Maryam Belopolskaya said it was “very hard” growing up in Ukraine under the shadow of World War II.
Her family fled fighting and persecution. And after the war, when her family moved to Kyiv, Belopolskaya said her mom made sure they celebrated important Jewish holidays.
“Even in Kyiv my mom used to make matzo herself from scratch, and we celebrated even there,” said Belopolskaya, who will be 87 next month. But now she doesn’t have family left, she said, so she celebrates the holidays with a new one.
On Wednesday, Belopolskaya joined more than 200 other Holocaust survivors for an early Passover Seder celebration in north suburban Deerfield. The event was hosted by CJE SeniorLife and Holocaust Community Services in partnership with the Jewish United Fund and Maot Chitim of Greater Chicago.
The gathering meant the world for Belopolskaya, who said the Jewish community should embrace every opportunity to uplift each other.
“We need to be united. We need to be together to fight all the bad stuff that is going on,” Belopolskaya said. “It’s very important to keep unity.”
The Jewish holiday of Passover — which commemorates the liberation of ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt — doesn’t begin until Saturday, but attendees enjoyed the traditional meal that is held at the start of the holiday a couple of days early.
Their Seder plates included traditional foods with deep meaning behind them: matzo to symbolize the haste in which people were forced to flee Egypt leaving no time for bread to rise, and bitter herbs like horseradish to symbolize the bitterness of slavery.
Most survivors at the event were from the former Soviet Union, according to Maya Gumirov, director of survivor services at CJE SeniorLife. Many weren’t allowed to celebrate their Jewish faith openly at home because of the persecution they faced.
“For them to be here is very important,” Gumirov said, adding that 235 survivors registered for Wednesday’s event. “Considering their age and health conditions and what they went through that’s absolutely amazing.”
CJE SeniorLife’s Holocaust Community Services provides housing, food, medical care and more for survivors. It also helps those like Belopolskaya find communities so they don’t feel alone.
“We have a huge group of volunteers and staff who will be greeting today and helping survivors feel at home, that they are celebrating this holiday as a community,” Gumirov said.
Those volunteers included students from Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago, who led the Passover Seder ceremony.
Jeff Ellison, who teaches a class on the Holocaust at the school, said it was a good opportunity for the students to learn from survivors, and listen to their experiences.
“They become a witness as a result of meeting a witness, and they just want to touch them, have some kind of contact because it’s like touching history,” Ellison said.
He added that it’s important for the survivors to be able to lean on each other and talk to someone who can truly grasp and understand their hardships.
“It’s incredibly powerful for the survivors to gather together because they share something that none of us can almost imagine what they went through,” Ellison said, adding that he thinks seeing the students gives survivors hope for the future.
“I think that for the survivors to see the students leading this Seder is so meaningful because it means that there is continuity, that Hitler didn’t achieve his goal,” Ellison said.
Belopolskaya agreed, and said she loved seeing the new generations that will continue their traditions.
“It’s so good that they can learn these lessons and keep going on with all of these customs,” Belopolskaya said.