TAMPA, Fla. — A new mural was unveiled this month in Sarasota County to represent unity.
It was inspired by the relationship Martin Luther King Jr had with Rabbi Abraham Heschel.
The mural symbolizes peace and aims to educate those about the segregation and oppression that Black elders and Holocaust survivors experienced. “It really expresses what its suppose to say,” said Holocaust survivor Helga as she looks at the mural.
When Helga was 13 years old she and her parents were sent to Lodz Ghetto in Poland. “They deported us from Germany into the ghetto and my life ended there. I was deported when I was 13 years old in the middle of the night the only reason was because I was a Jew.”
There was one moment that she says she will never forget it was her birthday and she had asked her mom for an onion because it was something that she said was never available in the ghetto.
“And she said happy birthday darling and I have a present for you and she gave me the onion wrapped in some paper. I was so happy, then she said I'm getting very tired and she went to bed again when I woke up in the morning my mother was dead,” she said.
Helga said her mother had died from starvation.
“That is still a very tough thing for me to get over. It's hard to lose a mother that day, especially on my 14th birthday,” she said.
After losing her mom and dad she was taken to Auschwitz Concentration Camp when she was 15 years old. “Every two hours they would call us out and take people out and take them what we knew was the gas chambers,” she said.
But soon after being rescued she moved to the United States and started a new life. She is 94 years old and lives with her daughter Lisa Bean in Venice Florida. “We like to go on picnics close to the water,” Helga said.
Lisa helped paint the mural that now sits on the north east corner of Central Avenue and 5th street in the Rosemary District in Sarasota.
Impact Theatre is a community initiative that created the mural called 'Unity.'
The co-founder Bette Zaret says it's about making an influence on people to spread peace. “There are different emblems and icons representing two different cultures yet they re coming together to form a union or unity to seek world peace.“
For Helga it’s a way to remind people of what happened in the past and a new way to look in the future. “Unity no hatred and respect for each other,” she said.
Its bringing people together to make a difference.