Atlantans Are Leaders with U.S. Holocaust Museum

Mark Goldfeder, Hillels of Georgia’s legal counsel, was appointed to serve on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.

According to the Hillels of Georgia announcement, “Mark’s appointment to the Council is a testament to his professionalism, dedication to protecting the rights of Jewish students, his efforts combatting antisemitism and securing Israel’s right to exist, as well as his commitment to eradicating all forms of bigotry, prejudice, and hatred.”

Also from Atlanta, Karen and Andrew Edlin are chairing a Southeast virtual event at 7 p.m. Feb. 11 as part of the national museum’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration, marking the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Mark Goldfeder was appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.

The Edlins are chairing the museum’s 2021 “What You Do Matters” event.

In Atlanta, Karen has been a driving force behind the community’s Holocaust remembrance initiatives for years, including coordinating the annual Atlanta Holocaust remembrance ceremony and serving as the main steward of Atlanta’s Holocaust Memorial, according to a press release.

The Southeast virtual event features special guests Morgan Freeman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Alexander, Ray Allen and others.

Karen Edlin’s parents Lola and Rubin Lansky met after World War II in the displaced persons camp in Feldafing, Germany.

Lola Borkowska of Łódź, Poland, was only 12 when the war started. Her journey took her from the Łódź Ghetto to Auschwitz, to Ravensbruck, Mulhausen and then Dachau. She was liberated from Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, by the British army.

Rubin (Zychilinsky) Lansky of Ozorków, Poland, was 17 at the war’s outbreak. His travails took him to forced labor, then to camps in Latvia and Estonia, Buchenwald and many other camps. By 1947, after he and Lola met in Germany, they immigrated separately to New York, where they married and lived until they relocated to Atlanta in 1953.

“My parents became involved with the Museum when it was still a dream. They joined the National Executive Committee of the American Gathering/Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and attended the Museum’s groundbreaking. … Andy and I were thrilled to be with them the day the Museum opened in 1993.”

Karen is the president of Atlanta’s Eternal Life-Hemshech group for Holocaust survivors, their families and friends. Her family restored and rededicated a Torah from her father’s hometown of Ozorkow, Poland, which is housed and used regularly at Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Atlanta, related in a 2019 AJT story.

In 2018, Karen and Andrew pledged a major donor wall gift in honor of the Museum’s 25th anniversary and in memory of Karen’s parents.