New Jersey Jewish News
MetroWest Feature
Millburn students give Shoa survivors a reason to celebrate
Phyllis Zagorski got married in an
Austrian hospital. Her dress was sewn from hospital sheets. Her bouquet came from a hospital garden. Her groom, Charles Zagorski, weighed just 70 pounds. That was 59 years ago, just after the Holocaust. The two survivors had lost their entire families, but found each other in the hospital after the war ended.
On April 10, Phyllis was given the opportunity to celebrate her marriage more joyously when 80 students in the Holocaust studies class of Millburn Middle School invited her and 64 other Holocaust survivors to a “Wedding of Your Dreams” at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston.
Couples danced to live music as teenagers looked on. Together, they enjoyed a lavish meal, and cut a large wedding cake with buttercream flowers decorating its many tiers — enough to feed the 325 guests who had gathered.
The evening, like the “Prom of Your Dreams” for Shoa survivors held two years ago, was conceived in the eighth-grade Holocaust studies classroom of Mary Vazquez. As they did for the prom, vendors donated their services, from the fresh flowers to the live music to the catering hall, which was provided by owner Allan Janoff, whose son is in the Holocaust studies class. (He also had a child in the class that created the prom.)
There were poetry readings, candlelightings, and blessings. A highlight of the evening was the entrance of Edwin
Mosberg and his family with a Holocaust Torah, which he had donated to the Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph. “When the last survivor dies, members of Mt. Freedom Jewish Center will attest that they still have one survivor — this Torah,” Mosberg told the guests, inviting the survivors to kiss the scrolls. After a brief hesitation, they gathered around the Torah in an emotional moment.
Vazquez was thinking about survivors’ wedding stories — which she has heard directly from those speaking to her classes, like the Zagorskis, or the four couples who had one ring to pass around among them for their wedding ceremony in a field — when she had an idea.
“The stories are so touching. That was the inspiration. I thought, let’s get more stories, and make a booklet. And then I called [Janoff] and said, ‘You wanna have a wedding?’”
This time around, Vazquez sent students to interview survivors. “It was kind of hard at first,” acknowledged student Amanda Najjar. “It was a bit emotional,” added her friend Tina Moaven. But as they jointly interviewed Holocaust survivor Gina Hochberg Lanceter, they learned how she had met fellow survivor Henryk Lanceter from her hometown of Brody, Poland, in June 1945 and married him two weeks later in Lublin. After their marriage they moved to Berlin, and in 1949, came to the United States. “Tonight it’s nice to see her happy, experiencing what she didn’t get to when she was younger,” said Tina.
While experiences like the Lanceters’ and the Zagorskis’ were not uncommon, not everyone present was married under trying circumstances. Helen and Mayer Kursneiz were married in 1947 in his brother-in-law’s Munich nightclub, under a huppa, with a rabbi to officiate and guests to celebrate with. Herb and Laura Waters of Parsippany
married in New York in 1951 in a hotel in Manhattan near Lincoln Center. Cecile and Norbert Seiden married in Newark in 1958.
Still, they were thrilled with the opportunity to share their stories and enjoy the celebration. “She’s a very concerned teacher,” said Cecile Seiden of Vazquez. “She puts forth great effort, and it shows in these events…Having contact with survivors can have a lasting impact on the students.”
But events like these are getting harder to pull off each year as survivors age and pass away, Vazquez said. Some of those who inspired the event — like Charles Zagorski — did not live to attend the celebration.
When Vazquez got up to speak, she received a standing ovation as she told the survivors, “Listen how your hearts pound inside the children.”
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