Of some 500 Holocaust survivors who settled in the Denver area after World War II, about 150 are still alive. There will be few living witnesses to the Holocaust in a decade, experts predict. Many survivors are trying to ensure that the worst genocide in modern history is never forgotten. They are recruiting sons and daughters and friends to tell the death camp stories.
Alan Morawiec, a teacher at Summit Ridge Middle School, has chosen to keep alive the memory of the survival story of his father, Chaim Baruch Morawiec, through the Holocaust Shoe Project. Alan Morawiec will be at Abiding Hope Lutheran Church to present his father's story on Sunday (April 15), Holocaust Awareness Day, at 9:30 a.m. His father will also be present. Abiding Hope, 6337 S. Robb Way, Littleton, 303.972.1283,
www.abidinghopelutheran.org, is also collecting shoes for the project this year during this week and the coming weekend. Last year, it contributed more than 1,100 pairs of outworn or outgrown shoes for the project, which distributed more than 7,000 pairs to the Denver Rescue Mission, Mission Ministries and Shoes for Africa, after first displaying them at Summit Ridge.
Why shoes? When the allied troops liberated the concentration camps in Europe during and after World War II, they found thousands upon thousands of shoes in heaping piles. Those who liberated Auschwitz in 1945 reported that the six barracks that escaped fire set by fleeing Nazis contained 38,000 pairs of men's shoes and 5,255 pairs of women's shoes, which had belonged to those who had been executed. The Holocaust Shoe Project is Mr. Morawiec's way to educate people about the Holocaust and do something good by donating the shoes to the needy. Every year, he has have been asking his students to help him collect shoes during Holocaust Awareness Week, which is April 15-22 this year. The project,
www.holocaustshoeproject.org, has collected 19,530 pairs of shoes since its inception.
Chaim Morawiec, the only member of his family to survive the holocaust, was born Jan. 26, 1920, in Parczew, Poland. He had two brothers, Vova and Ebar, and two sisters, Bena and Idas. They were not rich people, but lived a comfortable life. When he was 13, his family moved to a town called Kobryn. Kobryn was much nicer than Parczew. He had a lot of friends and girlfriends.
Chaim was 19 in 1939 when the Germans occupied Poland. His two sisters were taken in 1941 to a labor camp. The family found out later that everyone who was taken that day was executed. His father was also taken to a labor camp and then Chaim was asked to go as well. That was the last day he saw his mother alive. Chaim escaped from the labor camp and wound up in Kobryn. There he found information that his father was still alive and that his mother and brothers were taken and killed. Finally he did find his father alive and was able to spend some time with him. Later on, his father sacrificed his own life in order to save Chaim's. The total number of residents of the town of Kobryn was about 14,000. There were about 7,000 Jews. The total number of Jews who were killed was 6,998, which left only two survivors. Chaim is one of them.
Chaim joined the Polish Underground and eventually the Russian army. He immigrated to the United States in 1950.