COOPER CITY, Fla. — Hana Altarac, whose Jewish family, including her father and sister, died at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, marked her 106th birthday on Jan. 31.
Altarac was 18 when she left her native Sarajevo with her husband and traveled to Italy, France, Algeria, and Canada. She eventually moved to the U.S. in 1966.
Altarac, who has three daughters, seven grandchildren, 35 great-grandchildren, and 17 great-great-grandchildren, was a guest of honor on Wednesday.
“It brings me such joy to see all of our efforts help these survivors reach 100 with dignity, with family, and surrounded by celebration,” said Masha Pearl, the executive director of The Blue Card Fund, a nonprofit organization that helps survivors.
Altarac, Hanna Gaon, and Leon Schagrin — the author of “The Horse Adjutant: A Boy’s Life during the Nazi Holocaust” — were among the nearly 130 guests at an early celebration on Wednesday of Holocaust Survivor Day at Temple Beth Emet in Cooper City.
The global celebration to honor the resilience of the survivors of the state-sponsored genocide of six million Jewish people between 1933 and 1945 has been observed annually on June 4 since 2021.
Schagrin, who was born in Grybów, Poland, turned 99 on Oct. 30. His memoir describes how he was forced to spend his childhood in ghettos and concentration camps, including Tarnów, Szebnia, and Auschwitz III.
The Blue Card Fund and Goodman Jewish Family Services of Broward County, a social services organization based in Davie, organized a busy itinerary that included a Medal of Honor ceremony, a student choir, and time for intergenerational dancing.
“You think about their stories, their perseverance, things they’ve experienced in their lives, the stories they could share, the stories they can tell,” said Randy Colman, the president and chief executive officer of Goodman JFS. “It’s important that we never forget and we always remember.”
Gaon, 88, also from Sarajevo, said her father was detained and held in a concentration camp in Croatia. She and her mother were in a labor camp before fleeing to the U.S. without him.
“They came to get my father in September of 1941,” Gaon said during the event.
Liliana Ferber, Betty Eisdorfer, Saul Dreier, David Elefant, Herman Haller, Rosa Lindenberg, Frances Gaspar, Altarac, and Schagrin, who turns 100 on Oct. 30, were inducted into the survivors’ Centenarian Club.
Ferber, who was born in Poland, is 100. She survived in a ghetto and in hiding, and her journey forced her to learn to speak five languages: Polish, Hebrew, German, French, and English.
Dreier, who was born in Poland, is 101. He is a drummer. He and his fellow survivor, Reuwen “Ruby” Sosnowicz, co-founded the Holocaust Survivor Band.
Elefant, who was born in Romania, is 101. He survived Auschwitz, Hirschberg, and Bunzlau. He lived in Israel and moved to the U.S. in 1984.
Haller, who was born in Germany, is 101. He survived Auschwitz, and the Death March to Breslau before U.S. soldiers freed him on April 11, 1945.
Eisdorfer, who was born in Germany, is 101. She credits the survival of her and her younger brother to a Kindertransport to England in 1939.
Lindenberg, who was born in Germany, is 102. She fled to Belgium after Kristallnacht and lived in England and New York.
Gaspar, who was born in Czechoslovakia, is 105. She survived in the Nazi’s Budapest ghetto. She lived in Israel and moved to the U.S. in 1957.
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