A moment in the spotlight for Miss Holocaust Survivor pageant finalists
The Miss Holocaust Survivor pageant is aimed at giving its remarkable contestants a taste of the youth that was taken from them. Aya Lowe attends the controversial event
The dressing room at the Heichal HaSport Romema arena, in Haifa, Israel, is buzzing.
Make-up artists and stylists flutter around, trying to locate hair straighteners and brushes as they ready beauty contestants for their moment of fame. Towering hairdos are fixed and sparkling new gowns removed from their cellophane.
As well as locals, the 18 finalists primping and preening before they head onstage in front of a 2,000-strong crowd include contestants from the United States, Canada, France, Britain and Belgium.
But this is no ordinary beauty pageant; the contestants are aged between 70 and 94 and they are all survivors of the Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany.
Now in its second year, this unconventional contest, which was held on August 22, focuses on inner beauty and strength rather than physical appearance, according to its organiers. The event is the brainchild of Isabella Greenberg, Haifa’s municipal psychiatrist in charge of Holocaust survivors, who has long encouraged her patients to dress up in order to feel good about themselves.
“Fifty per cent of overcoming your past is … this,” she says of the thinking behind the event, which is contested by women chosen mainly for the experiences they have endured.
“All women who are now participating were young women during the Holocaust and this youth was taken away. When they stand on the stage they can regenerate that feeling [of being young],” says Shimon Sabag, founder and manager of the Haifa Home for Holocaust Survivors, which cares for about 80 men and women. The home is run by Yad Ezer L’Haver, an organisation that has partnered with the evangelical International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) to stage the pageant.