Yom HaShoah: The Story of Rela Rogoff

A Yom Hashoah talk by Sam Rogoff & Generation2Generation

Thursday 24th April | Doors open at 8:00pm

Rela Rogoff was born June 1922, the youngest of seven children, into an Orthodox family in Stanislavov, Poland. One of her two brothers and two of her sisters survived the Holocaust. She died in London in 2006.  

Rela’s parents were wholesale fruiterers; life before the war revolved around both close and extended family when her hometown was first invaded by the Russians in 1939, then by the Germans in June 1941.   

After her parents and some siblings were murdered in the early pogroms, she escaped to Lublin where, living as a Polish Catholic, she was soon betrayed, imprisoned and tortured for three months in a Gestapo prison before being transported to Auschwitz where she survived 19 months. 

She met her future husband, a serving member of the British armed forces when she was on the run towards the end of the war, who brought her to England to start a new life. 

Rela had amazing strength and determination as well as an incredible will to survive. Sam’s presentation is interspersed with his mother’s and aunt’s testimonies read by family members, including extracts from her book ‘The Will to Survive’ which was written by Rela together with her husband in 2005.

We are grateful and indebted to Sam, a beloved member of our community and our Honorary Executive, for giving his time to share his dear mother’s incredible story.

Schedule:

7:30pm – Mincha/Maariv

8:00pm – Doors open

8:15pm – Keynote Presentation: The Story of Rela Rogoff

9:00pm – Questions

9:15pm – Memorial prayers led by Rabbi Eli