NORTHAMPTON – On Thursday, sixth graders at Lander-Grinspoon Academy commemorated Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, with a performance of the song “Dos Elnte Kind” (“The Lonely Child”), and a visit from someone with a direct connection to the song. The song describes the life of a young girl, Sarah Krynska, in hiding during the Holocaust. Krynska’s daughter, Alix Wall, and filmmaker Marc Smolowitz — also the child of a “hidden child” — are producing a documentary about the people keeping the song alive across the world today, like LGA music teacher Felicia Sloin. When Wall’s mother died in 2002, she taught the song to Sloin to perform at Krynska’s memorial and since then Sloin has been performing and teaching the song every year as she marks Yom HaShoah.
Kevin Gutting can be reached at kgutting@gazettenet.com