Orbit April 2012 - Plainview Jewish Center

ORBIT
PJC YOM HASHOAH PROGRAM 2012
Bernard Gotfryd, Photographer & Author
Wednesday, April 18th at 7pm
Page 10
This year we are honored to have as our keynote
speaker Bernard Gotfryd, world renowned photographer and
author of, “Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the
Holocaust”. Mr. Gotfryd was born in Radom, Poland where
he decided at an early age to become a photographer. He
was hired as an apprentice at a family friend’s photography
studio shortly after World War II broke out, during which time
he linked himself with the Polish resistance. He secretly acquired pictures of Nazi
and Gestapo atrocities which were obtained from rolls of film dropped for
processing and delivered them to the resistance until he was discovered in October
of 1943 and deported to the Maidanek extermination camp. By the time of the
Liberation in May of 1945, he had survived six different concentration camps. He
emigrated to the United States two years later .
Following his military service as a United States Army combat photographer,
he embarked upon a 30-year career as a photojournalist for Newsweek, establishing
himself as a world renowned photographer whose works have been exhibited widely.
It was while working for Newsweek, covering the Holocaust
Survivors Gathering in Washington, D.C., in April 1983, that he was
moved to write about his own experiences. First published in
Newsweek, his stories were eventually published as a collection, titled
“Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust”. Since
his retirement Mr. Gotfryd has been writing and lecturing about his
experiences.
Our Yom Hashoah program will also include lighting of memorial candles by
our own honored Survivors of the Shoah, selected readings by our Hebrew School
Students, as well as the moving reading of the names of those martyrs lost in the
Shoah from our Book of Remembrance.
Please make every effort to attend with your family.
For information, contact Sandy Strenger, PJC Yom Hashoah Chair, 516 642 - 9273