New Jersey Jewish News
Greater Monmouth County Feature

A survivor recounts her journey from silence to bearing witness

by Jill Huber
NJJN Bureau Chief/Monmouth

Sidebar: Reaching A New Generation

Although she had survived one of history’s most violent episodes, Claire Boren rarely discussed her experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

“I was very young during the war,” she said, “and I felt it had nothing to do with my adult life.”

Twelve years ago, however, Boren started working with a variety of art forms, including mixed media. Her childhood memories began to emerge through her art and resurfaced in almost every project. Those memories opened a floodgate of emotions for Boren.

“All of a sudden, I was dealing with my past and talking about it,” she recalled. “I wasn’t comfortable when I started the process. But in a strange way, it has promoted a kind of healing, and I realize I am not alone with my memories.”

Boren, a Rumson resident, has since told her story in many public venues, including the 26th annual colloquium of the Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale Community College. The colloquium, which attracts more than 2,000 students, teachers, and community members each year, took place May 11 at the Lincroft campus.

Boren’s workshop, A Chance to Touch History, focused on her wartime experiences and gave attendees an opportunity to ask questions and discuss issues of persecution.

“My memories are vivid — and traumatic,” Boren told audience members, most of whom were students from Monmouth and Ocean counties. “But I’ll tell you what I thought and what I felt during a terrible, terrible time.”

Boren was born in a small Polish town that is now part of Ukraine. Most of the 5,000 people who lived in the prosperous village were Jewish. Her comfortable life changed when she was five years of age; the Germans came and forced Jewish families into a ghetto, where as many as a dozen families were crowded into a single apartment.

When news of the Nazis’ liquidation of the Jews reached her parents, Boren’s father arranged for his wife and daughter to hide with a Christian family who lived in the region. He stayed behind, and Boren vividly remembers bidding him farewell.

“I have an image of walking in a field with my mother and father,” she said. “My father lifted me up and kissed me goodbye. It was the last time I ever saw him.”

The Germans began liquidating her village the next day. Her father escaped the roundup, but was killed by German soldiers several days later.

After spending several months in their first refuge, Boren and her mother were told to leave.

“It was dangerous to hide Jews; there was the constant threat of prison or death for those who did,” Boren said. “The family we were staying with got nervous and scared. They told us we had to go.”

They ventured into a forest with 25 other people from their town. Boren and her mother foraged for food at night and stayed deep within the forest as German soldiers and Polish and Ukrainian collaborators combed the area.

When the weather got colder, her mother and Boren, who was now ill and severely malnourished, walked out of the forest and sought refuge with another farm family. They found a form of refuge that turned into Boren’s “most horrific” experience.

“This family took us in at great risk to themselves,” she said. “They dug a hole in their barn; it was just big enough so my mother and I could lie down together. It was like a grave. It was dark all the time, and I couldn’t separate the days from the nights. I lost touch with reality.”

In the face of the overpowering sense of isolation and to escape from her grim reality, Boren retreated into a silent fantasy world. But soon, the farm family was overcome by fear and Boren and her mother relocated to another nearby village. The two lived more openly there, and there were other children with whom Boren could play and communicate.

One day, Boren hid alone in a shed while her mother returned to their hometown to retrieve money that her father had hidden in their yard. She remembers wondering how she would survive if her mother didn’t come back. Her terror grew when she heard the sound of bombardments in the distance. But her mother made a safe return.

“Years later, when my own daughter was five years old, I looked at her and thought about what was happening to me when I was her age,” Boren said. “She was safe and healthy. When I was that age, I was trying to figure out how to survive if I never saw my mother again.”

The pair was hiding in the attic of another home when, in late 1944, the Russian army liberated the area. In late 1945, the Russians allowed Polish citizens to leave the vicinity. Boren and her mother traveled to Lodz and then to a displaced persons’ camp in Germany. Her mother remarried, and Boren’s sister was born in the camp in 1947.

“The camp was surrounded by barbed wire, and the four of us lived in one room, but I don’t ever remember being hungry there,” Boren said. “I went to school and played with other children. We could run all around. There were people from everywhere, so there was no common language. I learned to speak Russian and Yiddish and Hebrew.”

In 1949, the family immigrated to the United States and lived with a cousin in Queens. Boren learned another new language — and a cruel lesson.

“I thought there was no prejudice in America,” she said. “And then I saw graffiti on subway walls. It said ‘Kill Jews.’”

Boren resumed her schooling. She eventually graduated from Queens College and received a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. In 1961, she married Adam Boren, who was also a Holocaust survivor (the two met on a blind date), and moved to New Jersey in the late 1960s. They are the parents of two children, a son who lives in San Francisco and a daughter who resides in Boston.

When they settled in Monmouth County, Boren befriended people involved with the Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County and has been associated with the group ever since. She is a social worker for the Jewish Family and Children’s Service in Asbury Park and was in charge of the agency’s Russian resettlement program during the 1980s.

She still paints. Her earlier works are dark and disturbing; one painting evokes the image of a hanging she witnessed as a child. Although she has made a conscious effort to work with more vivid colors, sometimes the darkness still prevails.

Whenever she speaks in a public forum, Boren urges her listeners to stand up for their beliefs, to care about the world in which they live, and to be aware of those who continue to suffer the effects of persecution.

“Don’t be silent,” Boren said. “It’s better to fight than to be silent. Do whatever you can to make a better world.”

Reaching a new generation

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS from Monmouth and Ocean counties were a rapt audience as Claire Boren of Rumson talked about her experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

Boren, who was born in a region of Poland that is now part of Ukraine, conducted a workshop, A Chance to Touch History, during the 27th annual colloquium of the Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft on May 11.

The significance of her story of persecution and survival was not lost on the workshop attendees.

“To meet someone who survived that terrible time in history is a unique experience for me,” said Victoria Mercaldi, 16, of Seaside Heights. “I’ve read about the Holocaust and I know there are things that are going on in today’s world, like what is happening in Darfur and other places, where people are being persecuted and killed because of their religious and political beliefs. We need to know these things. We need to act. We need to help.”

When she was in ninth grade, Heather Contreras, 16, of Dover Township was in a class that studied the Holocaust and genocide. The coursework made a lasting impression on the young student.

When presented with the opportunity to meet Boren, Contreras did not hesitate. Boren’s courage was manifested not only in her survival, but in her willingness to share her experiences, she said.

“I wanted to see her, to talk to her, to listen and learn from her,” Contreras said. “It can’t be easy to talk about these experiences, but she came here and told us everything that had happened to her. Only a very brave and caring person could do that.”

When audience members asked about the constant threat of capture and imminent death, Boren responded with candor.

“Once, when my mother and I were hiding in the woods, three men found us and said they were Russian partisans,” she recalled. “They promised to take us to safety. I remember feeling a vague sense of relief; we were so cold and so hungry and so afraid. But my mother recognized them. She knew they were not partisans and that they had already denounced Jews.”

Her mother’s quick thinking resulted in a convincing response that saved their lives, Boren said.

“She told these men that there were other Jews in the area who were looking for safety,” said Boren. “She told the men to stay where they were and wait for her to return with the ‘others.’ My mother and I slipped away, but some of those who were hiding in the forest with us didn’t survive. These partisan imposters killed them.”

And when asked if she could ever return to the area where she had suffered so much, Boren said she had already made the journey.

“Many years after I had settled in the United States, I went back to the town where I was born,” Boren said. “I saw the house where I had once lived happily with my mother and father. I took a picture of it. It looked so serene. It was a strange yet moving experience.”

Several students asked Boren about her feelings toward those who had caused her and her family so much pain.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years,” she replied. “I think I’m most upset with the Polish people who lived near my family; they didn’t help the Jews and they denounced us. But you can’t hate endlessly. People are individuals, and I try not to think in terms of collective guilt.”

Her training as a social worker has helped her face her past, while adding meaning to her life, she added.

“It has made me think about how each person is really alone and how individuals can become isolated,” Boren said. “Helping people mix with society means there will be less prejudice, less hatred, more understanding, more tolerance. I’ve learned that hatred eats away at the person who hates.”

— JILL HUBER

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