‘We Remember’: Preserving the memory of Holocaust survivors
John Pregulman, BA’80, has spent the past five years taking photographs of Holocaust survivors. To date, he has photographed 679 survivors in 33 cities in the U.S., as well as in Krakow, Prague and Tokyo. In his Denver office, where he is managing partner of real estate company Robmer Partners, the survivors’ photos seem to watch over him. But it is Pregulman and his wife, Amy Israel Pregulman, who look out for these elders. They discovered through the photo project that 30 to 35 percent of the 100,000 Holocaust survivors in the U.S. live in poverty. “They have a lot of trauma about being recognized and asking for help,” Amy says. The Pregulmans founded a nonprofit, KAVOD—Hebrew for “dignity”—to give emergency, confidential financial assistance to survivors who are identified by Jewish Family Service offices across the U.S. Through KAVOD and the photography project, they hope that Holocaust survivors will continue to be remembered. “Their biggest fear is that they and their stories will be forgotten,” says John.
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