Holocaust survivors share stories during remembrance event in Atlanta

Survivors speak at Holocaust remembrance event in Atlanta

Holocaust survivors and community members gathered Sunday at Greenwood Cemetery in southwest Atlanta for a day of remembrance.

ATLANTA - Holocaust survivors and the community gathered at a memorial in southwest Atlanta on Sunday to share stories of survival and honor the millions of lives lost.

What we know:

Organizers held the annual day of remembrance at the Memorial to the Six Million, located at the Greenwood Cemetery, where victims are interred.

This year marks 61 years that the Atlanta community has gathered on the Sunday after Passover ends to commemorate the victims.

During the ceremony, six survivors spoke to the crowd, including George Rishfeld and Ilse Reiner. 

What they're saying:

Survivor George Rishfeld, who turns 87 in a few weeks, shared how he was saved as a young child in Warsaw, Poland.

"My parents told me that they threw me over a barbed wire fence into the arms of the person that was one of the people that was hiding me," Rishfeld said.

He said he was hidden and kept safe by a Christian family who agreed to raise him as a Christian if his parents did not survive.

Fortunately, Rishfeld said his parents survived, and to this day, he wears a medal of St. Christopher—the patron saint for travelers—on the back of his Jewish star as a reminder of his journey.

With the number of survivors dwindling, organizers felt it was vital to hear from as many as possible.

"We usually have one featured survivor speaker, but due to the fact that they are rapidly leaving us, we like to highlight as many of them that would like to speak," said Karen Lansky Edlin, president of Eternal Life Hemshech.

"I was a young child, aged nine and a half, having gotten kicked out of school for no other reason except that I was Jewish," survivor Ilse Reiner said. "Slowly, we started to receive summons to enter various transports. My first one was to Theresienstadt, which was really a center of foolery."

For Rishfeld, the purpose of speaking is simple.

"It's very important to keep sharing the story because we have to prevent it from ever happening again," he said.

What's next:

Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, officially begins Monday night and continues through Tuesday night.