Recording Holocaust Survivor’s Book for NLS a Mission for LAMP Volunteer

For LAMP Recording Studio volunteer Jeff Elinoff, working to bring the book “How Beautiful We Once Were: A Remembrance of the Holocaust and Beyond” to LAMP patrons as an audio book is a personal mission.

The book was written by Marga Silbermann Randall, whose early years growing up in Germany were marked by the Holocaust. After enduring Kristallnacht, her family went into hiding in Berlin. When her father received a phone call that the Nazis were coming to arrest him, he hung up, had a heart attack and died. She, her mother and sister escaped in 1941, eventually settling in Pittsburgh. Randall joined Temple Emanuel of South Hills, where she established a Holocaust Memorial Garden in 2004.

Her brother, Herbie Silberman (he spelled his last name differently) and his wife ran the Silberberg Bakery on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill until 1981. Jeff remembers, as a child, going with his father to get Challah at the bakery known for its breads and pastries—and getting a cookie. Jeff’s father and Herbie played poker every week at Beth Shalom synagogue, so the families knew each other well.

When Jeff’s sister, who lives in Israel, visited this summer, she brought him Marga’s book. After reading it, Jeff felt compelled to record it. LAMP Recording Studio Manager Mark Sachon is serving as monitor for the recording sessions. When finished, the book will become part of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) collection.

“I lost a lot of relatives in the Holocaust, so I can relate to the book” Jeff says. “I’ve never read anything like this before. I need tissues to read it. They thought they were Germans first and Jews second. Hitler thought otherwise.”

Jeff had a cousin who survived the Holocaust by running away through the woods. The cousin’s family all perished, and he came to America not knowing how to speak English. Jeff was a teenager when he met the cousin. Jeff’s father encouraged him to ask questions to learn more about what his relative had gone through.

Jeff posed the question: “You were running from the Nazis. What was your favorite thing to drink?”

The cousin replied, “hot water,” explaining that while on the run, he didn’t have time to heat up water—if he could even find it.

“I never in my life remember a person being so in love with life,” Jeff says. “We take so much for granted. Every night, I have a glass of hot water and think of him.”

(New books recorded at LAMP can be found at https://mylamp.org/books-recorded-at-lamp-2/)