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Survivors Continued from Page 1
counseling and program
manager at KleinLife, which
provides wellness programming
for survivors. “They are very
conscious of the losses in the
community.” Organizations that work
with survivors emphasize the
importance of hearing survi-
vors’ stories as a vital way for
audiences to internalize the
impact of the Holocaust.

“Just using numbers and dates
and having this kind of distilled
history or scientifically historic
understanding of the Holocaust
— it just doesn’t give the appro-
priate weight to what happened
and to the magnitude of a loss
and of the horror that it was,”
said Sophie Don, senior manager
of programs and operations at
the Philadelphia Holocaust
Remembrance Foundation.

Daniel Goldsmith, a Hatboro-
based survivor, didn’t start talking
about his family’s escape from
the Holocaust until he stopped
working and was approached
by the University of Southern
California Shoah Foundation –
The Institute for Visual History
and Education to record the story
of his family’s survival.

Born in Antwerp, Belgium,
and separated from his parents
and younger sister at the height
of the war, Goldsmith, 90, took
refuge in a series of Catholic
homes until he was reunited
with his mother and sister and
later immigrated to the United
States as a teenager.

Though now eager to share
his story with others, Goldsmith
said his mother never shared
his desire to talk about the
Holocaust, not even with her
children. “Many, many Holocaust
survivors cannot talk about the
Holocaust. My mother was one
of those people,” Goldsmith
said. “It took me a very, very
long time to find a little piece
here and a little piece there to put
together what happened to her.”
Goldsmith felt he had
an obligation to a younger
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM generation.

“Once I stopped working, I
started speaking, and I made
myself a promise: I will speak
as long as I live because it’s so
important to tell the story,”
Goldsmith said.

These days, Goldsmith,
similarly to other Holocaust
organizations, is directing his
attention to a younger audience.

Partnering with the Elkins
Park-based Holocaust Awareness
Museum and Education Center
and Fegelson Young Feinberg
Jewish War Veterans Post 697
in Levittown, Goldsmith mostly
speaks to schoolchildren.

“I cannot tell you how many
times the teachers came over
to me and told me they did not
recognize the children because
they were never so quiet and
never so attentive,” Goldsmith
said. Goldsmith remains “cautiously
optimistic” about the next gener-
ation’s ability to remember the
Holocaust and combat everyday
hatred, which he believes was its
catalyst. A grandchild of Holocaust
survivors, Don believes that the
infrastructure to do this within
Holocaust organizations is
already being prioritized.

“We’ve had so much good
development of partnerships
with peer organizations and
with the Philadelphia School
District and with other districts
in the area that are interested
in doing professional develop-
ments with us and having people
join us for programs, whether
in-person or virtually, who are
really there to learn,” Don said.

To address the fewer oppor-
tunities young people may have
to hear from survivors, the
Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia is replacing its
Youth Symposium on the
Holocaust with a pilot live
theater program that will tell the
story of 10 survivors and will be
viewed by students from six area
middle and high schools.

“By adding a live drama
component (in place of a film),
we will enhance the emotional
and educational impact of the
program,” said Beth Razin, Jewish
Federation’s senior manager of
community engagement. “We
feel this is an important change
to make in regard to having a
smaller number of Holocaust
survivors able to participate in
the Youth Symposium on the
Holocaust programs.”
Though COVID is often
a limitation when planning
impactful programming,
increased use of Zoom has proven
an asset for some survivors.

“We’ve seen it as a barrier, but
also an opportunity to connect
with other organizations and to
be invited by other organizations
nationally and internationally, to
unite Holocaust survivors from
all over the world, especially
all over the United States,”
Keselman-Mekler said.

Goldsmith has been able to
conduct more talks to schools,
including one in Florida earlier
this month. He’s been impressed
by the way technology has
made it easier to preserve
stories of the Holocaust. During
a visit to the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C., he saw
holograms of survivors speaking
at length about their experiences.

“It was just as if that person
was there alive,” he said.

Though some organizations,
such as the Holocaust Memorial
The 1964 dedication of Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial
Plaza on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway by the Philadelphia Holocaust
Remembrance Foundation
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation
Museum, have addressed the
dwindling opportunities to
hear from survivors first-hand,
organizations such as 3G, a
collective of grandchildren of
Holocaust survivors, are finding
new ways of passing down their
grandparents’ stories.

Through the organization’s
We Educate program, 3G has
conducted training sessions to
teach third-generation members
to tell their grandparents’ stories
in new and respectful ways, as
well as partnered with schools to
create opportunities for others
to hear the stories of survivors
through the words of their
grandchildren. “Essentially, it is a way to get
into schools and teach students
who may never even have heard
of the Holocaust or who may
never have met a Jewish person
about what took place,” 3G
Philly founder Stacy Seltzer said.

Seltzer understands that
though she will never be able to
tell her grandparents’ stories in
the same way they would, the
deep obligation to share their
stories remains:
“That’s a conversation I’ve had
to have, to say, ‘I’m so fortu-
nate that you’re here. Are you
comfortable with me sharing this
story?’ And my grandmother has
said to me, ‘I can’t do it anymore.

I’m so grateful you are.’” l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
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