BROOKHAVEN
Daffodil plantings serve as Holocaust remembrance BY SAMMIE PURCELL The first time Sandy Baumwald heard about The Daffodil Project, it was from her brother, Ronnie Mayer. One day out of the blue, Mayer called her and asked if she wanted to come down to Brookhaven from her home in Athens and help plant some daffodils. Baumwald didn’t know about The Daffodil Project, but she still made the trek down to Brookhaven for a Nov. 7 planting at Ashford Park. She would later learn what the project was and realize how much of a personal connection her family had. The Dunwoody-based Daffodil Project is an initiative that aspires to plant 1.5 million daffodils in memory of children who died during the Holocaust, essentially creating a “living Holocaust memorial,” according to the project’s website. When Mayer heard about the project, he couldn’t wait to volunteer to help. “I jumped all over it,” Mayer said. The project meant to much to Mayer because his and Baumwald’s uncle, Kurt Mayer, is one of those 1.5 million children who died during the Holocaust, or the genocide of Jewish people during World War II.
12 JANUARY 2022| REPORTER NEWSPAPERS
Brookhaven resident Ronnie Mayer and his sister, Sandy Baumwald holding a picture of their father Hans Mayer and his brother Kurt Mayer as young boys. Kurt is on the left with glasses. (Special/Sandy Baumwald)
“The reason we chose the daffodil is “The shock and horror of what hapbecause the shape and the color are sympened, I’ve kind of lived with,” Baumwald bolic of the yellow stars that Jews were said of what happened to her uncle. “But forced to wear during the Holocaust,” she it’s only been in the last 10 years or so that said. “So the daffodil is like the six-pointed I really have dedicated all my resources shape, and the color yellow is also the colto finding out exactly, almost to the day, or of remembrance.” what happened.” Videlefsky said the group tries to incorIn her research, Baumwald found that porate Holocaust education and awarethe siblings’ father, Hans Mayer, and his ness within the planting process. The garyounger brother Kurt were born in Neudens are outfitted with plaques explaining wied, Germany in the 1920s. According to what The Daffodil Project is, and volunBaumwald, when Hans was around 13 or teers usually bring along bios of children 14 years old, classmates began bullying who died in the Holocaust along with him in school because of his Jewish herithem. tage. In 1937, the family sent Hans to live “When we plant, we usually ask people with great aunt in Savannah, Ga. so he to step forward and take a bulb and also could finish out his education. Kurt stayed take one of the bios that kind of describes behind with his family. the life of a child who died during the HoA year later on Nov. 9 and 10 of 1938, locaust. And in that way, it sort of makes the Nazis ransacked Jewish homes and it more of a personal learning experibusinesses in an event called Kristallence, and they can relate to that particunacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass.” lar child,” Videlefsky said. “It’s very hard Baumwald said afterwards, her uncle and his family were taken to Cologne, Germany, where they were put to work building a highway. Baumwald’s research led her to July of 1942, when she says her uncle, grandfather and grandmother were put on a train. While she believes her grandmother died before they arrived at their destination, she said her uncle and grandfather were executed in a village called Malytrotensk. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. A recent daffodil planting at Brookhaven Park on Dec. 4. (Special/Thad Ellet) “That’s the story of to conceptualize 1.5 billion. This makes it a my family.” personal way of learning about it.” The Ashford Park planting is not the But for folks like Mayer and Baumonly Daffodil Project event that’s taken wald, the connection is already personal. place in Brookhaven as of late. AccordDuring the Ashford Park planting, the sibing to Steve Peters, chair of the Parks and lings dedicated their daffodils to their UnRecreation Coalition (PARC) Brookhavcle Kurt. en, PARC Brookhaven has been encourag“It doesn’t really hit you until it hits ing parks within the city to host daffodil you. And when it does, you feel it,” Mayer plantings. In 2021, plantings have taken said of the planting and dedication experiplace at three parks – Blackburn Park, ence. “You get a little teary-eyed.” Ashford Park, and Brookhaven Park. VolBaumwald said while she was touched unteers, including Baumwald and Mayer, by the dedication and the planting, the explanted 500 bulbs at each park. perience wasn’t necessarily a joyous one, Andrea Videlefsky, the president of Am but rather an important reminder of the Yisrael Chai, the parent nonprofit organiloss. zation of The Daffodil Project, said once “People I know that are children of Hothis planting season finishes up in Janulocaust survivors, you grow up very difary 2022, the organization will have plantferently. The world is an evil place, and ed just over 700,000 daffodils since the orthere’s fear and there’s not a lot of joy,” ganization began in 2010. Baumwald said. “So it wasn’t something “Steve Peters has given us a wonderlike, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been waiting my enful opportunity to plant in the Brookhavtire life for this.’ It was nice, I was happy to en parks, and he has a vision for this exhelp. As many times as I can tell this stotending to many, many more parks in the ry, I will.” Brookhaven area,” she said. The daffodil was a symbolic choice, said Videlefsky. reporternewspapers.com BK
