Associated Press Writer
MINEOLA, N.Y. - In the eyes of the Jewish faith, 76-year-old Herman Rosenblat is now a man.
The Holocaust survivor and his wife -- whose incredible love story has Hollywood knocking -- were honored Thursday by a small congregation at the Beth Shalom Chabad synagogue, where Rabbi Anchelle Perl presided over the Florida resident's much-delayed bar mitzvah.
''We live in a time where we need hope and a positive outlook in life, and Herman's story reminds us that goodness will always overcome badness, and light will overcome darkness,'' Perl said after the service.
``When you listen to the story of Herman, he was always bar mitzvahed inside, and today just brought it out.''
Herman and Roma Rosenblat, now of North Miami Beach and formerly of Bayside, Queens, actually met as children -- he as a 12-year-old in a Nazi concentration camp and she as a 9-year-old who for months tossed apples and bread across a fence to help that little boy survive.
One day, he was transferred to another camp and thought he had seen the last of his petite benefactor.
Fourteen years later, Rosenblat -- now living in New York -- was cajoled into joining a buddy on a blind date. The nervous couple spoke of their mutual backgrounds as Polish émigrés. The conversation eventually turned to his childhood in a concentration camp, and Roma volunteered that she had lived near a camp where she would visit a young boy every day and sneak him food across the fence.
''That was me,'' Rosenblat said he exclaimed. ''Now that I found you, I'm not going to ever let you go'' and proposed marriage right on the spot.
Her initial response? 'She says, `You're crazy. We just met.' ''
Six months later, they were married. They went on to raise two children: a son, Kenneth, and a daughter, Renee.
''I'm very happy, I'm very proud of him,'' Roma Rosenblat said of her husband's bar mitzvah.
Herman Rosenblat explained that after missing his bar mitzvah while being held by the Nazis, he simply got on with living life after his release, raising a family, and never got around to it.
He'd think about it while attending other ceremonies over the years but figured he had missed his chance.
When the rabbi learned of the Rosenblats' love story from a mutual friend and television news producer who had featured the couple in a Valentine's Day feature last week, he contacted Herman Rosenblat.
'I said, `Let's make a bar mitzvah,' '' Perl said. ``His whole story is about how the hand of God brought him and his Roma together after many years, and I felt the hand of God continued with him now and we should bring him this bar mitzvah.''
Speaking to a modest group of about 25 congregants, Rosenblat testified about the horrors he survived at the hands of the Nazis, noting he was tattooed with the number 94,983.
'I told my brother, `Don't call me Herman no more, call me 94,983,' '' he recalled.
He remembered being so cold that, ``I don't remember summer. All I remember is winters.''
He spoke how his brothers each gave him a quarter of their daily allotment of one slice of bread because ``I was a growing boy.''
''That's love,'' he said. ``When all you have to eat is one slice of bread and you break off a quarter for someone else? That's love.''
Rosenblat retired as an electrical contractor in 1992 after being shot in his store in Brooklyn. He later was inspired to write a book about his experiences, including his encounters with that little girl who tossed him apples across the concentration camp fence.
Although the book has yet to be published, Rosenblat said there has been interest from Hollywood producers who want to turn his life story into a film titled The Fence.
''His life story and his bar mitzvah today is giving us hope that ultimately the destroyers won't have the last say,'' the rabbi said. ``Good people of all faiths will overcome.''
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