Power Of The Community Helping South Florida Holocaust Survivors Celebrate Passover

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Turmoil in Eastern Europe goes back centuries.

For historians, the refugee exodus from Ukraine in recent weeks is a tragic continuation of a timeline drenched in tragedy.

Holocaust survivor Moshe Vorona, 88, shakes when he speaks about his memories as a very young boy in Eastern Europe.

"We never thought we would see it happen again," he said. 

Post World War II Europe was ravaged and its people, many stateless, fought to recover their lives.

Moshe and Sofia Vorona, he from Moldova and she from Ukraine, were young children at the time. Both their families were able to seek refuge in Uzbekistan in 1941.

When the war ended the couple met and married in 1956.

"No matter what I do in this life, always in the back of my mind I remember the six million Jews who perished in the holocaust," said Moshe Vorona.

Sofia, 87, has a special concern and prays for the four generations of her family who recently fled their hometown of Nikolaev, Ukraine,

"This is the one thing we worry about, we have relatives in every possible country," she said.

In celebration of Passover, the Goodman Jewish Family Services of Broward delivered 650 kosher Seder meals to Holocaust survivors throughout the county. The meal was a surprise for the Voronas.

"For many of them, tradition is very important. Many of them are not surrounded by family and friends. So for us to be able to do this, to provide them with an extended family and also provide them, hopefully, with some good memories from the past," said Randy Coleman, CEO of Goodman Jewish Family Services.

Goodman Jewish Family Services said approximately two thousand Holocaust survivors live in Broward County, one of the largest Holocaust survivor populations in the United States.