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Of the 1.6 million Jewish children who lived in Europe before WW2, only 100,000 survived the Holocaust. Most were hidden children. Maud Dahme was one of those children, hidden from the Nazis by righteous gentiles in the Netherlands. Maud's story is the story of hope, courage, and bravery and will inspire all who hear it. 

Learn more about Maud Dahme 

I grew up amongst Holocaust survivors in Montreal, Canada. Every family has a story. My family’s story is a story of survival, persistence, and love. It is universal yet uniquely personal.

Two wounded Holocaust survivors fell in love, created a family, and passed on a complex legacy. My father escaped Königsberg, Germany for British Mandate Palestine in 1935.  My mother was deported to Auschwitz from Transylvania in 1944.  Since I retired from teaching middle school language arts, I share this story to honor my parents’ memory and to educate people of all ages of the lasting effects of genocide.

Born in Poland in 1940, Mr. Foxman was saved from the Holocaust by his Polish Catholic nursemaid who baptized and raised him as a Catholic during the war years.  His parents survived the war, but 14 members of his family were lost. Abraham H. Foxman is world-renowned as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and discrimination. Mr. Foxman regularly speaks out on issues of global anti-Semitism, the war on terror, church/state issues, religious intolerance and issues relating to the Holocaust and Israel. He is a passionate supporter of the State of Israel and a voice for peace in the Middle East.

Learn more about Abraham H. Foxman 

Susan Arpajian Jolley, a retired English teacher, is the granddaughter of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. She and her brother, Allan Arpajian, co-authored Out of My Great Sorrows: The Armenian Genocide and Artist Mary Zakarian, a biography of their aunt, which received the 2019 Minas and Kohar Tölölyan Prize for Contemporary Literature. She subsequently partnered with scholars from Stockton University to develop The Armenian Genocide, One Family’s Story, a multi-dimensional exhibit, based on her book, that recounts her family history as situated within current Armenian Genocide scholarship. This exhibit has traveled to multiple NJ universities since its inception in 2022.

In her speaking engagements, Mrs. Jolley focuses on the story of her maternal grandmother, Arek Zakarian, a genocide survivor, and that of Arek’s daughter, Mary, an artist who suffered from inherited trauma. In addition, Mrs. Jolley sees her family’s experiences as both specific and universal, and speaks about the impact of human rights abuses and the need to do what we can to make the world a safer place for all people.

Igor Kotler is a member of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education. He served as a historian at Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. He is the President and Executive Director of the Museum of Human Rights, Freedom and Tolerance and is a Visiting Research Fellow and Director of the US-Russia-Former Soviet Union Dialogue Project at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University, Vice Director of the International Council for Diplomacy and Dialogue and Senior Research Associate at the International Educational and Research Center of the Holocaust and Genocides History at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. 

Igor speaks about the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union, how the Jews resisted the Soviet anti-Semetic policies and struggled for immigration. He also speaks about the origins of anti-Semitism and modern anti-Semitism in the United States and the world and his work with USC Shoah Foundation and the preservation of memory through video interviews. 

Julius Litman is a first generation American living in Princeton Junction, NJ. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Rutgers University (1971), the University of Pennsylvania (1973), and Syracuse University (1978). Since retiring, he has worked on Jacob’s Testament, a documentary based on interviews recorded with his parents in the 1980s, explaining his parents survival during the Holocaust and arrival in the United States in 1949. 

Beverly Margolies retired recently from her role as Bergen Community College's Instructional Designer where she led technology workshops and created websites and video tutorials for faculty, staff and students.    She was also responsible for coordinating Holocaust Speaker events for the college, as well as being a speaker for outside organizations. Her mother was born in Germany in 1923 and her father was born in Paris, France in 1921. They often shared their experiences as Jewish teenagers living in France during the Holocaust, their harrowing experiences fleeing Nazi persecution and seeking safe haven in the French countryside. 

Here is a link to her Shoah playlist which includes short clips from the origional Steven Spielberg Survivor of the Shoah interviews, for her parents and uncle.

  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbvvQ2biioJFGGNzggKCBfaQKEmbuaXzw

In October 1943 my mother, ”Esther Terner Raab” took on the Nazis in a daring and dangerous revolt in Sobibor, a death camp in Eastern Poland. She and I have dedicated our lives teaching children around the world what happened there.

Learn more about Marvin Raab 

Sami Steigmann is a Holocaust survivor who lives to tell his story through speaking at schools, campuses, organizations, media outlets and more. He is passionate about his role of sharing a fresh perspective on hope, life and faith. His mission is an acronym of the Hebrew word EMET (Truth): Educate, Motivate, Empower, Tolerance. To learn more about him, please download his PowerPoint from his website (except the mobile), google his name Sami Steigmann, Sami Steigman, and check out the Emmy award-winning clip Fox5 films/still here.

NOTE: His emphasis is learning from history, to combat hatred and prevent future tragedies. To learn (not comparing with the past), how was it possible that ordinary people from Germany, Europe, and other countries, found it not only acceptable but required, to annihilate one group of people, the Jews.

SAMI STEIGMANN WEBSITE: samispeaks.com

EMAIL: sami1939@gmail.com

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/Sami1939/

FOUNDATION: tamidnyc.org/sami.  

My parents and their families were from the Maramures region of Romania (just outside of Sighet). With the spread of Nazism into that part of Europe in the early 1940’s, life became increasingly difficult, culminating in the creation of a Jewish ghetto and ultimately deportation to Auschwitz in April-May 1944. The overwhelming majority of those transported to the camps did not survive. Being an only child of concentration camp survivors, my upbringing was certainly a unique experience. Now that I am fortunate to have teenage (and younger) grandchildren in high school (and elementary school), I have come to the realization of how important Holocaust education is – wherever, whenever and to whomever it can be appropriately provided.

Elyse Wolff is the granddaughter of two Holocaust survivors, Yolan and Joseph Lichtman.  Knowing that she is a descendant of survivors has greatly impacted Elyse’s life.  Since 2017, Elyse has served as an appointed Commissioner to the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, and she is a co-founder of 3GNJ, a NJ-based group of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who are passionate about ensuring that their family members’ stories of survival continue to be heard.

Elyse’s presentation focuses on her grandmother’s amazing story of survival, including her time in the Satu Mare ghetto and escaping death more than once at Auschwitz.  More than half of her grandmother’s family was killed during the Holocaust, but Elyse’s grandmother and one of her sister’s managed to stay together while at Auschwitz and later during a death march as the Allied Forces were closing in on the Nazis. Elyse has presented to dozens of audiences, and it is her mission and honor to continue sharing her grandmother’s story. 

3GNY - Descendants of Holocaust Survivors

Debby is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. Her father Herman was born in Kassel, Germany and was sent to the Riga Ghetto, in Latvia. Herman was a teen when the Nazis invaded Germany. He survived the Riga Ghetto and Kaiserwald concentration camp. Debby recounts her father’s story from the perspective of a young teen. She also talks about her fathers’ Nazi hunting pursuits after the war. Her presentation is supplemented with family photos and relevant photos.

Topics such as antisemitism, propaganda, bullying, and the impact of trauma are highlighted.  Debby enjoys having a discussion with students during her presentation to connect and engage with them.