Yavneh Academy had the privilege of hosting Mr. Zelik and Mrs. Minde Diamond for Yom Hashoah. The Diamonds told their stories of survival during the Holocaust.

The Diamonds, both from the town of Dohlinev in eastern Poland, spoke first of life in pre-war Poland, later Russian and German, occupations. The brutal reality of the period was punctuated with touching sensitivity, appropriately conveyed for the middle school students.

After experiencing the massacre of their town’s Jews, as well as members of their families, they fled, separately, to the forests of Eastern Europe where they spent the remainder of the war. They spoke of their miraculous survival and the insurmountable challenges that they overcame through Hashem’s care and protection.

Mr. Diamond was a partisan with one of the largest companies of partisans in Eastern Europe. After marrying in a DP camp, the Diamonds came to America, to Omaha, Nebraska, where they raised a God fearing family. They recently moved to Monsey to live near their large and beautiful family.

Third and fourth grade students viewed Yavneh Academy’s Torah scroll which was rescued from the Nazis from from Vyskov, Czechoslovakia, and presented by the Class of 1985. As explained by Assistant Principal, Rabbi Steven Penn, the curtain for the Torah scroll showcase is only raised once a year, on Yom Hashoah. Morah Sorah Shaffren sat with her students in front of the Torah and sang a very moving song to the students, “Place Where I Belong.” The song tells the experiences and feelings of a Torah scroll in the first person, from its creation by a scribe in Kiev and regular use there in a shul, to its eventual resting place in an American museum.