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SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
E ven years before the pandemic, finding community and ward-
ing off isolation was hard. It’s something Stacy Seltzer learned
firsthand. The founder of 3G Philly, an organization connecting the grand-
children (or third generation) of Holocaust survivors and advocating
for Holocaust education, Seltzer, 38, had trouble bringing a group
of Philadelphia 3Gs together when she moved to the area in 2012,
despite co-founding Boston 3G a few years prior.

The problem wasn’t finding young Jews with whom to gather; it
was the life stage the cohort was in: Many 3Gs, Seltzer included, had
young children and didn’t have the same spontaneity or bandwidth
to meet up with a group for a weekend gathering.

“Having the time to have a full-time job, do a full-time nonprofit,
raise a family — it’s finding that time in your life that you have the
capacity to give to it and that you have the energy to be able to attend
these events,” Seltzer said.

10 JULY 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
While the early days of COVID dis-
rupted the lives of so many, it also
allowed 3G Philly to begin in earnest.

“Everything started being virtual,”
she said. “So you didn’t have that same
concern about, ‘How are we going to
get everybody in a central location?’
You were able to virtually get everyone
together.” Since its April 2021 founding, 3G
Philly has amassed 215 members on its
mailing list and nine board members.

The organization has partnered with
the Holocaust Awareness Museum
and Education Center and expanded
3GNY’s We Education (WEDU) edu-
cation initiative to Philadelphia, pro-
viding training to descendants of
Holocaust survivors on how to share
their loved ones’ stories with young
audiences. Seltzer has spoken to many
Philadelphia audiences about her
grandparents’ Holocaust survival story.

Seltzer’s grandmother Esther Bratt was
born in Vilna, Poland, and was sent
with her parents to live in the Vilna
ghetto before being forced to work
at the HaKapeh Labor Camp, where
she sewed socks for Nazi soldiers. The
camp was eventually liberated, and the
family immigrated to the U.S. in 1946,
where Esther Bratt met her husband,
Sidney Bratt.

Sidney Bratt’s Guttstadt, Germany,
hometown synagogue was destroyed in
Kristallnacht in 1938, and his parents
later arranged for him, the eldest of
four children, to flee to England via
Kindertransport. He reunited with his
father after the war, and the two came
to America in 1948.

The couple eventually settled in
Reading, about an hour away from
Seltzer and her family, who live in Blue
Bell and attend Tiferet Bet Israel.

Originally from Allentown, Seltzer
attended Muhlenberg College and met
her husband at Camp Ramah in the
Poconos. They moved to New York
after college in 2006 and immediately
joined 3GNY. When they moved to
Boston a year later, they created Boston
3G hoping to recreate the warm Jewish
community they found in New York.

Boston 3G’s first event took place in
the living room of the Seltzers’ apart-
ment; they ordered pizza, and more
than 20 descendants of Holocaust sur-
vivors showed up.

“We just went around and shared our
stories,” Seltzer said. “And that ended
up turning into this amazing, amazing
group. We had various events; we had
probably several hundred people on
our mailing list; we were [featured] in
The Boston Globe.”
As 3GNY, Boston 3G and 3G Philly
continue to grow, Seltzer is working
with the various groups to create a
national umbrella organization to bet-
ter oversee programming and hold
larger-scale conferences, though the
individual branches of the organiza-
tion will remain autonomous.

As much as Seltzer is looking out-
ward to expand 3G, she’s putting just as
much effort into furthering her mission
of Holocaust remembrance within her
own home. Seltzer has three children
— ages 9, 7 and 4 — and the oldest one
is already taking on the responsibility
of learning about the Holocaust.

The work of remembering and shar-
ing the stories of the older generation
is getting more challenging. The 3G
generation is a sweet spot: Many 3Gs
enjoy close relationships with their
grandparents and learn their stories
after the survivors have had time and
space away from the trauma of the
Holocaust. Survivors may not have
been as forthcoming with information
about the Holocaust to their own chil-
dren as they were to their grandchil-
dren. Great-grandchildren may not be
as close with their survivor relatives, or
may just not have as much time with
them as their parents did.

“The 4Gs will have a similar con-
nection, where … if they’re for-
tunate enough to hear it from their
great-grandparents, then they can con-
tinue to pass down these very import-
ant stories and make sure that they’re
not forgotten,” Seltzer said.

Though heavy and important work,
it’s rewarding and grows optimism
within the Jewish community for a
better future, Seltzer believes.

“It doesn’t all have to be sad and neg-
ative,” she said. “It’s about hope, and
it’s about taking away the hatred of the
world.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Stacy Seltzer
Stacy Seltzer