Group of Holocaust survivors in Los Angeles builds community at "Café Europa" honoring their pasts
Los Angeles has one of the largest concentrations of Holocaust survivors in the country and there's a group of centenarians in Fairfax who meet regularly to build community.
At 107 years old, Risa Egelfeld is the unofficial matriarch of this Elite Survivors Club. As a young college student, Egelfeld watched families being rounded up in Austrian streets before a professor helped her escape.
"The secret of my life is to always think positive, whatever else happens," she said. "It gave me the strength to survive this hatred."
Masza Rosenroth, who is 101 years old, witnessed unspeakable atrocities as a young girl living first in a Jewish ghetto, and then in Auschwitz.
"Every day, you were lucky that you survived. I lost my whole family," Rosenroth said.
About 100 Holocaust survivors in the Fairfax area belong to this group called "Cafe Europa." Jewish Family Service of LA began sponsoring Cafe Europa 37 years ago. They borrowed the name from a cafe in Sweden where survivors met after the war, looking for loved ones.
"I have friends here and it makes me very happy," Rosenroth said. "They're my people, we all went through the same."
In their golden years, these survivors share a rare, astounding resiliency about their pasts and the lives of their families.
At 95 years old, Maria Ross is one of the group's babies. She fled a burning city with her mother and little brother and was forced to grow up overnight. She moved between makeshift camps, where disease and frigid temperatures also claimed lives.
"Thousands of people, one toilet, sleeping outside just under the homeless," Ross said. "We lost four people, including my little brother; everybody passed away."
Susan Belgrade organizes the group. Her parents were Holocaust survivors, and she believes the group helped extend her late mom's life.
"Cafe Europa was the joy of her life. The night before, she just picks out her outfit to look really beautiful and she would come here and dance and really share her life experiences," Belgrade said.
The survivors said it's vital that the atrocities that changed the world are not forgotten, but it's telling which memories they're quickest to share.
