Remembering the Holocaust

The City of Savannah has an active and diverse Jewish community with roots dating back to 1733, the year reform synagogue Mickve Israel was established. In 1907, a Jewish section was designated in Bonaventure and opened to burials. Comprised of Sections P, Q and S, this area is easily recognized by the pebbles covering the headstones and graves, an indication that family and friends have visited.

In 1950, Felix and Manie Budek arranged to have the ashes of Schmul Szcerkowski, Manie's father and World War II Holocaust victim, sent to the United States from a Nazi labor camp at Alem Hanover, Germany. Following a funeral service conducted by the Agudis Achim Conservative Congregation of Savannah, the ashes of Mr. Szcerkowski and 343 others from the camp were buried in lot 415 of Section Q, adjacent to the Jewish burial chapel. The inscription on the headstone reads:

Here lieth a third of the ashes of 344 cremated sacred souls. Victims of the Nazis, including the remains of Schmul, son of Y’Cheel Szcerkowski who was killed on the third of Nison 5705 (March 17, 1945) and brought here from Alem Hanover, Germany.

In the 1960's, Lena Feinberg Rosenzwieg erected a second memorial to Holocaust victims by placing a bench in her family burial space in Section Q, lot 268. Jewish tradition forbids sitting on the bench.