JERUSALEM (EJP)--- A 1930s style cafe is to be opened in an Israeli town aimed specifically at the 500 former European residents of who survived WWII.

The unique establishment, which will open once a week, is to be located in the town of Ramat Hasharon, close to Tel Aviv.

The town’s mayor said this week that he felt it was the least the local community can do to help the hundreds of senior citizen’s who came through the horrors of the Holocaust.

Most of the elderly people who grew up in Europe in the first half of the 20th century were sent to concentration camps after the Nazis took control. Many of them lost family members, murdered in camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Original style

A spokesman for the new cafe, to be called Cafe Europe, said those running and organising the establishment will do their best to make the clientele feel at home.

It will be designed in a pre-war style, serve meals popular in the early 20th century and use dishes and crockery from the time.

Ramat Hasharon Mayor Yitzhak Rochberger said he believed it was important for the town to support the hundreds of senior citizens who went through such difficulties during the war.

"We care about the survivors. We regard them as an integral part of the Ramat Hasharon community. Activities of this type are meant to empower our senior citizens who came here with that specific background and to strengthen their feeling of belonging to this community," he told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth.

Good idea

Locals have welcomed the idea as a good chance for the survivors to get together and talk about the past while still focusing on the future. The idea for the new venue came from survivors who asked the Ramat Hasharon municipality to provide a place for them to meet

“It’s an opportunity not only to talk about what you went through, but discuss what happened after that,” one survivor told the newspaper.

Another survivor, Marti Dotan, added: "It’s an opportunity not only to talk about what you went through, but discuss what happened after that, talk about the children, grandchildren, how you spend your time."