by Elaine Durbach
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central

May 21, 2009

The timing could not be better, Luna Kaufman said. The Polish Holocaust survivor received an honorary doctorate from Seton Hall University last week, on May 11. Next week, on May 27, at that same venue, she will celebrate the publication of her autobiography, Luna’s Life: A Journey of Forgiveness and Triumph.

“You know the Hebrew word ‘beshert’— ‘meant to be’? The timing couldn’t be more perfect,” she told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview last week from her home in Manhattan. Kaufman divides her time between there and Warren.

She is thrilled by the evidence she sees around the world of a coming together among people of different faiths. “People are starting to realize that they will have to work together,” she said. She sees what is happening within her own life as part of that trend.

By all accounts, Kaufman is generally effervescent, but she declared herself even more so than usual at the moment. “I am on another planet,” she exclaimed. It was hard to tell what she was more delighted about.

It might have been the PhD bestowed on her by Seton Hall in recognition of her “achievements and her example,” according to university president Monsignor Robert Sheeran.

“I must be the only person in this country to get a doctorate without even going to high school,” she said. Though she later became a musicologist, as a child in Cracow, Poland, her education was cut short by the onslaught of the Holocaust.

Or maybe the biggest thrill is her book, 20 years in the writing. Family, friends, and colleagues advised and encouraged her all those years, but, she said, she found herself logjammed. About 18 months ago, Sheeran introduced her to editor Greg Tobin, who helped her focus her intentions and get over her fear of sounding “too preachy.”

Most important for her, she said, is that she managed to turn the story of the tragic loss of most of her family — only she and her mother survived from her immediate family — and her torturous journey from concentration camps to freedom into a triumphant account of a life well lived and of reconciliation between Jews and Catholics.

Or maybe her greatest satisfaction now comes from the people who will participate in the May 27 event. The evening is being cosponsored by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. Among the guests will be Susanna Kokkonen, the Finnish woman who heads the Christian Friends of Yad Vashem, and Eli Zborowski, chair of the American Society for Yad Vashem.

Kaufman met Kokkonen last summer when she went with Sheeran and others to Yad Vashem. “She is a beautiful young woman,” said Kaufman, “and she has a tremendous grasp of what the Jewish people went through.”

Kaufman’s own commitment to intergroup respect and partnership started way back, with the friendship her parents shared with their Polish neighbors and the memory of how those neighbors risked their own safety by offering to hide her family.

Much as she reveres such bravery, it still rouses anger in her when others judge harshly the people who did not offer help to the embattled Jews. “I always ask, ‘What would you have done if you had been in their position, if your children were in danger? You can’t demand that people endanger their lives.”

Her greatest desire, Kaufman said, is to be like “a Jewish counterpart of Sister Rose.” She worked closely over the years with Thering, the Catholic nun and Seton Hall professor who devoted much of her life to building bonds between Catholics and Jews. She died three years ago, on May 6.

The proceeds from the sale of Kaufman’s book will benefit the Sister Rose Thering Endowment for Jewish-Christian Studies at Seton Hall. The fund provides scholarships for teachers to take a master’s degree in the subject, the only course of its kind in the United States. Kaufman chaired the endowment until recently, and still serves in an emeritus capacity.

On a visit to her old primary school in Cracow a few years back, Kaufman saw emblazoned on a wall a quote from Marshal Josef Pilsudski, the first chief of state of an independent Poland. She said she chose to put it at the start of her book, because these words define her approach to life: “To be defeated and not to succumb is a victory. To be victorious and rest on your laurels is a defeat.”

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