Sandra Scheller says she “was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust” as a daughter of two survivors of the Nazi extermination campaign against European Jews during World War II.
The story of Scheller’s mother, Ruth Goldschmiedova Sax, inspired Scheller to write “Try to : Never Forget” in 2016. The book chronicled Sax’s life from her upbringing in central Czechoslovakia to her surviving three Nazi concentration camps and finding happiness in the United States. She died in 2018 at age 90.
But Sax’s story is not the only piece of history Scheller is determined to sustain. In 2020, she formed “ Us The Holocaust,” or “RUTH,” an exhibit dedicated to honoring living Holocaust survivors. The title is a nod to her mother’s name.
“RUTH” features a collection of artifacts, keepsakes and stories from a dark time in history. Alongside descriptions and artifacts from the lives of survivors in San Diego County are life-size cut-outs of them.
“I won’t show the face of a Nazi, but I’ll definitely show the face of a Holocaust survivor,” Scheller said. “For so long, when they were in camps, they were known as a number. They have a name.”
The exhibit was held temporarily in Chula Vista — where Scheller lives — and at the Rancho San Diego library and now has a new home for this year: the Joan and Irwin Jacobs annex on the second floor of the La Jolla/Riford Library. It will run there from Sunday, Jan. 12, to Sunday, Dec. 14.
The La Jolla exhibit, while retaining the spirit of previous iterations, is an expansion of Scheller’s work.
“We have more memorabilia than we’ve ever had before at any exhibit — and it’s very rare Holocaust memorabilia along with World War II memorabilia — because of the donations we have received from people in San Diego,” Scheller said.
“RUTH” intends to educate visitors on the timeline of the Holocaust and the stories of survivors who resettled in the San Diego area.
One of them is Ben Midler, now a public speaker and a resident of Carlsbad.
As documented in his 2018 book, “The Life of a Child Survivor from Bialystok, Poland,” Midler was orphaned at age 13 and survived concentration camps and death squads.
Midler considers himself a “miracle survivor” and said he hopes his life story will achieve two things: fight Holocaust denial and teach people to “oppose racism, hatred and bigotry in all its forms to all types of people.”
Midler says his positive mindset amid tragedy enabled him to build a wonderful life.
“My motto is ‘Yesterday is gone, today is today and tomorrow will be a better day,’” he said. “And it gives me the strength and the power to be what I am today.”
La Jolla’s “RUTH” exhibit pays homage to local Holocaust survivors Edith Eger, a psychologist and author, and the late Fanny Krasner Lebovits, an author and speaker.
Scheller described Eger as “one of the most vibrant, incredible women” she knows and Lebovits as “pure, elegant, honest and real.”
Eger was 16 when she was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1944. Her parents were killed there. She and her sister Magda survived and were liberated from the Gunskirchen camp the following May.
Eger has written two books for adults intended to share lessons from the Holocaust — “The Choice: Embrace the Possible” (2018) and “The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life” (2020) — as well as “The Ballerina of Auschwitz,” released in October as an edition of “The Choice” intended for young readers 12 and older.
Eger, a trained ballet dancer and gymnast from Hungary with hopes of making the Olympics, used dancing to help her survive the Holocaust after infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” forced her to dance for him at Auschwitz.
“I wrote this book to invoke strength and resilience in my readers and in hope for a better world where we dance instead of fight, where love is stronger than hate,” Eger told the La Jolla Light last year before the release of “The Ballerina of Auschwitz.”
“I also feel strongly that young people [should] know about this time in history,” she added. “It’s my responsibility and my great privilege to be in conversation with young people, to inform and them as they shoulder the task of building a better world and accept the freedom to embrace a rich and joyful life, no matter what setbacks or hardships they encounter.”
Lebovits died in 2023 at 100. She called her life a “miracle” — she survived four concentration camps, as documented in her 2019 book, “Memories, Miracles & Meaning: Insights of a Holocaust Survivor.”
In April 2023, Lebovits told the Light that she had made it her mission “to tell the story and show the world that hate is no good. But love will survive.”
She said she wanted people to “the tragedy of my people,” hoping her story would help prevent more suffering.
“Be hopeful, be positive,” she said. “See the bad things in people but also see the good things.”
Milton Krasner, her youngest son, has owned and operated Krasner Jewelers in La Jolla since 2001. He was unaware of his mother’s story when he was young, as she hoped to start fresh and protect her children from knowing about what she went through.
But after Krasner moved from South Africa to the United States and talked with his mother’s sister, he understood the gravity of what she experienced.
“My mother is [one of] a handful of people that survived that are in that exhibit … and all the others are also incredibly important,” Krasner said. “There’s some really wonderful people who are also memorialized in that. … It’s very potent, and it gets a point across.”
Among Scheller’s hopes for the exhibit are collaboration with local schools, collecting additional artifacts and finding it a permanent home. San Diego isn’t among the many large cities that have Holocaust museums or public monuments.
“A lot of schools go to the L.A. Holocaust Museum, [and] that’s great if you want to spend three hours on a bus going up and three hours back,” Scheller said. “But here you have the chance to walk through an exhibit. It’s not as extensive, but it’ll answer a lot of questions and raise a lot of awareness for teachers wanting to teach the Holocaust.”
Scheller plans to be at the La Jolla library exhibit at 7555 Draper Ave. from noon to 2 p.m. every Tuesday and also can set up meetings through emails. An opening reception is scheduled for 2 p.m. Jan. 12 at the library.
To Scheller, email [email protected] or visit ustheholocaust.org. ♦
