Holocaust Remembrance Day Event Commemorates Victims’ Lives and Survivors’ Spirit
In collaboration, Temple Beth Abraham and Rivier University will welcome Margot Schrader, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, to their annual observance of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, on April 11.
This event commemorates the lives and heroism of Jewish people who died in the Holocaust.
Margot Schrader will share her personal journey of unraveling her family’s tragic history in her presentation “Survivor Spirit: The Schrader Family Story.” Margot, a licensed clinical mental health counselor in Manchester, is named after her grandmother who died in Auschwitz in June of 1943.
Her father, Bodo Schrader, was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1941. His mother was arrested for refusing to sign the middle name “Sara” on her identification papers to indicate her Jewish heritage. Bodo’s father, Karl Schrader, was not Jewish and was serving in the Nazi army. He refused direct orders from his commanding officer to divorce his Jewish wife and was sent to a labor camp as punishment. Bodo was a barely a year old when his parents were taken from him and his three siblings.
In February 2016, Schrader began to research her father’s history. She corroborated some of Bodo’s early memories with documentation, but could not verify others, like his memory of spending time in Israel.
The documentation revealed that the Nazis herded Bodo, barely four years old and unaccompanied, to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After the camp was liberated, he went to Munich. In 1949, Bodo immigrated to the United States, spending time at the Chicago Children’s Home before a local Jewish family adopted him.
Schrader has discovered living relatives in Germany, many of whom still live in and around Magdeburg, including Bodo’s half-brother. She continues to search for answers and closure.
In addition to Schrader’s presentation and question-and-answer session, there will be a candle-lighting ceremony memorializing the Holocaust victims. Temple Beth Abraham’s Zimria Choir will perform with the Nashua Community Interfaith Choir at this observance.
The April 11 event will take place at 7 p.m. at Temple Beth Abraham on 4 Raymond Street in Nashua. It is free and open to the public; no RSVPs are necessary. For more information, contact Sheryl Rich-Kern at (603) 881-7264 or email her at sherylrichkern@gmail.com.