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There was no shortage of commitment to Holocaust education at this summer’s NewCAJE conference. At least seven sessions focused on the Shoah, including two from Teach the Shoah (TTS). Participants could even earn a Holocaust Certificate.

What struck me, though, was how eager these educators were for tools that could help their students connect with the Holocaust on a deeper, more personal level – the very challenge I had come to address in my session on TTS’s educational approach.

My session participants were blown away by our storytelling technique. They were experienced educators who knew how to assign readings, display maps, and encourage students to interview survivors in their communities. They knew how to teach the history. What they needed was a way to make it personal.

I told a 3-minute story about the bravery of ballerina Francezka Mann as she arrived in Auschwitz. I showed them the primary sources I used to develop the story. We discussed which aspects of her experiences would or would not be appropriate for different audiences.

I shared a few brief pieces of written testimony from survivor June Salzer Prager. I gave them the opportunity to describe the images they formed from each. Then I told Juniya’s entire story, and we discussed the choices I made in the telling.

Several people told me later that they had found my workshop to be very impactful and useful to them as teachers. They thanked me for introducing them to this new tool for teaching about the Shoah.

In the evening, there was music, comedy, and moving performances. Jennifer Zunikoff’s portrayal of Emma Lazarus brought to life her passion for refugees – for people pushed from their homelands because they were considered too “other” – and her vision of an America that would welcome them. Then Dvora Caspi’s husband, Abba, led his choir onto the stage to sing “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor,” Irving Berlin’s setting of Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus.”

We ended the evening with Rachel Haymer (Kol Isha) singing, and her lyrics electrified me with purpose. We in the audience sang along to her words: “It’s on us”. ­

And there it is. It is indeed on us. Both Jewish and non-Jewish educators want to teach this aspect of Jewish history, but they need new tools and effective resources to do it. We at TTS have the tools and resources and, most importantly, the people to help them do it.

It’s on us.

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Sometimes an experience gives you a lot more than you expect. That was the case when I recently attended NewCAJE, an annual conference for Jewish educators. I was not there as a Teach the Shoah (TTS) teller but rather attended because of my job as a temple educator. I expected the conference would provide inspiration and ideas to enhance my teaching, and it did. However, the most valuable takeaway was unrelated to this. Instead, it was the connections I made with other TTS storytellers.

During the conference I met several TTS members whom I had only met over Zoom, as well as one whom I hadn’t met but whose name I recognized. I instantly felt a bond to each of them. We talked, laughed, gave positive support before sessions we were presenting, and learned more about each other’s lives. In other words, we formed a community. What surprised me was how quickly and easily this happened, which reflects on the wonderful atmosphere created by TTS leadership and everyone involved.

Since taking the Moving from Testimony to Story class a year ago, I have felt the strength and support of the TTS community. Through the willingness of others in my class to listen to me experimenting with scenes and revising them until they worked, the appreciations given after a presentation, the workshops during which storytellers can receive help from each other, and so much more, the sense of being part of a community is always there.

Even outside the actual storytelling, members of the TTS community clearly care about each other. Recently, someone mentioned that she had experienced an antisemitic incident. TTS members immediately responded with their support in terms of her response and their pride in her for responding as she did. Birthday wishes sent to others in the group are more than just “happy birthday” because they often include an appreciation of the person’s contribution to TTS.

Telling Holocaust stories can be hard. Each time I tell my dad’s story, I wonder how it will be received by the listeners and whether it will make a difference. The emotions I feel when telling the story stay with me for quite some time. Having the TTS community’s support is invaluable in so many ways and is greatly appreciated.

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I have heard many positive things said by participants after a storytelling presentation. Some of the most memorable comments, however, have come from high school students. At a recent program at a public high school near my home in the Dallas area, we not only shared stories of the Holocaust and talked about the history, but we also talked about the assorted cultures of Jews in various places across Europe and how those cultures were impacted by the Holocaust. Many resulting comments and questions from the students were poignant and insightful, but one in particular stood out.

“I always knew [the Holocaust] was bad, but it wasn’t until I heard you tell this girl’s story in her own voice that I understood how bad it really was, how horrible it must have been for the people that lived through it.”  The young lady who said this went on to talk about how eye-opening it was to hear about a girl roughly her own age (16 or 17 years old) coping with such traumatic issues. She compared this to her own life and was genuinely moved by her counterpart’s struggles. This young woman then commented on the similarities in day-to-day life between herself and the girl whose story she had just heard. It was clear she saw more things they had in common than differences between them.

The best part about this girl’s reaction to my story was what she did with it. A few weeks later, I came back to the school as a parent evaluator. This is a role specific to this school where parents of students at the school are invited to view and evaluate projects completed by students in various classes. This girl created an amazing art piece depicting the teenager in my story, showing her thinking about what she would do when the war ended, and she could go back to living her life. The student gave a short presentation about the piece, and how she was inspired by both my story and the story of another girl in similar circumstances. The entire time she spoke, I just stared at her artwork and listened to her, quietly kvelling.

I later learned that her art was entered in a city-wide contest focused on art depicting the Holocaust. The contest was sponsored by the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum and had entries from high schools all over the DFW Metroplex. While this student’s art didn’t win, it was one of very few chosen as a finalist. This is the sort of thing that inspires me. This is why I tell these stories.

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This week I told my father’s story to several classes of tenth graders at a local high school. My father, his parents, and his younger sister left Germany in 1933 to move to Czechoslovakia only to be living under Nazi rule once again in 1939. Through luck, courage, and ingenuity, they then managed to reach Istanbul, Turkey where they lived the remainder of the war.

After my presentation, there was time for slides, questions, and discussion. One slide I showed had two photos – my father (about age 2) holding his father’s hand next to one of my father (age 90) holding his first great-grandchild’s hand. I asked what students thought had helped my father’s family survive the Holocaust, so he was able to live to have great-grandchildren. The first two answers I received were optimism and resiliency. Both answers not only told me that these students had connected with the story but also spoke to what I think we all need during difficult times – optimism (or at least hope that conditions will improve) and resiliency to continue on.

At one point a student asked, “Do you have any questions you wish you could ask your father?” This question touched my heart immediately. I never stop wishing I could ask my father more about his life during the Holocaust. I know that he would not be able to answer some of the questions because his parents never spoke to him about many details (such as how they obtained false documents to travel to Turkey). I know there are questions he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer because it was still too painful for him even towards the end of his life. Despite this, I never stop wishing that I had one more chance to learn more about his experiences. Maybe this reflects my mixed emotions when telling his story — missing him but also feeling he is near me and happy I am keeping his story alive.

Towards the very end of the session, a student commented that hearing me tell my dad’s story made it much more real than just reading about it in a book. What a great appreciation of the wonderful work done by Teach the Shoah and one that reinforces my commitment to keep my father’s story alive.

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When I initially decided to pursue a fellowship through Teach the Shoah, I did so with the intention of learning more about public history. I felt understanding history’s utility outside of academia would benefit me. I did not expect to learn anything new about myself or for the content to connect emotionally with me.

But history was brought to life in a deeply intimate and powerful way, changing how I view my own life.

Meeting Joseph Samuels for the first time, an Iraqi Jew and 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, intimidated me. We were separated by seven decades and immensely different upbringings. However, our interviews quickly dispelled any notion that we truly were very different from one another.

Joe recounted many elements of his childhood that resonated with me and recalled my own memories, from his close yet at times combative relationships with his older brothers to the fear that a monster lived in his toilet. Even a century ago, sibling quarrels and imaginary monsters were among the troubles a young boy confronted while growing up.

The sense of similarity between our upbringings dissipated when Joe detailed his experience during the Farhud to me. Despite being so far removed from Germany, the consequences of Nazism and antisemitism reached Iraq and precipitated a violent massacre in Baghdad, the city where Joe grew up, in 1941. He viscerally detailed his experiences during this time and vividly highlighted a chapter of the Holocaust I was previously unfamiliar with. His story not only informed me about an aspect of history which had slipped through the cracks but also gave me a devastating understanding of what enduring such an experience is like.

However, our discussions also revealed the other parts of Joe’s life that might otherwise have been overshadowed by his experiences during the Farhud. After escaping from Iraq and eventually relocating to America, Joe began a new life. He established a successful real estate career, started a family, travelled the world, and restored his sense of community.

He could have just as easily succumbed to despair and allowed the atrocities he witnessed to determine his life. Instead, he took advantage of his tremendous good fortune and made the most of the opportunities that presented themselves to him.

And this remains true for the other survivors I met – despite the horrors they experienced, they lived incredibly rich and beautiful lives after the Holocaust. So often we forget that the stories of many who survived the Holocaust did not end with liberation: while many never moved on, perpetually grappling with their trauma or choosing to end their lives, many thrived after the horrific events they experienced and lived long, fruitful, and happy lives. However, these portions of survivors’ stories are often diminished or entirely ignored.

The stories of the survivors I met inspired and encouraged me, not only because of their incredible resilience and spirit, but also because they demonstrate the human capacity for rebuilding and restoring, that our worst experiences do not have to define who we are or what we can accomplish.

Even those who experienced the evils of the Holocaust – from the Farhud that Joe’s family narrowly survived to the concentration camps and the mass slaughter that occurred in Europe – were often able to prevail and begin again, unwilling to let the evil of antisemitism define them or limit their story.

Being in my final year of undergraduate study, still navigating the fallout of a medical trauma I had experienced several years prior and anxious about what awaited me after college, the stories of Joseph Samuels, Henry Slucki, and Eva Nathanson felt particularly pertinent to my own situation. They reminded me not only of the consequences of hatred and dehumanization, but also of our capacity to dictate our own lives and make the most of the future, even when our past feels inescapable and hope feels out of reach. We do not choose the circumstances we face or the challenges that confront us, but we do have the ability to decide how we respond.

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