Health & Fitness
Maryland Red Cross Volunteers Search for Holocaust Survivors
A little-known American Red Cross service makes its home in Baltimore. Red Cross volunteers work at locating, reuniting and offering closure to victims of the Holocaust.
You’ve probably seen the Red Cross in the headlines lately helping the victims of the tornadoes. But Red Cross of Central Maryland volunteers are also hard at work locating, reuniting and offering closure to victims of the Holocaust. The Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center, headquartered at the Red Cross of Central Maryland, is a national clearinghouse for persons seeking the fates of loved ones missing since the Holocaust and its aftermath.
Recently the Tracing Center played a major role in reuniting Saul Dreier, 85, with his cousin Lucy Weinberg, 82. Drier contacted his local Red Cross chapter in Florida who in turn worked with the Tracing Center in Baltimore to search records housed within Red Cross societies in Poland and the Czech Republic. They were able to determine that his cousin was living in Montreal. The couple reunited in person at the Ft. Lauderdale airport soon afterwards.
"We saw each other when we were children," Weinberg told the Sun Sentinel. "Now we see each other when we are old."
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Drier lost almost all of his family during World War II and was determined to find a living relative. More than 60 years have passed since the Holocaust and memories fade. Add to that, the fact that people often change their names and even sometimes don’t even want to be found, and it is no easy task for the Red Cross to complete these searches.
Despite those challenges, the Tracing Center has been remarkably successful. Since 1990, they have found more than 1,500 persons still alive who were reunited with family and loved ones. In more than 16,000 cases, clients have received confirmation of death or deportation of family members which is helpful in the mourning process. All Red Cross tracing services are free of charge.
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“This amazing story of Lucy and Saul gives joy to everyone at the American Red Cross who was involved in this wonderful reunion,” says Sue Bornemann, spokesperson at the Red Cross Tracing Center in Baltimore.
When Dreier was asked by a reporter what he and his cousin planned to do now that they're together again, Dreier said: "Talk, talk, talk."
To initiate a search call the Red Cross Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center at 410/624-2094 or visit www.redcross-cmd.org.