A three-day visit to Chicago changed John Pregulman’s life forever. In 2012, John was living in his native Chattanooga, Tennessee, working in real estate. He’d had little contact with Holocaust survivors. The phone call from the Illinois Holocaust Museum was a bit of a surprise.
The museum was looking for a photographer to take pictures of survivors. A member of the museum was an old friend of John’s and remembered that years ago, John had worked as a photographer in New York City. Would he mind coming up to Chicago to photograph some survivors? John obligingly agreed.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” John recalls of that first trip. He wondered if the survivors would be depressed and gloomy. Instead, he was blown away by how upbeat they were. “I spent three days with survivors taking pictures and I became enamored of these confident, happy people who gave so much, despite what they’ve been through,” he explained in an Aish.com exclusive interview.
“What happened to them shaped their lives, but they had an attitude that ‘We’re not going to let what happened to us ruin our lives’”. Some of the survivors confided that they felt the successes they had made of their lives – their families, their careers, the full, productive, Jewish lives they’d led – were all victories against Hitler.
The portraits, which are given to the survivors as a gift, are important to many of them because one of their biggest fears is being forgotten. John took 65 portraits in three days and was left profoundly changed by the experience. He decided to continue to photograph survivors, contacting Jewish communal organizations and Holocaust museums in different cities and arranging more photo sessions.
John met Amy Israel through a photo session in 2015. One of John’s friend’s father was a survivor, and the friend asked John to travel to his dad’s home in Memphis to photograph him. As John took his photographs, his friend’s father started talking about his experiences during the Holocaust. “All of a sudden he opened up to his children about everything,” John later recalled.
The survivor introduced John to Amy, who was a good friend of his daughter-in-law, and the couple quickly realized they were made for each other. They met in January 2015 got engaged several months later. Together they are raising six children from their previous marriages, as well as working on the charity they have founded to help Holocaust survivors, which Amy jokes is their baby.
They were in Florida, taking photos of an elderly Holocaust survivor, when they decided to found KAVOD, the charity they now run together. “Invariably, when I take pictures of lady survivors, they want to give me something to eat, like all Bubbies,” John recalls. This friendly, sweet lady opened up her refrigerator and John and Amy were dumbstruck: all she had was milk, some eggs, and a little piece of cheese.
“What happened to your food?” the couple asked. The survivor explained that her air conditioner had broken that month and she had to pay to have it repaired. She had no money left over for food. “I’m just not eating much this month.”
John and Amy started researching the plight of Holocaust survivors in the U.S. and made a startling discovery: nearly a third of survivors live below or near the poverty rate. “The poverty rate for seniors in general is 18% in the U.S.,” Amy explains; for Holocaust survivors, the rate is significantly higher. The reasons are manifold: many came to the U.S. with nothing and never built up significant savings. The trauma of their early years can mean they have more medical needs. Amy and John also found a significant barrier to Holocaust survivors gaining the help they need is their shame of seeming needy: “They are very proud,” Amy explains.
“They don’t like to tell people they need help,” John has found, “and they don’t like to be on a list, for obvious reasons. They are very good at hiding poverty. Amy and I have been in many survivors’ apartments and noticed that they didn’t have anything.” John and Amy felt they had to help and started planning a charity to provide confidential emergency funds to survivors.
Amy has a background in nonprofit management, and quickly got to work setting up a professional organization. They decided to name it KAVOD, which means respect in Hebrew, because they wanted to ensure that they helped survivors in confidential, discreet ways that maintained their dignity and sense of self-worth. John and Amy married in 2016, within a month of formally establishing KAVOD as a not-for-profit charity.
A donor pledged to cover all of the charity’s operating costs, so each dollar raised goes directly to survivors. John and Amy give the money through Jewish agencies in various cities. Working with caseworkers, KAVOD identifies needs and makes grants - often small grants of just a few hundred dollars - to cover financial emergencies or unexpected needs.
“We were thrilled when we raised $30,000 that first year,” Amy recalls. The second year they nearly doubled that, and in 2018 KAVOD gave away over $118,000 to help Holocaust survivors in need.
Amy and John don’t request information about the people they are donating to. “That’s part of protecting their dignity,” Amy explains.
In at least one case, however, a survivor wanted to thank John and Amy personally, with a surprising gift.
The request came from a social worker at a local Jewish agency who knew the survivor: she was living in dire circumstances, with little money, and her greatest joy was her hobby of creating beautiful beaded flowers. But she didn’t have enough money for beads; could KAVOD help her with $50 to buy more beads? KAVOD supplied a gift card for twice that amount. Later on, John and Amy happened to travel to that survivor’s city in order to photograph more Holocaust survivors and the survivor decided to pay them an unexpected visit, bringing a gift of beautiful beaded flowers she’d made.
“This woman came up to us and handed us flowers made out of beads and said, ‘You have no idea what this meant to me; I made this for you.’” Amy was so overwhelmed she had to sit down.
Amy and John keep those beaded flowers in a vase in their kitchen as a constant reminder of the good they can do. “The flowers are a reminder that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and have their unique needs acknowledged.”
Since 2016, KAVOD has distributed funds to 1,200 needy Holocaust survivors. By now, John has taken portraits of 830 survivors. As the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, the couple feels the urgency of their mission to document this fading generation and their memories.
The portraits are gifts to the survivors and the families; KAVOD never sells the images or makes any money from them, and they never make public the names of the survivors.
KAVOD can be contacted at http://kavodensuringdignity.com/
(10) Jack S. Adler, February 8, 2021 5:49 PM
They are very dedicated to what they are doing. I'm in one of their photos.
(9) david berman, April 8, 2019 12:23 AM
great article. thank you for bringing this to my attention
This article i hope will compel readers to make a donation to this very worthwhile charity. it is a huge opportunity for all of us to help jews who have gone through the worst experiences imaginable. it is awful that as elderly people they lack essentials to make their lives easier. i will be mailing them a check to Kavod tomorrow.
(8) glenda urmacher, April 2, 2019 2:55 PM
impoverished Holocaust survivors
Yes, I would like the photographers to come to Los Angeles.
I am married to a Holocaust survivor, and I belong to the 1939 Club made up of Holocaust survivors.
Also belong to the Chapman University Holocaust Studies Dept. and the UCLA Jewish Studies group.
Many survivors, many needy.
I can help.
Glenda
(7) Y, April 1, 2019 5:38 PM
My Mom
My Mom is 85 and a Bergen Belsen Holocaust Survivor. She is stilll alive. May we make that 831 by sending a picture too?
Kingsdaughter613, May 17, 2020 3:20 PM
I’d like to add four more pictures. Two of the individuals have unfortunately passed away (my maternal grandfather and his sister) but I have pictures of them. The other two, my paternal grandparents, are B”H still here.
(6) Janet Vermeulen, April 1, 2019 5:43 AM
Holocaust survivors in USA
This is truly a beautiful story! There is definitely help out there, depending on their income! They need to be encouraged to take advantage of all the different programs in their cities! Their quality of life would be very much improved, if they took advantage of the programs that are available! Help could be just a phone call away!
(5) Alan Kurtz, March 31, 2019 10:56 PM
Wonderful informative stories.
These human interest stories are the reason that I subscribe to the Exponent!
(4) Dorene Schwartz-Weitz, March 31, 2019 5:36 PM
Additon to email sent you
Sita Dessau, zt"l, was a Survivor,
I came to believe that many of the Survivors did so because of their belief in Hashem, and in following Torah and Mitzvot - thus made a program for my community, "Portraits of Survivors b'Torah", where Yaffa Eliach, zt"l, spoke. She was my teacher.
This was followed with what is now an ongoing project on permanent exhibit at the Amud Aish Holocaust Memorial Museum, "The Mitzvah Kotel" - which depicts the positive mitzot we can perform - Our tools, not only to survive, but to Thrive". mitzvahkotel.org (also on amudaish.org under Education)
(3) Seymour Stadtmauer, March 31, 2019 4:23 PM
We All Need To Step Up To Help
If you can read this on your computer, let me be brash and say that you can donate something to help our Seniors in Need.
I Produce a Holocaust lecture series in Southwest Florida. Through our research, I have met with many aged Survivors. Imagine if you had the experiences that had to endure and then to survive, becoming loving parents in most cases while fighting with their memories of the past. Many of these same people now are in the sunset of their years. They have worked hard since their escape or liberation to provide for their family while too frequently sacrificing their own late in life security. They don't ask for assistance, but if they do, it is only for the necessities to live another day. Don't we who have lived the privileged life owe them the right to live this period in their lives, in dignity?
Read what this website has to say. Then donate something. Anything.
(2) Dorene Schwartz-Weitz, March 31, 2019 3:47 PM
Such an act of 'chesed'!
Me'-et Hashem, for the last 15 years of teaching, I ran a program, "Portraits of Survivors". It evolved after antisemitic death threats upon me and my great-uncle's death, zt"l, a Survivor. Working with The Holocaust Commission, I wrote a program involving the entire high school in teaching the history, of The Holocaust. As the Art & Humanities teacher, I trained my students in portraiture. We met many times during the year with Holocaust Survivors, listening to their stories, as we drew their portraits, filmed, documented and wrote. After 9-11, I found it most valuable as a source for my students of "How to Survive". Each year, there was a gallery presentation of the portraits along with the Music, English, History, Drama, Humanities departments presentations, and Glatt Kosher food.
In addition to awards for Best Teen Film, and the selection of one of the portraits to hang in the White House, one student was told by his mother that he was actually a 7th generation Hungarian Jew, not Christian, as he had been raised. Most students found it a lifechanging experience, especially those who were raised by Holocaust deniers. And for the Holocaust Survivors themselves, some who had never spoke about the atrocities they'd endured, this was a major act of sharing. And I went for my 2nd masters from Rutgers, as a Holocaust Educator.
And tonight, I will be meeting Deborah Lipstadt, who inspired me to be strong and fight the antisemitism! (She contacted me upon viewing the portrait I'd done of her teacher, Mrs. Sita Dessau, zt"l )
Yisroel, April 1, 2019 1:24 AM
Wow!
Kol hakavod!
יישר כוחך!
I am the child of a Holocaust survivor from Poland, who was under Nazi domination from the second week of the War until the death march. My father had an amazing positive attitude. I found out years later that he was unable to sleep through the night...every night his sleep was interrupted, first with nightmares, then with crying. Eventually, we heard positive stories about his family when we were growing up in the 60s.
I am a childhood educator (a Rebbe in grade school for 24 years).
Thank you for your efforts.
(1) Lorraine Bacon, March 31, 2019 3:15 PM
How beautiful are the photographs! Seeing their faces gives me a sense of Shalom.
Thank you,
Lorraine