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FROM THE NAPLES DAILY NEWS

Sunday marked the first full day of Passover - one of the most sacred holidays in the Jewish religion. NBC2's Amie McLain spoke to a Holocaust victim who spent six weeks in a Nazi boxcar and found out why Passover means so much to her.

Inside the Southwest Florida Holocaust Museum, Rose Nortman shared painful memories of living through the torture.

"If you're not strong, you will die right away over there," said Nortman.

The Nazis invaded Poland on her wedding day and Nortman and her husband were separated. After that, she was forced to live inside a Nazi boxcar for six weeks. And because it was crammed with 150 people, it was standing room only.

But the toughest moment for Nortman came after she left the boxcar and was taken to a concentration camp. There, she gave birth to her first son. But at just six-weeks-old, he ultimately died from starvation. She says no one would help her baby boy.

"I said, 'You see this baby is dying.' And he said, 'No it has a fever.' I went to the cemetery and I buried the baby," said Nortman.

On this Passover, as Jews celebrate how God spared their first-born sons during bondage in Egypt, Nortman can't help but remember how her first born was taken from her.

Sunday, Nortman and her son Jack spent the holiday touring the museum and remembering the horrors.

"We always remember at Passover, what they went through," said Nortman.

While Passover celebrates the Jewish lives that were spared, the Nortman family can't forget the lives that were taken thousands of years later.

The boxcar seen in Amie McLain's video will be put on display at Seacrest Country Day School starting Monday morning.

Video Link:
Click here

KATRINA AURELIO has joined as Administrative Assistant reporting to the Director of Volunteers. Katrina holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Hillsdale College, MI. She is located at the front desk in the Museum. Please welcome Katrina and make yourself known to her when you visit the Museum

CARA ZASOBA has joined in the new position of Public Relations Assistant reporting to me. Cara earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Florida Gulf Coast University. She will be assisting in administering our public relations and events programs. Please welcome Cara when you visit the Museum.

These two important appointments will help us handle the Museum’s fast growth and expanded education and outreach programs.

BOXCAR
For information about the Boxcar arrival, restoration and dedication,
click here.

Oral / Visual History Project
For over three years volunteers at the Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida have been interviewing local Holocaust survivors. The purpose is not only to preserve experiences by archiving these memoirs, but to provide a permanent educational resource for local teachers, students and the public.

Project coordinator, Hadassah Schulman and her cadre of trained volunteers, have completed more than thirty interviews. John Maniska, award winning videographer, has been invaluable in this documentation project.

The Oral/Visual History project has been underwritten through grants from the Jewish Federation of Collier County, the Community Foundation of Collier County, Bruce and Cynthia Sherman and Ann Jacobson. The interviewers and project coordinator are all volunteers. The interviewers include: Karen Ezrine, Monica Goodwin, Jan Larson, Sunie Levin, Karen Orman, Anita Posner, Janet Rosenbaum, Val Sarwin, Bernard Shochet, Hilda Taylor and Mary Ann Vincent. Sister Prince has served as consultant to the project and assisted in training the interviewers. Ann Jacobson is the Holocaust Museum Board liaison.

The Museum is seeking additional persons to interview who have been Holocaust survivors, witnesses, hidden children and liberators. The mission is to preserve these testimonies as a primary source that will allow future generations to hear and see the people who experienced or witnessed crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators. The testimonies of both Jewish and non-Jewish survivors, witnesses and liberators are needed so that as many eye witnesses to the Holocaust as possible may have their personal experiences documented. Please call Hadassah Schulman at 239-498-5271 or Ann Jacobson, 239-262-4880 for additional information.

Some of the survivors that have been interviewed for the Project are featured on the boxcar information page

The Calendar of Events has been announced.
Click here to find out more ..

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