MAYPORT NAVAL STATION, Fla. –
The observance was highlighted by the experiences of Holocaust Survivor Morris Bendit. In October 1941, at the age of six months, his family was deported to a province created by the Germans in Ukraine called Transnistria.
Transnistria was a geographical term referring to the part of the Ukraine conquered by German and Romanian troops in the summer of 1941 until spring 1944.
“My family did the best they could to stay together. Transnistria was like no concentration camp. There were no barracks, and there were no gas chambers. What Transnistria had was hundreds of miles of fields. Transnistria was the ‘killing field,’ a giant, forgotten cemetery,” said Bendit.
Of the 145,000 to 150,000 Jews who had been deported to Transnistria, approximately 90,000 perished there. Out of the 300,000 local Ukrainian Jews, 185,000 died.
“There was no food, no clothing and it was brutally cold. In the concentration camps it was a quick death, but here it was a slow death,” Bendit continued.
“After three years in Transnistria the Russians liberated our camp. Only a handful of my family survived. My mother, grandmother and aunt were the only ones who survived... Most died of starvation and cold,” said Bendit.
After liberation Bendit’s family emigrated to Israel where he eventually served in the Israeli Navy. Bendit then emigrated to Montreal, then the United States to where he lives today, Jacksonville, Fla.
Today, Bendit spends time with his family, including six grandchildren.
The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as our nation's annual commemoration of the Holocaust, memorializing the millions of victims of persecution and mass murder. The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic annihilation of European Jews and other persecuted minorities by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
The SERMC multicultural committee hosts events throughout the year to raise cultural awareness, morale and support understanding.