The importance of keeping the survivors’ stories alive

 

During my senior year of high school, I was selected to be a Holocaust docent for a Holocaust organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. As part of this program, I was trained to give presentations and talks to middle and high school students about the Holocaust to raise awareness of the atrocities that took place during World War II.

 

I don't exactly remember when my interest in this area began. As far as I know, thankfully, none of my relatives, or at least close relatives, perished during the Holocaust. But I did all I could to learn about the subject, including perusing and reading numerous books in the library or at local bookstores. 

 

I bring this up in this month's column because, with each Yom HaShoah (which begins on Sunday, May 5), we get further away from this event, and survivors get older and older. And sadly, as we all know are passing away. And with their passing, their firsthand accounts of what they experienced and witnessed. 

 

Between my junior and senior years of college, I had the pleasure of interning at the Holocaust Oral History Project. This organization's mission was to capture (on audio cassette tape) the stories of survivors living in the Bay Area. I remember the Executive Director telling me that the organization had received a letter (and donation) from Steven Spielberg that said to continue focusing on the San Francisco area and that "we (the Shoah Foundation) will take care of the rest of the world." (How cool is that?) On my very first day there, I had a chance to meet and have lunch with Chiune Sugihara's son because the organization was helping the family promote Visas for Life, a book about Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania, who falsified visas to save Jews lives. I had never heard about this story prior to my internship, and I am still thankful for that experience to this day.

 

With each passing day, it becomes our collective responsibility to ensure that people do not forget what took place during World War II. We must continue to do all we can to keep the stories of the survivors alive. 

 

For the last several years, our Jewish Federation has been doing that between our annual Every Person Has a Name commemoration and our Holocaust-staged play-readings, which we have often done in partnership with the Pasadena Playhouse. This year's reading will take place on Monday, May 6, and I hope you will join us. More information about this event can be found in this issue of JLife SGPV or on our website (www.jewishsgpv.org). 

 

No matter what you do, I urge you to make sure you do something this month, whether it's watching a new series or shows now streaming like The Tattoo Artist of Auschwitz (Peacock), We Were The Lucky Ones (Hulu) or others, reading a book, visiting Holocaust Museum LA or Museum of Tolerance (and take someone with you), or go to a website like the Shoah Foundation or the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Use this moment to reflect and remember that it becomes our responsibility every day to make sure that the world does not forget about the Holocaust.