Each spring, during the "Days of Remembrance", Remember 6 presents the Denver Holocaust Remembrance Event for the community where we honor all who have been impacted by the Holocaust; both victims and their families. This year's event will be on Sunday, April 27th, 2025, from 2-4pm, featuring the testimonies of Holocaust Survivors: Oscar "Osi" Sladek and Asher Ben Basat. In addition, we will hear from Helen Ginsburg, the founder of the Babi Yar Park Foundation, whose meeting with President Jimmy Carter in 1978 made it possible for her to establish the living Holocaust Memorial called Babi Yar Park, where this event will take place: Babi Yar Park, 10451 E Yale Ave, Denver, CO 80231 Click link to watch this years event, April 27 2025 https://www.youtube.com/live/CPPes4KGQ3c?si=kXKFSz7id3aVW25R The footage below is from last year's event, May 5th, 2024 featuring Holocaust Survivor David Zapiler and Barbara Steinmetz:
Holocaust Survivor, Oscar "Osi" Sladek Oscar “Osi” Sladek was born in March, 1935 to a Jewish family in Prešov, Czechoslovakia. By 1941, under Hitler's advancement, the city of Prešov, became a testing ground for anti-Jewish laws, upending the lives of Osi's entire family. Osi remembers being forced to wear a Yellow Star of David and being bullied and beaten by his classmates who labeled him a “dirty little Jew” when he was only 7 years old. “That is where my personal Holocaust started” Osi states. “We were branded like the branding of cows. Up until then, we had freedom, but overnight, there was Fascism.” In 1942, Osi's family went into hiding as the newly Fascist Government of Slovakia began rounding up Jews in Prešov. As the danger increased, Osi's parents arranged for him, their only child to be smuggled into Hungary where relatives were still living safely in freedom. At the age of 8, Osi had to live in Hungary, away from his parents, for a whole year. Then, in March of 1944, Hungary became occupied by the Nazis and Osi had to be smuggled back to his parents to Prešov. By that time however, most Jews in Prešov had been deported to concentration camps so the family was forced to flee into the Tatra mountains where they faced great challenges, but survived the winter. Osi and his parents were finally liberated by the Soviet Army in March, 1945. They eventually emigrated to Israel, where Osi received a musical education and at the age of 18, became the youngest published song writer in Israel. After serving in the Israeli army from 1954 to 1957, he immigrated to the US and became part of the folk music revival in California in 1958. He met and married his wife Selma Rosen, in California, then the couple settled in Denver, Colorado in 1960. Osi was a natural musician, who shared the stage with Judy Collins and Odetta at the 1960 Colorado Folk Festival which he headlined. Osi is also well-known for chairing, producing, directing, and performing at countless community events, celebrations, festivals, and weddings. In addition, for 22 years, he served as Executive Director of multiple Jewish congregations, most notably Temple Sinai in Denver. He worked for the jewish Community Center/JCC for 5 years and was also a community activist. Osi and Selma have four children, including film producer Daniel Sladek and historian Ron Sladek. He speaks frequently about his experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust, and he has now documented those experiences in a new book called “Escape to the Tatras: a Boy, a War and a Life Interrupted.
Holocaust Survivor, Asher Ben Basat Asher Ben Basat was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria in June of 1940, to a well established, and financially comfortable family. That all changed when Bulgaria made an alliance with Hitler's Germany in March of 1941 before Asher was one year old causing his earliest recollections of life to be that of constant dread and fear of deprivation. Adult family members were forced to wear yellow stars and to respect curfews. Asher's father was absent for long periods of time, sent to forced labor camps to work on construction projects under harsh conditions. One early childhood memory that stand out for Asher occurred in March of 1943 when he and his family and the entire Jewish community of Plovdiv were sent to the train station. After a long period of time, waiting to board the train, they were unexpectedly released and told to go home. Years later, Asher learned that that train was headed to the Treblinka extermination camp. His family was spared but for unknown reasons and to this day, that memory haunts him.After the war, Asher's life never returned to the pre-war “normal”. The family business, and their home in Plovdiv, were taken over by the communists that ruled the country going forward. Asher's family left Bulgaria in 1949 and emigrated to the new State of Israel, but life there was difficult. After initially living in tents on the beach, they bounced from one temporary housing to another in Haifa. During the late 1950s and early 1960s there were very few opportunities for Asher to attend universities in Israel but his father was able to enroll him in an aviation maintenance technical training program and he spent his professional career working for various aviation companies around the world including Africa, Europe and South America. In 1983, Asher made a more permanent move to the United States where he achieved as much as he could without the benefit of a college degree. He eventually married and had a son in his mid-forties and lived in California, New York, Connecticut and Florida where Asher ran a maintenance facility connected with Miami International Airport for many years. Finally, Asher and his wife Caryl moved to Colorado just over 3 years ago to fulfill a dream of living near the Mountains.