains.  

“Let the world know this insanity must never be tolerated again,” said Geisler at one of the many dedications he has attended. “ Hundreds of years from now,  visitors of future generations coming to these  killing sites will bear witness to what happened.”

Further information regarding the Belarus Holocaust Memorials Project can be found at its website http://www.belarusmemorials.com.

Remaining part of bridge where 3,400 Jews were shot and thrown into river. Geisler and Kletter families.

A Grand master in tennis and life—Lazar Lowinger

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Lazar’s father Julius, a Romanian jeweler, and his mother Manya Gilburd, a Ukranian, met in Cuba, where they both had come to join their families. After they were married, they planned to emigrate to America. 

In 1933, however, Julius accepted a position as a jeweler with a prestigious company in Belgium. Lazar, their only child, was born soon after. In 1936, with Hitler extending his grasp on Europe, the Lowingers returned to Julian’s native Romania to be closer to his mother and, according to Lazar, “in search of a better future.” Ironically, Marshall Ion Antonescu, who was later executed for war crimes, protected the Jews from being deported to concentration camps.

Life was still fraught with danger. While living in Bucharest, the Lowingers’ house and courtyard were repeatedly damaged by Allied Forces bombs. “Every day, I got up, went to school, and prayed that our house would not be destroyed and my family and I would not be killed,” Lazar recalled seventy years later. The family survived in part through Julius’ resourcefulness by using the gold coins he had hidden away to buy food, always difficult to obtain in the war-torn county.

Once the war ended, the family decided to return to Cuba. After a six month stay in Paris while awaiting their visas, the three emigrated in 1946. Two years after their move, Julius and Manya divorced. In 1950, Julius moved to Montreal; and sixteen year old Lazar and his mother moved to Boston where Manya’s brother was a butcher. 

A self-admitted poor student, Lazar dropped out of school and enlisted in Army’s Special Services Unit. While stationed in Alaska, he obtained his GED . Upon completion of his military service, he enrolled in Boston University then transferred to Sir George Williams in Montreal. He returned to Boston and was accepted to Suffolk Law School, graduating and passing the Massachusetts Bar Exam in 1962. 

Lazar’s credentials, as well as his linguistic abilities—he was fluent in Yiddish, Romanian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish—were beneficial in his job search.He was hired by Elijah Adlow, Chief Justice of the Boston Municipal Courts, who sought a Spanish-speaking lawyer to appoint as counsel for the increasing Spanish population in the Boston area. 

As the first Spanish speaking lawyer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Lazar made his reputation as the “Spanish Speakers’ Lawyer.” Throughout his law career, including establishing his own practice, Lazar defended a wide range of clientele, from those seeking workmen’s compensation to those accused of murder. 

In addition, Lowinger wrote for El Mundo, the Boston-based Spanish newspaper. He also hosted two radio programs: a Spanish “Ask Your Lawyer” and a “coffee hour“in which Lazar debated with other Boston lawyers. Lazar and his wife Audrey Schwellung, whom he married in 1965, settled in Newton, Massachusetts with their two sons Jeffrey (1966) and Brian (1968), despite offers to relocate to Florida with its larger Hispanic population. “I liked being a big fish in a small pond,” said Lazar.

Lazar loved law, but he loved tennis as much, or even more. Immediately following the end of World War II, Lazar had played table tennis and a version of squash at a Jewish youth center. Lazar was encouraged by a wealthy friend of his father to play tennis. At first Lazar was not interested—he thought tennis was for girls— but he quickly fell in love with the game. 

Lazar carried that love across the ocean. He won his first championship at the St. Lawrence Tournament in Canada while a student at Sir George Williams College. He also played in tournaments in law school as well as with fellow attorneys and local judges in Bench and Bar. “I never won a tournament against a judge,” said Lazar. “That was intentional!”

In 1989, Lazar, who was fifty-two years old, was invited by his friend and Macccabian Hall of Fame tennis player Irving Levine to try out for the United States men’s Maccabi team. When he didn’t make the cut, Lazar went to Puerto Rico and organized the Puerto Rican Maccabi team. 

In 1991, Lazar participated for the first time as a member of USA Maccabi tennis team. Lazar has gone on to represent his country six more times, initially in the Masters (Ages 35 to 65) division. Heralded by the Boston Jewish Advocate as the ‘Maccabi Maven,’ Lazar moved up to the Grand Master’s Division(Ages 65+) in 1998. 

“Grand Masters has no age limit,” said Lazar. “I will be playing until they put me in a casket,” His two most recent medal, a gold and a bronze, were earned in the 2017 Games, when Lazar was eighty-two years old. 

Lazar has also participated in several Maccabi Pan-American Games. In 2015, Lazar was invited to his native Cuba to join the team that played in the 13th Annual Games in Santiago, Chile. He won two silver medals, Cuba’s first in that age category and Lazar’s sixth. 

At his first Maccabi Game, Lazar met Marilyn Glaser who had volunteered as a nurse for the USA team in the two previous competitions held in 1981 and 1985. They connected again as friends over the next twenty years, he as the competitor, she as the volunteer. When Lazar was widowed in 2011, Marilyn sent him a note of condolence. Their friendship, based on their mutual love of the games and the close proximity of their homes in Florida, soon blossomed into a romance. They now share a home with their dog Malka in Solivita, a fifty-five plus community outside of Orlando. Marilyn, former president of the community’s Shalom Club, is the current president of Congregation Shalom Aleichem, the local synagogue. Weather and health permitting, Lazar still plays tennis at least five days a week. 

Although Marilyn lived in Israel for six years, Lazar’s mutual connection and love for Eretz Yisrael grew as his role as visitor and competitor. “Every time I go to Israel for the games,” said Lazar, “I feel like I belong there.” 

 “Building Jewish Pride through Sports” is the Maccabi USA’s motto, one that Lazar has taken to heart. While taking responsibility for his own expenses incurred during the Games, he has raised over $60,000 for other American athletes. “My participation and my support of Maccabi USA is my way of expressing my Jewishness,” the Grand Master tennis champion stated. 

Lazar also is a generous supporter of Israel’s Tennis Centers, the largest social service agency for Israel children. ITC serves more than a half million children and their families since its first center opened in Ramat Hasharon in 1976. With 14 centers on the country, primarily in underprivileged communities, the not-for-profit Centers use tennis to promote the social, physical, and psychological well being of their students, to develop coaches, and to maintain the courts and facilities.

Are there more competitions in Lazar’s future? He hopes to participate in next Pan Am Games, set for Mexico City in 2019. He will be 85. Stay tuned….

10 decades of memories: Patriarch Geisler to note 100th birthday

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Southern Florida, will be rocking on May 17. On that day, Morty Geisler, a veteran of World War II and a successful businessman, will be celebrating his one-hundredth birthday. Dr. Warren Geisler, a retired Albany dentist and one of his six surviving children, shared stories about his beloved father. 

Mortimer Arthur Geisler was born on May 17, 1918, in Harlem, New York,  to Maxwell and Anna Grossman Geisler, both immigrants from Poland.Eighteen months later, Maxwell died in the Great Flu Pandemic. Life was tough for the family. Geisler grew up in a two bedroom walk-up with his mother, younger brother, and grandfather. They were supported by his grandfather and Anna’s three brothers.

Geisler, however, was bright and resourceful. After graduating high school at fifteen years old, he took a job as a stock boy in a haberdasher store. He made ten dollars a week, half which went to his mother.

In 1942, Geisler married Sylvia Sheer.  A year later, he was drafted into the army, where he, like many Jewish GI’s, Geisler encountered anti-Semitism. When some “Southern boys” began picking on him, he complained to his captain. Geisler never had any problems again. 

Geisler and six thousand other soldiers were shipped over to England. The soldiers were piled ten high in bunks in the bowels of a Liberty ship, which he remembered as a “floating cork.” Geisler and his division landed on Omaha Beach on June 9, three days into what would be known as D-Day.  He then followed General Patton’s 3rd Army through St. Low to Pont de Masson relieving Bastogne and crossed the Rhein and Ruhr Rivers on the way to Magdenburg where he joined General Simpson’s 9th Army on the way to Gottinger. His division was involved in closing the pocket in Hamm where 100,000 Nazis were captured and surrendered.

In May 1945, Geisler’s division entered Dachau concentration camp two days after its liberation. “My father witnessed the ferocity of the evil that the Third Reich had created,” his son Warren, a retired dentist from Albany, New York. ”Those images are still seared into his being until this day” 

“Thousands of corpses were scattered through out the camp,” said Geisler. “Survivors, mostlyJewish, were lice infested, walking skeletons. Still in their striped uniforms, these hollow-eyed slouched over beings managed to still smile as they thanked us GI’s for saving them.”

The war was still not over for Geisler. His division advanced to Pliessen, Czechoslovakia, where they faced off on the banks of the Elbe River against Soviet forces which kept  them from invading Czechoslovakia. Two weeks later he was transferred to Paris where he met up with his brother Maxwell and his recent French bride.

In October 1945, Geisler shipped out on the Queen Mary with 14,000 other GIs back to New York City. Five days at sea with seasickness was the tour du jour. My father never missed a meal and stayed top side for four of the days at sea. Once stateside he was honorably discharged two weeks later. The war and its battles were over.

Geisler found a job as a hosiery salesman for Ma-Ro Corporation, where he became its youngest national sales manager. In 1959, Geisler and  three other salesman opened Proudfoot Hosiery. As the eventual sole owner, Geisler licensed the first National Football League’s tube sock and the first non-slip sock. His company won the licensing for the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. He eventually sold the company, working for the corporations that carried his lines. He retired at 85.

Geisler and Sylvia had four children, Steven, Warren, Edward, and Jayne.  The Geisler was active in the Jewish community and were responsible, along with other Jewish World War II veterans for the founding of Temple Beth Emeth, a conservative synagogue in Hewitt, New Jersey. “They all wanted to work and provide for their families in a religious setting safe from the hell of the war’s mass murder and genocide,” said Warren. All three sons were bar mitzvahed there. Geisler was also a member of the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal organization that provides philanthropic work for numerous causes.

Sylvia passed away in 1971. A year later, he married Enid Friedman, a widow who had three children, Iris, Daniel, and Paul. While enrolled at Princeton University, Paul, a natural athlete and president of the college’s Big Brothers/Big Sisters,  was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer. After his death, the devastated parents donated a library in Paul’s name at the Israel Tennis Association(ITA) in Kyriat Shemona, Israel. 

Geisler’s experiences in the war, Sylvia’s volunteer work for the American Red Cross, and Paul’s legacy instilled in the six surviving children a sense of service and provided a cornerstone for philanthropic  work for the entire family. 

Geisler now lives in an independent living facility in Tamarac, Florida. Although he himself says he is “slowing down,” he paints (a skill he learned when he was ninety years old) and watches sports and operas. He and his 94-year-old friend Evelyn Mitchell step out often for dinner, she in her stiletto heels. “She drives; I buy,” quipped Geisler.

Seventy-three years later, however, the images Geisler encountered in Dachau continue to haunt him. “When I was growing up,  I remember tapping him on the shoulder to wake him up,” recounted Warren. “I immediately stepped back in fear as he jumped up as he were still defending himself.”  When asked to be video-taped the research department of Yad Vashem the world Holocaust memorial Jerusalem, he refused. “He still has nightmares,” said Warren, and he could not relive the horrors.

Geisler is devastated by the atmosphere of hate and intolerance seen today in the world, especially his beloved United States. “I want my children and grandchildren to understand that we are a great people, a great country,” said Geisler. “I worry how the new generation will survive all the current animosity.”

Meanwhile, the Geisler family is planning a big party later this month. His six surviving children as well the eleven grandchildren and five great grandchildren will be there to celebrate the life of what one of the surviving members of The Greatest Generation.

“Many GIs did their duty and sacrificed their lives, limbs, and even their sanity as asked by this nation,” said Warren. “May those who have died either in the war or as long-time veterans rest in peace.”

Geisler himself looks back with gratitude. “I’ve lived a long, wonderful life,” the centenarian said. ”I’ve had two wonderful marriages and seven wonderful children. I am truly blessed.” 

Happy Birthday, Morty. May you live 120 years.

Jewish World, 

Pictures are available through the following link: http://jewishworldnews.org/10-decades-of-memories-patriarch-geisler-to-note-100th-birthday/