Mosaic recalls, honors the past at Santa Rosa cemetery

Two veils were lifted Sunday at Santa Rosa Memorial Park.

One, after a yearlong observance, was taken off the headstone for Lillian Judd, an Auschwitz survivor who later spent decades educating Sonoma County students about the Holocaust until her death in 2016 at 92.

The other was pulled away to reveal a colorful mosaic on a wall built to honor Judd and her late husband, Emil, who also survived Nazi imprisonment.

The mosaic also named 12 family members killed during Hitler’s World War II Final Solution campaign: The oldest was Ignatz Judkovic, 65; the youngest Sylvia Kessler, killed when just 3 years old.

“We have an obligation to honor the memories of the victims of the Holocaust, and we have a duty to seek a more peaceful future,” said Myrna Goodman, Sonoma State University professor emeritus and director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide.

Goodman spoke before about 60 people gathered with the Judd family for the Sunday morning ceremonies at the Franklin Avenue cemetery.

The mosaic wall was built in a dedicated area near lawns for two Santa Rosa congregations, Beth Ami and Shomrei Torah. The area includes a new hand-washing fountain where people can observe a Jewish tradition of cleansing the hands after visiting the dead.

The Judds’ son, Dennis Judd of Sebastopol, commissioned the mosaic made by family friend and artist Leslie Gattmann of Sebastopol.

“It brings a more personal feeling to the Holocaust,” Dennis Judd said. “It was not just 6 million people; these were families with names, they were children.”

He has taken up his mother’s mission to tell the story of the Holocaust and the mission of its survivors to advocate for peace and justice.

Standing before his mother’s gravesite, he talked about how he used to join her in classrooms and lecture halls and watch as her story of tragedy and survival made an impression on young people.

“She taught people about forgiveness,” he said.

Lillian Judd’s concentration camp number - A-10946 - remained etched in her arm throughout her life.

She was a teenager in Czechoslovokia when the German army invaded in 1938, and 21 when she and other Jews were herded onto cattle cars headed for Auschwitz, where at least 1.1 million prisoners died.

Soldiers beat her father to death when he tried to retrieve his prayer book and shawl from the train.

Her mother and two sisters were put in a different line, and she never saw them again.

She and her sister, Herczi, survived a year at Auschwitz and then in 1945 were among those who survived a death march when the Nazis tried to hide evidence of their atrocities from the advancing Soviet army.

Of about 1,250 people, only 250 survived.

In 1949, she and her husband, who died in 1997, moved to Los Angeles. They ran a restaurant and retired to Santa Rosa in 1996.

Like many survivors, she didn’t speak much about her World War II experiences until later.

In the 1970s, she started writing down her dreams, according to a family friend.

She decided she had an obligation to share her story to ensure the lessons were passed down.

Sunday, those who gathered to toss grass blades onto Lillian Judd’s headstone - a gesture symbolizing the cycle of life - remembered her joyful approach to life.

“She felt she lived a good life and she wanted people to rejoice,” her son said.

The group then recited, “Do not be afraid of life, believe that life is worth living.”

Two panels on either side of the mosaic remain empty. Gattmann said they are hoping to gather the names of Holocaust victims whose families have connections in Sonoma County.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.