Meeting Luigi
I’d like to share about a very meaningful day at the Museum, April 10, 2024. A group of survivors were asked to meet with a visiting photographer to participate in an ongoing project.
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My Responsibilities as a Survivor
I think of myself now as a survivor of the Holocaust. This was not always the case.
The Importance of Talking
For many years when we talked about family history, we had a few stories we always told.
My Name Is Grace-Elizabeth Riley
In 1965 Louis Armstrong came to Budapest, and he sang in front of 80,000 people in a soccer stadium. I was among the lucky ones who paid an inordinate amount of money for a ticket in the nosebleed section of the stadium.
The War Is Ending
It was April 1945, and we were slated to move into Kassel, Germany, to secure our building and personality targets as the US Army Infantry was occupying the city. But before we could enter, there came a change of orders.
Why Tell Our Stories
Wrapped in history Hearing our words go out in the world.
Monuments
As a Holocaust survivor and volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I think much of the work we do here qualifies as building a kind of monument.
A Monument, a Museum, a Sculpture
There is no other monumental structure more powerful than the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Holocaust Denial, Antisemitism, COVID-19: Revisiting Antisemitism
When General Eisenhower visited a concentration camp, he had the US Army document everything because he foresaw that, in the future, there would be people who deny what happened there. I admire his foresight. Since then countries, groups, and individuals have been denying the Holocaust. They say that the Holocaust has not happened, or the whole thing is exaggerated. They say that the Jews came up with the whole idea to get money. However, if the Holocaust has not happened, why has Germany paid? Germany paid because the Germans knew that the Holocaust happened, and they are responsible for the death of millions and the unimaginable suffering they caused.
The Invitation Back to Germany and the Apology to Make It Right
A barn was sold some 30 years after the war, not far from Calw, near Stuttgart, Germany. The buyer wanted it empty. When the last bunch of straw was moved from the back of the barn, suddenly an engraving became visible: a name, address, and a telephone number. The buyer needed an explanation. He wanted to know what it meant. The local school teacher was asked to come over and have a look. He was dumbfounded. All these years he had been sure that there had been no prisoners in his town during the war. There were no Jews, no forced laborers. He called the history professor of the nearby university. Together with the town mayor, they decided to phone the number engraved on the far wall of the barn and find out more about the barn’s Holocaust era-history. A lady from Budapest answered, invited them to visit, and agreed to be interviewed. The interview took three days.