2018: Robert Max, Survivor. An American soldier who escaped and survived a Nazi slave labor camp in WWII. 2017: Ed Bindell, born in Lwow, Poland in 1938. A hidden child, he survived by living for three years (1941-1944) with a righteous person, Jozia Remus. Jozia was Ed’s nanny before the war. His mother survived by hiding outside Lwow, but his father was murdered. In 1945 his mother remarried creating a family with a new father and sister. They moved to various Displaced Persons camps in Germany as a way to escape the Russians. The family left Germany for the US in 1952. Ed has been coordinating the “Twin with a Survivor “ program since 2005. He feels this is the most rewarding work he has ever done. Ed retired from the business world in 1998 and is currently living in Montclair.
2016: Mother of South Orange resident Sheryl Hoffman, Ilona Medwied, a hidden child survivor and one of those displaced persons, shared her remarkable story of survival and adjustment. 2015: Marsha Kreuzman, survivor
2014: A dramatic narrative, based on the testimony of 20 local men and women who survived the Holocaust.
2013:Larry Pantirer, son of the late Murray Pantirer, a Schindler Jew, spoke about his father's experience in and after the Holocaust.
2012: Ronald Meier; New York Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League
2011:Harry Ettlinger, member of the 'Monuments Men" tasked with saving Europe's artwork and culture during World War II and Co-chair of the Raoul Wallengberg Foundation. Rabbi Jehiel Orenstein received the Sister Rose Award and served as a second speaker at the service.
2010:Clara Kramer, a survivor who was hidden with 18 others in a pit dug in the basement of a Righteous Christian.
2009:Norbert Bikales, a survivor sent to France as a child. Norbert was a Child of Chabannes, one of many children who spent the war in this now famous orphanage.
2008:Ursala Korn Selig, a survivor who was hidden with her mother by a priest in Italy.
2006:Ursala Pawel, a survivor of Auschwitz. Her story is told in the book My Child Is Back.
2005:Jaap Penratt, a Dutchman who saved 406 Jewish lives by forging documents for them. His talk was entitled "Forging Freedom - The 60th Anniversary of Liberation".
2004:Gena Lanceter, a survivor who was pushed from a train bound for an extermination camp by her parents in order to save her life. Gena survived through the help of a railroad worker, a priest and many Righteous Christians.
2003: Professor Johannes Morskink, "The Holocaust and Human Rights"
2002:Sister Rose Thering, co-founder of the annual commemoration, spoke at the 25th Anniversary Service.