Hidden Child of the Holocaust – An Historic Evening with Survivor Janet Applefield on Cape Ann

On April 7th, the Chabad Jewish Center of Cape Ann will have the honor to host Mrs. Janet Applefield as she shares her story of survival, hope, and resilience at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA. The lecture will be accompanied by a musical performance featuring the New England Klezmer, which includes Yaeko Miranda, Jim Prendergast & Sonny Barbato.

Janet feels it is her mission to spread messages of how to live one’s life, overcoming hatred with resilience, grace, dignity, love and forgiveness by sharing her personal story of survival. Janet feels strongly about letting people know the horrors she went through so that future generations will make sure it will never happen again. We will unite to send a clear message against hate and intolerance.

“To create a better future, it is important to be aware of our past. Rabbi Avremi Raichik, co-director of Chabad of Cape Ann, revealed that 66% of American millennials either do not know or cannot remember what “Auschwitz” is. He further added that within the tragic stories of the Holocaust, there are profound, uplifting messages of hope and the strength of the human spirit. The event aims to help participants gain a deeper understanding of the disastrous effects of prejudice, racism, and hatred and how we can work together to prevent such things from happening in the future.”

For more details and to purchase tickets, please visit www.capeannsurvivor.com

Partnership and corporate sponsorship opportunities are available for this event. Reach out to Rabbi Avremi Raichik at Rabbi@Chabadcapeann.com for more details.

About Janet

Born Gustawa Singer in 1935 in Nowy Targ, Poland, Janet and her family enjoyed a comfortable and stable life until the Nazi invasion in 1939. A clinical social worker, Janet will recount how at just seven years old, she witnessed her mother being transported to the death camp at Belzec and her father being assigned to forced labor. Janet witnessed unimaginable danger and the love, courage, and dedication of a few extraordinarily righteous citizens who saved her life.

When Janet first arrived in the U.S. in 1947, her father asked her to write everything she could remember since they were separated in August of 1942. During his life, they never spoke about their collective torture. There is a lot of guilt in survivors whose stories didn’t include concentration camps, so Janet considered herself someone not worthy of discussing. Her notes from her arrival were rediscovered by her family in 1984 and became a blueprint for self-discovery. Her written account, originally in Polish, is now recognized as “righteous among nations” at Yad Vashem in Israel and Janet can share her trauma and the traumas experienced by her family through this memoir, interviews, and speaking engagements.

Janet speaks openly about her experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust with thousands of people each year through regular speaking engagements with libraries, schools, houses of worship, and government agencies. Her talks raise awareness and understanding of the dangers of prejudice and encourage audiences to stand up to any kind of discrimination and injustice. In 2021, she was invited to tell her story before the Massachusetts State Legislature, on the occasion of the passage of Bill H.692, an act mandating statewide genocide education in all secondary schools.

Janet documented her story in her forthcoming memoir, Becoming Janet: Finding Myself in the Holocaust. You can read more about Janet on her website.