Information about the processing of personal data is here  LINKEDINFor mediaPress spokesmanExhibition and Conference CentreCentral location and the opportunity to use various features arising from unique character of the place Brenda and Fred Huss and Susan Snyder look over the Huss family photo album a curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and persuading them to donate their artifacts to the museum pieces of Judaica such as mezuzahs and menorahs Many of the people Snyder meets are reluctant to give away their heirlooms to a stranger “My goal is to meet with people and get to know them,” she said one recent morning in Chicago as she prepared for a meeting with a survivor and her family “They’re not ready to hand over material on the first visit But I want to know what collections are out there.” The museum has a broad definition of what constitutes a Holocaust artifact: it can be anything that dates from between the rise of Nazism in Germany in 1933 to the closing of the Displaced Persons camps in 1949 and it can belong to anyone who was persecuted during the Holocaust Snyder had met Brenda and David Huss and their son Fred during the Chicago stop on the museum’s 20th anniversary tour in 2013 The Husses had given her the basic outline of their story at that meeting: Brenda and David had both grown up in Horodenka David had spent most of World War II in Stavropol Brenda had stayed in Horodenka and survived by hiding in and around the town They’d married sometime after the liberation of eastern Poland in 1944 and Fred had been born in a DP camp in Darmstadt and they arrived in America the following year Snyder had all this information neatly written on pages torn from a small notebook that she kept clipped to a more general fact sheet about the Husses and she had called Fred Huss when she began planning this visit to Chicago Brenda Huss lives in a senior community in the suburb of Deerfield Fred drove up from his home in West Rogers Park with his teenage daughter Tallulah bearing several bags of scrapbooks and two artifacts from his infancy: a pillowcase from his baby carriage and a tin jug that had once held goat milk Brenda was not in her apartment; Fred had to fetch her from a lecture and neatly dressed in a brown pantsuit with a leopard-print scarf knotted around her neck Her face was made up and her hair looked like it had been recently styled Her voice was slightly slurred when she spoke Her father had founded a Jewish school in Horodenka where she’d worked as a teacher and she could read and speak seven languages She did not look like someone who had lived two years in a cave how are they so bloody strong?” Snyder said before she went to meet the Husses “What’s amazing to me is that we assume that the men are strong Snyder began the interview by asking Brenda simple questions that could be answered in a few words raised by their father and grandmother; their mother had died in childbirth “I helped them keep things intact,” Brenda answered “You were cleaning up after torture,” Fred added I would work for them and clean up blood.” He’s an enthusiastic amateur historian and has been researching his parents’ story for the past 20 years “I was keen to fill in as many details as possible,” he told Snyder He has 48 hours of audio recordings of David and Brenda; at one point Brenda helped identify a Gestapo officer by remembering a man who had a limp breathing repository of his parents’ history Brenda herself has told the story so many times that she’s compressed it to the barest essentials Brenda and four of her siblings went into hiding in 1941 Their father and grandmother had been killed in a mass shooting after they dug their own graves; only one person survived (The survivor wrote a poem in Yiddish about it They learned about the cave from a baker’s assistant; they found it by jumping up and down They hunted and foraged for food in the woods and cooked it on a stove a metalworker had made for them back in town Brenda’s sister Rivka and her younger brother Fievel both died from hunger within two weeks of each other; the others buried them at the mouth of the cave We were satisfied with each one’s boulder.” “What about how you would go out at night and sing?” Fred prompted We did not talk about how maybe things would get better Fred began to speak more when it came time to describe his parents’ movements after the war where they were living with other survivors in abandoned houses By the time they arrived in Liegnitz (now Legnica) and they took portraits of Russian soldiers with a Leica camera they’d bought from soldiers who needed money for vodka The first few pages were family photos from before the war Brenda had found some of them in the street after she returned to Horodenka and the visual chronicle picked up again in 1945 at a New Year’s Eve party in Liegnitz The photos show a handsome young couple — Brenda was still just 20 years old—nattily dressed and very much in love blood libel rumors (possibly planted by the Soviets) led to pogroms across Poland; in July the Polish defense minister signed an agreement with Bricha an underground agency that helped Holocaust survivors emigrate to Palestine that allowed Jews to leave the country without visas or exit permits but the plan to immigrate to Palestine fell through because Brenda was pregnant with Fred until the fall of 1949 when they finally were able to leave for Newark While they were trying to make contact with relatives in America Brenda mistakenly wrote to a man in Newark who had the same name as one of her cousins and a lengthy correspondence in Yiddish ensued By the time Brenda and David arrived in Newark the Millers greeted them as though they were part of their own family who had lost most of her biological family through death or separation Fred had collected all the letters in a binder and had them translated by a historian “I can’t believe you saved them!” Snyder exclaimed flipping through the pages covered with neat Hebrew script “These are unbelievable.” She didn’t bother to hide her excitement One of the museum’s current initiatives is a study of the American response to the Holocaust like the immigration quotas that kept Jews out The more material like those letters the museum collects the more complete story scholars will be able to tell which he’d hired a graphic conservator to put together (“If I told you how much it cost,” he told Snyder Snyder examined the documents and other artifacts Fred had brought along: two Hebrew-Yiddish dictionaries from the DP camps an old prayer book Brenda had acquired as a young teacher in Horodenka “You know I’m going to ask you if you’ll donate this I know you’re not ready to part with the documents.” “I’ll have to sit down and think about it,” Brenda said “Maybe duplicates of the photos and the Miller letters?” Snyder suggested “Would you like to give them the Miller letters?” Fred asked Brenda “We can tell the story of how the Millers adopted you,” Snyder said “I wouldn’t mind letting them have the Miller letters,” Fred told Brenda Do you mind if we give them the letters and help the story get told?” Snyder would be leaving Chicago the day after next Brenda and Snyder discussed another woman who lived in Brenda’s community also a survivor with whom Snyder had been in contact and Brenda had made an effort to befriend her “It is because I am not an American,” she explained “So many of you had to go ahead with your lives Long experience has taught her that people won’t part with their heirlooms until they’re ready; one of her colleagues once waited seven years for a diary But she knew the Husses now and their story “Can I give you a kiss?” she asked Brenda as they said goodbye “You’re really remarkable,” Snyder told her Brenda had agreed to donate some of the photographs and the Miller letters Aimee Levitt reports regularly on Chicagoland for the Forward. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter, @aimeelevitt I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association the rescue service received a message that two boys born 2005 and 2008 are drowning while relaxing on the Danube River in the town of Reni a rescuer from 31 fire department rested and when he heard screams The State Emergency Service involved 3 units of fire equipment Another case occurred in the Ivano-Frankivsk region: a man drowned in the local pond of the city of Horodenka at 15:07 the Rescue Service received a call that a resident of the city Horodenka probably drowned while resting on the pond because personal belongings lie on the shore of the pond Rescuers of the 13th State Fire and Rescue Department of the city of Horodenka and employees of the diving and rescue team of the Special Purpose Emergency Rescue Unit of the Main Department of the State Emergency Service in the region were sent to the place of the call the employees of the State Emergency Service lifted the body of the man to the shore in 1992 and handed over to police officers Also on July 23 at 09:50 the Rescue Service “101” received a message that in the bay of the Dnieper River in one of the districts of the city Divers of the Special Emergency Rescue Squad went to the scene As it turned out in the course of the preliminary investigation the parents together with the son in 2008 rested on the river coast the employees of the State Emergency Service found the child's body on the bottom and brought it to shore for forensic examination more than 550 people have died in the waters of Ukraine Be very careful when resting on the water so that it is safe for you and your children strictly follow the advice of rescuers all the time We use cookies to provide you with better navigation on our website you automatically agree to the use of these technologies On October 29 and 30, the round of 16 matches of the Vbet Ukrainian Cup for the 2024/2025 season will take place. This stage of the tournament will feature 16 clubs — eight winners from the third preliminary round and eight teams from the Ukrainian Premier League (UPL) with the highest rankings from the previous season The remaining rounds are scheduled for 2025 and the final of the Ukrainian Cup for the 2024/2025 season will take place on May 14 The location will be determined by the UAF Executive Committee Law enforcement officers appeal to citizens and representatives of the media with a request to help in the search for Anna Vasilyevna Labach Her relative contacted the police about the disappearance of the pensioner The wanted woman left the house on July 18 and has not yet returned The police of the region are focused on the search for the missing person If anyone knows any information that will help in the search for Labach Anna please call the 24-hour service line “102” presumably filmed by the troops themselves appears to have taken place in Kursk Region where Kiev has launched an incursion A video is circulating in social media showing Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers wearing Nazi-style helmets harass an elderly villager in what appears to be Russia's Kursk Region where Kiev has been conducting a cross-border assault over the past week The clip is believed to have been filmed by the soldiers themselves The incident appears to have taken place several days ago but footage of it began to spread online on Thursday The Mash Telegram channel has suggested that the video was shot on August 11 in the village of Zaoleshenka in Sudhansky district Ukrainian soldiers can be seen filming a road sign pointing to the city of Belgorod and Korenevo The camera then pans to what appears to be a camouflaged SUV equipped with a machine gun and a soldier wearing a helmet resembling those of the Schutzstaffel (SS) - responsible for the most brutal atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during World War II The video then shows several pieces of destroyed heavy equipment before panning to an elderly man The soldiers then address the pensioner as "Russian Ivan" and start berating him in German stating that "all Russians are pigs" and telling him to go "drink vodka" The Russian man said he is 74 years old and complained that he has been lost for five days who has reportedly been identified as Alexander Gusarov His relatives said that the last time they spoke to him was on August 6 It's suspected that Alexander may have been killed the SHOT Telegram channel has claimed that it has identified the Ukrainian soldier wearing the Nazi helmet as 38-year-old Vasyl Danilyuk a resident of the city of Horodenka in Ukraine's Ivano-Frankovsk Region leader of the Liberal Democrat (LDPR) party has since announced a 5 million ruble ($56,000) reward for the capture of the Ukrainian fighters who harassed the retiree He stressed that Russians will not tolerate Nazis on their land and called on all doubters of Ukrainian Nazism to "open their eyes." "All those who speak about 'imaginary' Nazism in Ukraine should now choke on their own stupidity," Slutsky said Kiev launched its incursion into Russia's Kursk Region on August 6 Russia's Defense Ministry has since stated that the Ukrainian advance has been halted but Kiev's troops still hold a number of settlements Kiev has lost some 2,640 servicemen and several hundred military hardware units Copyright © 1998-2025 Big News Network All rights reserved. ISSN: 2616-6917