Disco therapy helps Holocaust survivors get over nightmarish memories

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New York, Mar h 4: Disco is being used in Brooklyn to help Holocaust victims get over their anxiety and grief.

Trippy lighting and funky music creates a soothing sensory experience at Minnie’s Place in Canarsie, helping survivors of the greatest atrocity of the 20th century get over their nightmarish memories, the New York Post reported.

With black lights, a projector beaming psychedelic images on a wall, a “shower curtain” of multi-colored fiber-optic strands and an aromatherapy diffuser, people would feel like a trip to The Body Shop.

This heavenly environment has become a soothing place for many Holocaust survivors who still struggle with repressed memories and crippling anxiety.

“I feel like I’m in heaven. This makes me forget all my problems and what I went through,” said Dora Zalcberg, 89, who was just 16 in 1939 when she was snatched from her home in Bedzin, Poland, and taken to the Parschnitz concentration camp.

The 12-by-9-foot space – which also features voice-sensitive lights and a vibrating bubble column – is the result of a partnership between the non-profit group Blue Card and The Hebrew Educational Society, which houses it in its Seaview Avenue building.

Organizers said the concept of the room was specifically inspired in part by that era’s discotheque scene.

This is something that hasn’t been tried before, said Blue Card Executive Director Masha Girshin.

Outfitting and operating the room cost about 55,000 dollars, and is paid by Blue Card and the Mazer Family Fund, a private outfit.

According to Girshin, Minnie’s Place – named after philanthropist and former Hebrew Educational Society President Minnie Nathanson – is a pilot program that Blue Card aims to roll out nationally.

This year, about 350 survivors are expected to use the Canarsie room, which opened to the public in January.

Free sessions are about once a week for 30 to 40 minutes, organizers said. (ANI)