Local survivors help mark museum’s 10th

At age 77, William J. Lowenberg of San Francisco was one of the youngsters who poured into Washington, D.C., last weekend.

Visitors came by the thousands, many in wheelchairs and walkers and accompanied by children and grandchildren.

The occasion was the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a ceremonial event that drew 6,800 survivors, relatives, liberators and rescuers from 37 states.

"We were all blown away," said Lowenberg of the turnout. A survivor of Auschwitz, he is the former vice chair of the museum's council that helped create the institution.

"The survivors wanted to do something," said Lowenberg, who delivered closing remarks at a dinner Saturday. He told some 4,000 participants in the city's convention center that "tonight is proof that indeed we did prevail."

Since opening in April 1993, the museum has attracted more than 20 million visitors from around the world.

In addition to Lowenberg, the Bay Area attendees at the anniversary event included a contingent of five survivors accompanied by Lola Fraknoi, manager of survivor services for Jewish Family and Children's Services of the East Bay.

Rather than being a somber event, "there was a lot of joy," said Fraknoi. She likened the gathering to a monstrous family reunion where people repeatedly walked up to one another in the crowds because they resembled acquaintances from their past.

Underscoring the high spirits was a fierce determination to mark this occasion, participants said. There was a keen sense that a 20th anniversary would have a far different look.

"The most important thing for me and my clients was to feel this is the last hoorah," said Fraknoi. "It was truly the last time everyone is going to be sitting together under one roof."

Because of the survivors' advanced age and sheer numbers, simply riding the elevators and walking down a long corridor for Saturday's dinner held in the cavernous convention center was a 90-minute process, said Fraknoi.

The East Bay group included four socially active women survivors who were trailed around for the event by an independent film crew making a documentary about their lives and reactions to the anniversary.

Also in attendance was Benjamin Sieradzki, a 75-year-old Berkeley man who survived the Lodz Ghetto and a German slave labor camp.

"Obviously it's the last chance these people are going to have to get together," Sieradzki said.

On Saturday, Sieradzki joined three other survivors to honor their liberator, Vernon Tott of Sioux City, Iowa.

Matthew E. Berger of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency contributed to this story.