Holocaust Memorial Center Dinner Honors Commerce Twp. Couple

The will honor a Commerce Twp. couple at its 27th Anniversary Dinner, held Sept. 18 at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield.  
 
The annual fundraising event, which begins at 5:30 p.m., honors Lauren and Sam Bienenstock of Bienenstock Court Reporting & Video for their dedication and commitment to the center. Award-winning independent filmmaker and television editor Sharon Rennert, who recently made the documentary, In Our Hands: A Personal Story of the Bielski Partisans, will deliver the keynote address.
 
Additionally, four Holocaust Memorial Center staff members will be recognized for their more than 25 years of dedicated service: Membership Director Helen Rosenzveig, Group Scheduler Gail Susan Cohen, Administrator Selma Lahr Silverman and Head Librarian Feiga Weiss.
 
Lauren and Sam Bienenstock founded Bienenstock Court Reporting & Video in 1995. The business now has eight offices throughout Michigan and provides services to clients in all 50 states.
 
The Bienenstocks are members of the Society for the Technological Advancement of Reporting, where Lauren has served as a board member and past president, National Network of Reporting Companies, National Court Reporters Association and Michigan Association of Professional Court Reporters. The Bienenstocks also own Commerce Park Properties I and II, real estate investment companies located in Bingham Farms.

The family’s connection to the Holocaust is on Sam’s side. Soon after the outbreak of WWII, Sam’s father, Abraham, as well as Abraham’s father and brother, were sent to Siberia. Although they found their way back home, Abraham spent time in various Nazi concentration camps. At the last camp, Bergen-Belsen, he found his only surviving sibling, Helena. Following his liberation, Abraham was sent to Sweden, which also is where he met his wife and Sam’s mother, Bajla Lewkowicz.
 
Bajla and her four sisters survived Auschwitz but kept their relationship a secret from their captors. In fact, the siblings were in line on their way to the gas chamber before being abruptly pulled out of line and sent to a Krupp munitions factory, where they made guns, ironically, to kill Jews and others. From Krupp, they went to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp where they were eventually liberated. The five sisters were then reunited with their one surviving brother in Sweden.
 
Rennert is the granddaughter of the famed partisan Tuvia Bielski, who, along with brothers Zus and Asael, refused to succumb to the hopeless circumstances of the Holocaust, took their fate into their own hands and kindled a flame of hope in the hearts of Jews searching for sense and meaning during one of their darkest times in history. Their story also is told in the 2008 movie, Defiance, with Daniel Craig portraying Tuvia Bielski, the group’s leader.
 
The Rochester, NY native has been editing and producing documentary series and television specials for nearly 20 years.  She is an active member of the Editor's Guild, and is currently working on The Bachelor for ABC and The Real World for MTV. Currently, Rennert is working on an unnamed documentary of the exploits of the Bielskis along with an exhibit entitled, "In Our Hands: A Personal Story of the Bielski Partisans", scheduled to be displayed at the Holocaust Memorial Center from July 8, 2012, through Nov. 4, 2012.
 
The 27th Anniversary Dinner will include a raffle with a two-night stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and a two-night stay at the Townsend Hotel in downtown Birmingham and 16-inch strand of pearls as prizes. Monies raised at the event will benefit the Holocaust Memorial Center’s programming and operations.
 
Dinner tickets can be purchased for $200 each and $2,500 for a table of 10. The event will begin with the President’s Reception at 4:30 p.m. for purchasers of Scroll of Honor tickets ($360) followed by the strolling dinner to officially kick off the event at 5:30 p.m. The program will follow at 7 p.m., with a dessert afterglow concluding the evening’s festivities.   
 
Reservations for the dinner are required and complimentary valet parking will be provided. For tickets or more information, contact Selma Silverman at 248-553-2400, ext. 12, or selma.silverman@holocaustcenter.org.