Fundraiser At The View Grill

The View Grill presents a fundraiser for the Church of the Holy Resurrection Expansion Project.

This fundraiser will be held Saturday, Feb. 11 and will run 12 to 5 p.m.

The $40 admission will include a buffet luncheon, dessert, wine, beer and soda. Reservations are recommended.

One hundred percent of the proceeds collected will be donated to The Church of The Holy Resurrection Expansion Project by founding member Peter Antonopoulos, in memory of his son Billy Antonopoulos. ‘

—Submitted by Tara Butler Sahai and Jeanine DiMenna

When Helen Diamant died in her Jesup, Georgia home of 18 years on June 4, 2016, it was less than 24 hours after the death of Muhammad Ali. While “Miss Diamant’s” obituary appeared in her local Jesup newspaper (the Press-Sentinel) Ali’s life and death were reported on thousands of front pages, and read by millions of people around the world. Ali’s fame had begun when, as a 22-year-old boxer named Cassius Clay, he defeated the 7-1 favorite, heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. I would argue that my tiny mother-in-law, in her own quiet way, had previously defeated an even more formidable foe than Liston ever was: namely Adolf Hitler! And here is the rest of that story:

When Helen Diamant herself was 22-year-old Chella Wildenberg in 1939 Poland, Hitler invaded her country at the beginning of World War II. By the time Cassius Clay was born in 1942, Helen (then,

Letter To The Editor

the Polish “Chella”) had already been suffering at the hands of Hitler’s Nazis for several years. There came a day when she learned that all the workers in the labor camp where she was imprisoned would soon be sent to the infamous Treblinka concentration camp to be murdered in its gas chambers, but she somehow managed to escape. She was also able to rescue her younger brother from another work camp. After weeks of running, hiding, freezing and starving, he finally told her he wanted them to give themselves up---knowing they would be shot to death, but also that their fear, hunger and suffering would finally come to an end. He believed that their continuing survival was an impossibility, but Helen told him “No, I won’t do that. I HAVE TO SEE THE END OF HITLER, and I just know he’s going to have a bad end.” She later said that belief was part of what “kept me going.”

Unfortunately, she and her brother eventually got separated, and before the end of the war he, their older brother and sister, their parents, and two dozen other relatives all were killed. Except Helen, who had kept her promise to herself to “live to see the end of Hitler”.

When Hitler ignominiously killed himself at age 56 in 1945, Helen, who had eventually escaped to relative safety in---of all places---Germany, was working as a maid. She was then 28-years-old, only half of Hitler’s age, but she was to live on long past his 56 years on earth. She lived until the age of 99, having graced the earth for 43 years MORE than the 56 years Hitler defiled it. She lived into 2016, surviving past his 1945 death by 71 long and fruitful years. When Hitler killed himself inside his underground bunker, he died in defeat, surrounded mainly by people who feared him. When “Miss Helen” died inside her Jesup home in 2016, she died with dignity, surrounded by people who loved her.

Just the year after Hitler’s 1945 death, Helen and her husband Howard were blessed with the birth of their daughter Laura. They then had 3 sons, and Helen continues to live on today through Laura and two of her brothers : “Dr. Bob” Diamant and “Dr. Mike” Diamant, Wayne Memorial Hospital’s chief anesthesiologists these past two decades.

Helen Diamant has often been called a Holocaust “survivor”, but she has also been both a “striver” and a “thriver.” The dictionary entries for “striver” (“one who exerts much energy and effort, one who struggles to succeed”) and “thriver” (“one who grows vigorously, makes steady progress, prospers and flourishes”) could both be illustrated with pictures of my mother-in-law.

As her cemetery headstone says:

Helen Wildenberg Diamant

Holocaust Survivor

Beloved Mother, Sister and Grandmommy

Born January 19, 1917 in Kozienice, Poland

Passed June 4, 2016 in Jesup, Georgia

SHE GAVE ALL TO HER CHILDREN