Holocaust Survivor Speaks at Anne Frank Memorial Garden

The Anne Frank Memorial Garden celebrates its second anniversary at Arboretium Park in Melville on Sunday, standing as a reminder of the goodness of mankind despite the ugliness of war and discrimination. The celebration falls on what would have been Anne Frank's 83rd birthday.

The celebration, sponsored by Huntington Councilman Susan Berland, features remarks from Rabbi Ian Silverman of the ; Rev. Dr. Luonne Rouse of the United Methodist Church; local Holocaust survivor Werner Reich and Dr. Olivia Mattis, co-founder of the Sousa Mendes Foundation.

Werner Reich was born in Germany in 1927 and in 1933 immigrated to Yugoslavia. In 1941, with the invasion of Yugoslavia, Werner went into hiding.  In 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo and spent the next two years in a jail and four concentration camps.  After the war he returned to Yugoslavia and then moved to England.  In 1955 Werner and his wife moved to the USA.  In his professional life Werner worked as an industrial engineer and executive for major food corporations. He is on the Board of the AJC, LI Multi-faith Forum and the LI Council of Churches. He is also a docent at The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County. Werner is a frequent speaker in schools and colleges.  He is married and has two sons and four grandchildren.

Dr. Olivia Mattis is an award-winning musicologist with a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Yale University. Twelve members of her paternal family were rescued by Aristides de Sousa Mendes as they escaped from Belgium in 1940; meanwhile, her maternal grandparents founded and led the Jewish Resistance there, while her mother was a hidden child. Mattis lectures widely, and delivered Keynote addresses at the 2011 Yom Hashoah commemoration of the City of Philadelphia and the 2003 Music for Our Times festival in Maine. She has organized high-profile international conferences and music festivals that have received media coverage from Good Morning America and The New York Times.

Founded in 2010, the Sousa Mendes Foundation is dedicated to honoring the memory of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Righteous Among the Nations, who issued Portuguese visas in the Spring of 1940 to an estimated 30,000 refugees against the strict orders of his government and was harshly punished. The Foundation has a twofold mission: raising funds for the creation of a Sousa Mendes Museum and Human Rights Center in Portugal, and sponsoring US-based projects that perpetuate the legacy of this hero. The Foundation’s current initiative is a Visa Recipient Database Project, for which it is seeking to identify, locate and contact families worldwide who were helped by Sousa Mendes.  

Attendees of the Anne Frank Memorial Garden anniversary celebration will be invited to take a walk through the garden following the program and light refreshments will be available, courtesy of of East Northport and the Larkfield Road .