Holocaust Survivors Find Solace in the Catskills Amid Poverty, Loneliness, and Rising Antisemitism

By: Fern Sidman

The image of Holocaust survivors — elderly men and women in their 80s, 90s, and even over 100 — leaving their cramped New York City apartments for a week in the Catskills might evoke the faded echoes of a bygone era. Yet, as The New York Post exclusively reported on Thursday, for dozens of survivors still living in the city, such moments of respite are rare, treasured, and profoundly necessary.

More than 40 Holocaust survivors, most of them Brooklynites, traveled to the mountains this summer on an all-expenses-paid, five-day retreat organized by The Blue Card, a nonprofit that has long specialized in supporting survivors in need. The program, which cost approximately $30,000, has been running annually since 2008, but in light of current economic and social conditions — rising antisemitism, persistent poverty, and the physical and emotional fragility of the aging survivor community — this year’s excursion carried a particularly poignant resonance.

“It’s a lifeline for them,” said Masha Pearl, executive director of The Blue Card. “They are able to experience activities that promote socialization, mind-body rejuvenation and… are able to receive support for the trauma they endured.”

Her remarks, cited in The New York Post report, illuminate the dual mission of the retreat: not merely to provide temporary relief, but to reconnect survivors to a sense of community, vitality, and dignity that their daily realities often deny.

For many of the survivors, daily life in New York is colored by both economic hardship and pervasive loneliness. According to The Blue Card, the majority of the roughly 14,700 Holocaust survivors in the New York metropolitan area live below the federal poverty line. Their struggles stem from a combination of factors: arriving in America after the war with little or nothing, losing years of education and career opportunities to the ravages of genocide, and often working low-wage jobs well into adulthood.

As The New York Post report highlighted, these survivors now face advanced age with insufficient financial support. Many rely solely on Social Security, which, in a city as costly as New York, barely covers rent — let alone mounting medical needs. Some survivors, Pearl noted, forgo air conditioning during heat waves to save money on utilities. Others live in apartments so small and isolating that they rarely leave home without assistance.

Layered onto these economic difficulties is an intensifying climate of antisemitism. Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents in New York have surged, with NYPD data showing hate crimes targeting Jews rising from 54% of all hate crimes in 2024 to 62% in the first quarter of 2025.

As Pearl explained to The New York Post, “Holocaust survivors are very alarmed by the news, many of them are glued to the TV — and one thing that therapists advise is to balance news with self-care activities. When they see protests or certain symbols, they are alarmed.”

Survivors, she added, sometimes confess fears that they will be “rounded up again,” a chilling echo of the memories they carry from childhood. “There’s been calls, letters from survivors who are frightened,” Pearl told The New York Post.

Against this backdrop, the five-day Catskills retreat was designed as a deliberate antidote to fear, isolation, and want. Survivors were encouraged to embrace activities as simple as baking kugel, swimming, chair yoga, and aerobics. They made bracelets to honor former Israeli hostages and engaged in arts and crafts, all while sharing stories of survival and resilience.

For some, this was the first time in years they had laughed or smiled in the company of others. “Some of these people have lost their spouses, we hear some responses from them that this is the first time they smiled [since],” Pearl told The New York Post. “Some of them are opening up about their experiences that they haven’t opened up [about] before.”

The retreat provided not only a reprieve but also an affirmation of community identity. Survivors bonded over shared history and a shared sense of generational belonging. “We feel like we belong here,” said 78-year-old Brooklynite Edith Sporn, who attended with her husband, also a survivor. “We’re part of that generation.”

Though seven decades have passed since liberation, the psychological scars of genocide remain vivid. As The New York Post report observed, survivors face an epidemic of loneliness in their later years. Many cannot manage daily activities such as cooking, washing, or dressing without help. This isolation compounds the trauma that remains ever-present beneath the surface.

Therapists working with The Blue Card note that since October 7, 2023, requests for trauma-specific therapy services among survivors have surged. The images of hostages, massacres, and violent protests have reawakened buried fears. Pearl described the phenomenon in stark terms: “There’s that fear of ‘will I be rounded up again,’ and ‘what are the next few years going to look like?’”

The retreat, in this sense, was both a therapeutic and preventive measure — a means of interrupting cycles of anxiety and providing new memories of companionship and safety.

Founded in 1934 to assist Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, The Blue Card has distributed more than $25 million to survivors in New York over the decades, according to figures cited in The New York Post. Today, it supports approximately 1,900 households with a combination of monthly stipends — averaging around $300 — and one-time emergency grants for essentials such as groceries, medical care, dental work, or rent.

In addition to direct financial aid, the nonprofit provides survivors with holiday and birthday checks, sometimes the only recognition of those occasions they receive. Others are provided with PTSD aids, such as animatronic pets or mood-enhancing lights.

But the annual Catskills retreat, Pearl emphasized, remains one of the most cherished programs. It not only alleviates material deprivation but also rekindles emotional resilience. “This lets them get away from their worries for five days,” she explained to The New York Post.

The survivors who attended the retreat embody the breadth of Jewish suffering and resilience during the Holocaust.

Among them was 98-year-old Dolly Rabinowitz, who was born in what is now Ukraine and survived Auschwitz. She outlived her parents and sisters, all of whom perished in the death camp, before arriving in New York in 1949.

Now a Brooklyn resident, Rabinowitz struggles to make ends meet despite decades of hard work. “I’m a good American citizen, I paid my taxes, but Social Security [check] is so little,” she told The New York Post. “The Blue Card has helped me [with] food, sometimes I can buy shoes … but my rent is higher than my social security.”

For Rabinowitz, the Catskills trip offered a rare reprieve from economic strain and emotional isolation. “Such a tremendous help,” she said of the retreat. “To enjoy the fresh air, the trees: it’s very, very nice.”

The Blue Card relies heavily on local organizations to identify survivors in need and to provide daily support. One such partner is Nachas Health, a Borough Park-based nonprofit that runs support groups, delivers hot meals, and organizes transportation for elderly survivors.

As The New York Post reported, Nachas Health also assists in gauging financial need for Blue Card grants, ensuring that aid reaches those most vulnerable. Its sanctuary on 48th Street has become a hub of community life for survivors who would otherwise be isolated in their apartments.

“We’re giving them a social life,” said 25-year-old Nachas organizer Ruchy Wosner.

For survivors such as 84-year-old Freida Breier, Nachas and the Catskills retreat are essential lifelines. “It’s a family,” Breier told The New York Post. “It’s solace, to go [to Nachas] and meet people and socialize and eat even. You feel very welcome there. She gives us hope,” Breier said, pointing at Wosner, “and keeps us going.”

The survivor population in New York is shrinking rapidly. Of the 14,700 estimated to live in the metro area today, demographers predict a 70% decline within the next decade. The retreat’s organizers are acutely aware that their work carries an urgency not only to provide care but also to preserve memory.

As The New York Post report noted, many of the retreat participants are in their 90s, and some are over 100. Their stories are irreplaceable, and their needs increasingly acute. The combination of poverty, trauma, and frailty presents one of the most pressing challenges for Jewish communal institutions in the city.

Pearl, reflecting on the retreat, described the paradox of the moment: survivors are simultaneously honored as living testaments to resilience and neglected as impoverished elders struggling to survive in one of the world’s wealthiest cities.

The Catskills retreat thus served not merely as a summer getaway, but as a moral reminder. In a time of rising antisemitism, survivors once again face fear and marginalization in the very city they turned to for refuge after the war. For a week, however, they were able to set those burdens aside and bask in the companionship of peers who understand their scars.

The kugel baking, the bracelet making, the chair yoga — these were not trivial diversions. They were affirmations of life, joy, and dignity for those who have endured the worst of human history.

As The New York Post so poignantly reported, for many survivors, the retreat represented the closest thing to a vacation they had ever experienced. And for some, it may be their last.

The Holocaust survivor retreat in the Catskills was not just an excursion; it was an act of preservation — of life, memory, and hope. Organized by The Blue Card with the support of community partners like Nachas Health, the program underscores the continuing moral imperative to care for survivors in their final years.

As antisemitism surges and economic hardship deepens, these retreats provide more than fresh air and mountain views: they provide reassurance that survivors have not been forgotten.

In the words of Dolly Rabinowitz, survivor of Auschwitz and longtime Brooklyn resident, the experience was simple yet profound: “To enjoy the fresh air, the trees: it’s very, very nice.”

For a community that once faced the abyss of annihilation, such simple joys remain a profound victory.