Garden City Holocaust Survivor Speaks At Israeli Consulate

NEW YORK CITY, NY — For the first time, the Consulate General of Israel in New York hosted a Zikaron BaSalon Yom Hashoah event on the evening of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, and invited a Garden City Holocaust survivor to speak.

In English, Zikaron BaSalon roughly means “remembrance in the living room,” and it’s the name for the growing practice of hosting survivors in private homes to tell their stories.

Israeli Ambassador Asaf Zamir welcomed Holocaust survivor Renée Kann Silver, 91, of Garden City, to the consulate’s inaugural Zikaron BaSalon. The program featured an hour-long discussion, where Silver addressed a small, intimate crowd of friends, journalists, influencers and elected officials.

“The latest [Anti-Defamation League] report doesn't just report a rise in antisemitic attacks in New York and nationwide,” Zamir said. “It also shows frighteningly high numbers of Americans who know little to nothing about the Holocaust. There's even a scary number of people who actually believe Jews were responsible for the Holocaust."

Silver, a Holocaust survivor who was born in the German state of Saarland in 1931, recalled her experiences living as a Jewish child among the culture of German Nazism and Vichy France. Eventually, her family was deported to the Gurs concentration camp in southern France. Two years later, Silver and her sister were sent to the Protestant community of Le Chambon. She also described her family’s reunion and escape to Switzerland. Silver was introduced to the consulate by the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County.

Daniella Greenbaum Davis, an Emmy-award winning producer and columnist, moderated the event.