In May and June, we welcomed former Jews from Leipzig in our city with their children and grandchildren. It was a privilege to celebrate with Josef Aaron his 81st birthday. He enjoyed the comfort and security in the home of family Kluge. He shared his horrifying memories of Bergen-Belsen with pupils from the Reclamgymnasium (Reclam high school). Josef reached their heart. Their written letters and a collection of money for him are evidence of this.
The artistic director of the Semper Opera House in Dresden fulfilled his wish of visiting a ballet show. One of the highlights of his stay was the participation of the "March of Life" of the TOS congregation on Yom HaShoah, the memory day of the victims of the Holocaust on 4th of May as well as an interview during the church service in the Andreas church together with the survivor Ruth Rack from Sydney. The couple Winfried and Margit Buller made her stay and the financing as well as the placing of the stumbling stones for her family possible. She and her companion stayed during their visit at the home of family Buller. This stay in Leipzig brought a lot of healing in her heart.
At the beginning of June, a group of former Leipzig Jews that survived the Holocaust and their descendants were invited by the city. My wife and I had the pleasure to get to know Tamara and her grandchildren Yael and Elia. Tamara was able to flee with her parents on time from Nazi-Germany at first to Poland and then to Chile. It was not until the nineties that she and her daughter made Aliyah to Israel. Today she lives with her granddaughter Yael in Yoknam near Haifa. The other daughter lives in Santiago de Chile together with her son Elia. We started a path of reconciliation that we would like to continue in Israel.
