July 14, 2000
HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS SHARE PERSONAL TESTIMONY AT NEW ONGOING PUBLIC PROGRAM AT UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum presents First Person, a new public program of weekly live conversations with Holocaust survivors, every Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. in the Museum’s Helena Rubinstein Auditorium. Hosted by journalist Bill Benson, the program features personal histories of local Holocaust survivors. The program was designed as a forum to bring the personal stories of Holocaust survivors directly to Museum visitors. Admission is free and open to the public. No reservations are required.
“Hearing a survivor’s story first-hand puts a human face on the tragedy. In doing so, it enhances the visitors’ experience,” explained Martin Goldman, Director of Survivor Affairs at the Holocaust Museum. “The survivors are the Museum’s most valuable asset, and their stories are an invaluable educational tool.”
First Person features the stories of some of the Museum’s 61 Holocaust survivor volunteers. The following conversations are scheduled for summer 2000:
- July 26, Helen Goldkind — from Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia; survived a ghetto, and forced labor in Germany, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen;
- August 2, Elizabeth Strassburger — from Iwonicz, Poland; survived with her mother using false “Aryan” identity papers;
- August 9, Tania Rozmaryn — from Smorgonie, Poland; survived two ghettos, a concentration camp, and a death march;
- August 16, Susan Warsinger — from Bad Kreuznach, Germany; hid in a children’s home in France before escaping to the U.S.;
- August 23, Henry Greenbaum — from Strachowice, Poland; survived a ghetto, a labor camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buna-Monowitz, Flossenburg, and a death march;
- August 30, Herman Taube — from Lodz, Poland; survived the war in Siberia and Uzbekistan, while his family perished in the Lodz ghetto;
- September 6, Susan Taube — from Vacha, Germany; survived the Riga ghetto, Stuthoff and Kaiserwald concentration camps, and a death march;
- September 13, Manya Friedman - from Chmielnik, Poland; survived travel on open freight cars, concentration and labor camps, and a death march.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is America’s national institution for the documentation, study and interpretation of Holocaust history, and serves as this country’s memorial to the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust. A unique public-private partnership, the Museum has welcomed more than 14 million visitors since its opening in April 1993. Its newest special exhibition, Flight and Rescue, is on display through October 21, 2001, and documents the escape of 2,100 Jews from Poland to the Far East.
For more information regarding First Person, please contact Andy Hollinger at (202) 488-6133 or ahollinger@ushmm.org.
