PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Every year, several hundred Holocaust survivors from throughout Philadelphia and the suburbs get together at the Café Europa luncheon hosted by the Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia.
The event celebrates the end of Hitler’s reign. The survivors eat together, dance together and reminisce.
Café Europa (named after the café in Stockholm where survivors met up after the war) was canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and couldn’t take place this year either for the same reason.
“But we did not want our survivors to think that we, in any way, were forgetting about celebrating liberation,” JFCS President and CEO Paula Goldstein said, “and so this year, instead, we did a very unique thing.”
They got JFCS art therapist and studio manager Debora King involved to work on a special project.
“She talked to kids that we serve in the Philly schools, and she also talked to persons living with disabilities, and asked them what liberation meant to them,” explained Goldstein. “And then, of course, she talked to our survivors who all really focused on loss, and how much they have lost, and liberation really celebrating their life.”
Using those responses, King then created a colorful, elaborate piece of artwork. Goldstein described it.
“It’s a blended teardrop, shaped to show both hurt and replenishment and a healing agent intended to inspire growth,” Goldstein said. “She created a circle, and in the middle of the painting is something that is often used for healing, which is a mandala. And so it’s just a beautiful representation of what she was told.”
The painting was put on notecards, which will be delivered by hand to dozens of survivors in the region on Thursday by JFCS staff. Hundreds of other survivors will receive cards sent through the mail.
“I think that they will understand that we were trying to connect with them in a different way this year, in a non-traditional way, through art,” added Goldstein.
“They can actually send these notecards to people they love and care about.”
The survivors know these cards are coming, but Goldstein expects emotional and joyful reactions when they get their first glimpse of the artwork.
She expects Café Europa to return to an in-person celebration in 2022.