Warning: The following article includes details about murder and brutality some may find disturbing.
When Leslie Gelrubin Benitah shows up at their homes, she rarely comes empty-handed.
Once inside the door, she usually hands her host a lekach — a traditional Jewish honey-sweetened cake — that she baked herself.
"The taste and the smell is going to bring them back there," says Gelrubin Benitah.
The there is the early childhood of the people she's been visiting, most of whom are now in their late 80s or 90s — the innocent pre-World War II days before the round-ups, the concentration camps, the madness, the murder.
One of her visits brings her to the Surfside apartment of 87-year-old Anita Karl, who accepts the proffered cake delightedly.
"My mother taught me how to do it and I do a very good one, also," says Karl.
That sort of homey detail and Karl's cheerful disposition belie the ghastly stories that her memory holds, the ones her guest has come to hear — and capture on film.
Gelrubin Benitah, a Paris-born journalist now living in South Florida, is the founder of The Last Ones, a multimedia project that aims to create a link between the last living Holocaust survivors and younger generations.
Karl, who was born in 1938 in the Polish city of Lwow, recounts for the camera how the Nazis arrived and moved Jewish families like hers to a segregated ghetto.
One day, when she was about four years old, she and a cousin around the same age were playing outside when a German officer called to them and offered them a piece of chocolate. They both ran to him, but her cousin made it first — and the Nazi set the little girl on his knee.
"With one hand he gave her the chocolate and with the other one he took out his revolver," says Karl, "and shot her in the head."
During a long pause, she looks at her interviewer fixedly and then asks: "Is this a human person?"
READ MORE: Miami-based Holocaust survivor records hours of his life story for interactive exhibit
A recent report from the international social justice non-profit The Claims Conference concludes that nearly 50% of all Holocaust survivors worldwide will pass away within the next six years.
Few people are more aware of that sobering reality than 47-year-old Gelrubin Benitah, who's also a board member of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.
For her, preserving the survivors' testimonies is a deeply personal mission.
"I'm the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors. And I grew up with the Shoah all around me," says Gelrubin Benitah, using the Hebrew word used to describe the genocide of European Jews during World War II. It translates to "catastrophe."
"They want future generations to recognize the warning signs early — and to act before the injustice takes root."Gelrubin Benitah
'The Last Ones' project began in 2017 with a documentary film, branched out into online platforms and now serves as a teaching tool for schools in Florida and other states.
What sets the project's videos apart from other survivor testimonies — like those collected by the USC Shoah Foundation or the U.S. Holocaust Museum — is their brevity.
Benitah says videos are kept down to an average of about 15 minutes, a perfect length for kids reared on social media.
"If our target is the young generation, then we need to be where they are," she says.
'Fewer and fewer of us'
"There are fewer and fewer of us everyday," 87-year-old Laszlo Selly of Aventura says on camera.
Selly was born in Budapest, Hungary. Once the Nazis occupied the city, mass shootings of Jews were an everyday occurrence.
One night, Nazi soldiers told his family and others in the building to report outside first thing in the morning — presumably to their deaths.
"The women were all crying, hugging their children. The men were huddled together praying and we hoped that morning would never come," says Selly.
"Very early that morning, we heard rifle butts banging on the front door. And there stood two Soviet soldiers — looking for Germans. The Soviet army took the street that we lived on that night. If they had been one day late, I would not be here today," he says.
In education circles, there's an ongoing debate about when children should be introduced to Holocaust studies.
The curriculum developed by Gelrubin Benitah starts in the 6th grade, with the use of age-appropriate materials only. The more graphic testimonies — like Anita's story — are saved for the 8th grade and above.
For many adults, recent events in the United States have been raising the specter of authoritarianism — chiefly, policies targeting specific groups of people. Gelrubin Benitah says that's the reason the last remaining Holocaust survivors are so eager to share their stories.
"They want to make sure that they're going to create a world where memory is not just preserved but used," she says. "They want future generations to recognize the warning signs early — and to act before the injustice takes root."
For more information, visit The Last Ones.org.
