The Survivor Mitzvah Project

The Survivor Mitzvah Project Nonprofit providing food and medicine to Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe This one-hour television special is hosted by CNN HERO Zane Buzby.

Produced by The Survivor Mitzvah Project and up for Emmy® Consideration, THE LAST SURVIVORS – ECHOES FROM THE HOLOCAUST is the inspiring and compelling story of the last Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe and the heroic efforts to bring lifesaving aid to these forgotten heroes. They fought as Partisans in the forests, survived concentration camps, the brutal massacres of their families, and wer

e silenced for decades. Now, an award-winning cast, Edward Asner, Elliott Gould, Frances Fisher, Valerie Harper, Lainie Kazan, and Alan Rosenberg, gives voice to the survivors’ stories of loss and perseverance in powerful and moving performances. The program illuminates the work of The Survivor Mitzvah Project, which brings emergency aid to 2000 survivors in 8 countries, and is dedicated to creating a more hopeful final chapter to the Holocaust, one of friendship, kindness and compassion. TIME IS RUNNING OUT for elderly Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe. Having lost everything during the war, they still struggle to survive in need of emergency aid for food, medicine, heat and shelter. Help save a life. DONATE to a survivor TODAY. You can also text to donate! Text the word GIVING to 41444.

08/15/2026

Emmy Award-winning Writer and Actor David Cross reads a letter from Lithuanian Holocaust Survivor Reuven Zeligmanas, who escaped killing squads as a child and was the sole survivor of his family. This is Part 2 of his story.

Reuven and his father were marched to an ex*****on pit. “I saw my dear father shot and fall into the pit of hundreds of bodies, some dead, some still moving.” Then something unimaginable happened.

The man standing in front of Reuven asked the guard for one final cigarette. As the guard leaned in to light it, the man suddenly bit him on the neck. For a brief moment, chaos erupted.

“He motioned to me... and I ran.”

Reuven returned to his hometown only to find frightened mothers and children waiting to be taken away.

They were told they would work in nearby fields. Instead, they were driven to the Tubines Forest to be murdered. To save bullets, babies were beaten against trees before being thrown into the mass graves. “The nearby river ran red with blood.”

Again, Reuven ran. He reached relatives in another village. When that community was rounded up for ex*****on, he escaped again. “I ran so much that sometimes I still dream that I am running.”

Today there are more than 200 marked mass murder sites across Lithuania. More than 70,000 Jews were murdered in the Ponary Forest near Vilnius alone. Yet one place remains forgotten.

“The place where my sister and many others were tortured and murdered is not marked or preserved. There is no memorial there. They, too, must be remembered.”

And for all who donate to help Holocaust Survivors, Reuven writes: “Once again, everyone thanks you for your remarkable letters, your generous gifts, and everything you do for all of us. We pray that G-d gives you health, strength, and many blessings for your kindness.” With love, Reuven.

08/15/2026

Emmy Award-winning Writer and Actor David Cross reads a letter from Lithuanian Holocaust Survivor Reuven Zeligmanas. This is Part 1 of his story.

85 years ago, the Jewish communities of Lithuania were almost completely erased. Before World War II, the Jewish population was approximately 250,000, including thousands who had fled neighboring Poland seeking refuge. By the end of the Holocaust, 96% had been murdered—one of the highest destruction rates of any Jewish community in Europe. Within weeks, thousands of Jewish men, women, and children were executed in the nearby forests.

When we visited Holocaust Survivor Reuven Zeligmanas to record his testimony, he shared the memories that have never left him. “My father, mother, my two brothers, my sister and I lived in Šiauliai, a small Lithuanian town where most of the population was Jewish.” The Germans arrived the day after the war broke out. Almost immediately, murders began.

On September 1, 1941, the Šiauliai Ghetto was sealed. Starving and terrified, families were crammed behind barbed wire and forced into slave labor. Mass ex*****ons followed. When the ghetto was finally liquidated in 1944, the remaining Jews were deported to N**i concentration camps. Fewer than 500 people survived.

The first victims were Jewish women who had worked as typists and clerks under the Soviet government. “The ex*****oners tortured them, and only after these tortures, killed them. My sister was among them.”

08/07/2026

On December 30, 1940, Abram Dikhtyar was drafted into the Russian army to fight the N**is. He was 20 years old and from a large Jewish family. He fought in and survived the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in recorded history, involving over 6000 tanks. "In 1944, when our homeland was liberated, I found out how my family perished." Abram was the only survivor of his large family and had nowhere to return to after the war except to his sweetheart, Malka-Yitta.

08/05/2026

During the Holocaust Malka-Yitta and her family ran from Bazaliya, her small village in Ukraine to escape N**i death squads. Fleeing to Central Asia and the Caucasus with nothing but the clothes on their backs, her family was the sole surviving Jewish family from Bazaliya. The N**is killed many of her extended family members who stayed behind and were marched to the town of Antonin to be shot.

Today is Parents’ Day, when we recognize the love, sacrifice, and protection parents give their children, often in ways ...
07/26/2026

Today is Parents’ Day, when we recognize the love, sacrifice, and protection parents give their children, often in ways the world never sees.

For Holocaust Survivor Isaak from Berdichev, Ukraine, the courage of his mother and father meant survival. When the N**is came in 1941, his parents did everything they could to keep their children alive, going into hiding, enduring hunger, cold, and constant danger.

“When the fascists came on July 7th, 1941, our father gathered us and took us to a neighboring family. With tears in his eyes, he begged them for help, to hide us, as Jewish pogroms were about to start. They agreed. We stayed for four months in a barn cellar, and they helped us with whatever they could. My mother was pregnant and gave birth to my brother there.

My mother didn’t have any milk to nurse the baby, so she made a doll out of cloth, put some crumbs of bread inside, and let the baby suck on this. With God’s help we somehow survived.

Humiliation, hunger, cold; this is what our family endured. While I am writing this, tears come to my eyes. May the warm sun always shine for you, Isaak.”

On Parents’ Day, we honor parents like Isaak’s, who carried the impossible burden of protecting their children during the Holocaust. Their courage, love, and sacrifice must never be forgotten. Share Isaak’s story, and help us continue preserving the memories of Holocaust Survivors.

Isaak B. pictured with his wife Galina B., as teenagers after WWII.

For elderly Holocaust Survivors living in Eastern Europe, illness is not only painful and expensive, and often impossibl...
07/23/2026

For elderly Holocaust Survivors living in Eastern Europe, illness is not only painful and expensive, and often impossible to face alone.

Many survive on small pensions while struggling to afford the medications, doctor visits, treatments, and caregivers they urgently need. Through The Survivor Mitzvah Project, your support becomes something deeply personal: medicine in their hands, care at their bedside, and the comfort of knowing they have not been forgotten.

Ludmila A.: “I am very sick with hypertension, diabetes, multinodular goiter, glaucoma, and arthritis. These diseases need constant treatment, for which I lack the means. Thanks to your financial support, I am now able to buy the medications I need, and I have money for the necessary doctor visits and treatments to improve my health.”

Hana M.: “Thank you so much for your concern and care for me. Because of it, in spite of my age and diseases, I still manage to keep my optimism and believe in a better future... I read your letter with deepest interest. I am glad that the noble work you devoted yourself to finds so many like-minded people.”

Galina B. (pictured above): “We, the children of the war, experienced and survived a lot, and we feel good that there are still people who care about us. For us, with our meager pensions, your help means a lot. May you and your friends be rewarded with long years, good health, happiness, and prosperity! May the hand of the giver always be full!” Galina is pictured above with an electric blanket given to her by SMP.

Your generosity helps Holocaust Survivors afford the treatments and medicines they desperately need to survive. Donate today at www.survivormitzvah.org

Your generosity has transformed the lives of thousands of Holocaust Survivors in Eastern Europe. You’ve helped thousands...
07/21/2026

Your generosity has transformed the lives of thousands of Holocaust Survivors in Eastern Europe. You’ve helped thousands of Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe, providing loving kindness and essential aid for food, medicine, heat, shelter, caregivers, and more.

Boris G. from Balti, Moldova: “I am very thankful to you and your volunteers who visited our town. They came to my house and passed me over your greetings and money. Unfortunately, we, the elderly, are not needed anywhere. Your charitable work provides us with substantial support. May the Almighty’s blessings accompany you for many years ahead.”

Anya E. from Bratslav, Ukraine (pictured above): “With all my heart I thank you for your help, for your care, and for your desire to comfort and support. Your actions touch people’s hearts. I admire how you empathize with people and understand them, especially people in advanced age.” Anya is pictured above with an electric blanket given to her by SMP.

Even after 25 years, our mission remains the same. We bring life-saving support directly to Holocaust survivors who have been forgotten by the world, and are still suffering, such as food, medicine, heat, caregivers, and friendship. We reach each survivor personally, wherever they live in Eastern Europe – one by one, heart to heart, home to home, while also preserving their voices and stories through our Holocaust Educational Archive.

Join us in writing a more hopeful final chapter to the Holocaust: one of friendship, one of love, and one of kindness. Donate at www.survivormitzvah.org, and share this post with others who are just waiting to do something important and life-changing. Thank you for your continual support for this last generation of Holocaust Survivors.

For Holocaust Survivors in Eastern Europe, your support is more than financial assistance. It is food, medicine, safety,...
07/18/2026

For Holocaust Survivors in Eastern Europe, your support is more than financial assistance. It is food, medicine, safety, the human connection that reminds them that they have not been forgotten. As the war in Ukraine rages on, Holocaust Survivors hear sirens wail and explosions rumble, with shelves empty and pharmacies without necessary medicine. For survivors who already endured the Holocaust, this second war has brought fear and painful memories of World War 2.

Irina Isaevna from Chernivtsi, Ukraine (pictured above): “I am writing this with tears in my eyes and deep gratitude in my heart, for receiving your support at this very difficult time for us. This stipend provides not only financial assistance at the right time, but is practical help that solves many of my needs. Most importantly, your attention to me is a great consolation. You, Zane, and your staff are true friends!!! A true friend is a friend who comes to the rescue in time for someone in need. May the Almighty bless you, your family, and your team with good health and peace. Peace, what a great treasure it is! Experiencing the second war during my lifetime, I now understand even more fully the significance and vital necessity for true peace. I hope this war will end as soon as possible and that peace will come.”

Help us continue to bring direct aid, compassion, and hope to Holocaust Survivors in need. Donate today at www.survivormitzvah.org

We continue to share stories from our Holocaust Educational Archive, the largest archive of “The Holocaust in the East”....
07/16/2026

We continue to share stories from our Holocaust Educational Archive, the largest archive of “The Holocaust in the East”. Holocaust Survivor Stalina B. remembers the war through the eyes of a child: straw-covered carriages, hunger, illness, freezing water, and a mother who worked day and night to keep her family alive.

“The beginning of the war was announced at 4 am on June 22, 1941. My father was a military man. He delivered my mother’s baby at home and was drafted to the front. My mother – with three children – was put in a carriage with the floor covered in straw, and we didn’t know where we were going. One stop was in Tatarstan, and then we ended up in Nizhny Tagil, in the Urals.

Hard times started, especially for our mother, and we were beside her. Mother couldn't get a job because she had a baby; we lacked food and ate whatever we were given. We started to catch diseases and had no treatment. At night my mother worked as a guard, during daytime she had various jobs to feed us. We lacked money. She couldn’t buy us any clothes, we wore what others gave us.

We lived in a small barn with only a furnace and plank flooring on which we slept. I had to help my mother to take care of my little sister, light the stove and bring water. A water pump was far away from our house, and we brought water in two buckets using a rocker. My mother handwashed everything at home and my sister and I after washing went to rinse it in an ice-hole in winter. It was far away, too.”

“In 1941, my father was sent to the front, while Mother and her three children remained in occupied Poltava. In 1943, we...
07/14/2026

“In 1941, my father was sent to the front, while Mother and her three children remained in occupied Poltava. In 1943, we children and my mother were handed over to the Gestapo, when neighbors informed the authorities about our family. In four days, nothing was left in our flat, only bare walls, empty beds, and the three of us gone. Then the building which housed sixteen families, including us, was set on fire. We had nothing left but the clothes we were wearing. For a week we lived in the garden until we found an empty house.

In 1947 there was another famine; the family barely survived. After the war, my sister married a military man and they moved to the Caucasus. My brother was drafted into the navy in Kaliningrad, Russia. I have seen my sister twice and my brother three times.

At the moment, I take care of my disabled son. We have a dog, a nine-year-old black spaniel. He is very clever. We look after him and he looks after us. He is very loving and kind, and loves to sleep on white linen with a pillow under his head. He is our joy. We have no family records or other family members left alive. Nothing survived because there was no one to save it... I am very grateful to you and your colleagues for your care and help. I pray for your good health.” –Holocaust Survivor Valentina A. from Vinnitsa, Ukraine.

Address

Los Angeles, CA
90039

Opening Hours

Monday 9:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 9:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 9:30am - 5pm
Thursday 9:30am - 5pm

Telephone

+18009056160

Website

,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Survivor Mitzvah Project posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to The Survivor Mitzvah Project:

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category