LA’s Cafe Europa helps build community and connection among Holocaust survivors
LOS ANGELES — May is Jewish American Heritage Month, and a unique weekly gathering spreads joy among a vulnerable community of Jews in Los Angeles.
Music fills the air in a room high above the Fairfax district, and the crowd dances to the beat.
But these people are a special group — they’re all Holocaust survivors, and this is Café Europa, a place where survivors can heal through music, food and community building.
Maria Ross and her young friend Nat Roden come to Café Europa every Tuesday.
Ross is a Holocaust survivor originally from Romania, and she says the sense of community and a shared past makes all the difference for this elderly community, which often lacks social structure and connection.
“I think it’s very important to everybody to have community, to have people and to be involved with people, to be friendly with people,” she said.
Her friend, Roden, agrees.
“Our survivors are our heroes and we can’t forget that. And we as communities need to be connected to every single survivor,” said Roden.
Susan Belgrade of Jewish Family Service LA, also known as JFSLA, runs Café Europa today.
“We provide case management and services for over 1000 survivors,” said Belgrade.
Belgrade’s 98-year-old mother, Rose Gross, was a holocaust survivor from Hungary who, as a child, was moved around to every concentration camp in Europe, including Auschwitz.
Café Europa is the highlight of Gross’ week. Susan translated for her mother, who speaks Hungarian.
“So my mom said that the night before Café Europa she goes through her closet and she picks her favorite outfit so that she’s prepared and ready to look beautiful for when she comes to Café Europa.”
Café Europa organizers say they have anywhere from 25 to 30 holocaust survivors who attend regularly every week, but hundreds more survivors who are homebound and participate in JFSLA services from afar.
