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Piecing Together One Family’s Holocaust History Global Film Screening and Live Discussion

Virtual Event
Michael Grunbaum (later Gruenbaum) with his mother, Margaret, 1930. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Michael Gruenbaum

Michael Grunbaum (later Gruenbaum) with his mother, Margaret, 1930. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Michael Gruenbaum

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After fleeing Nazism, many Jews concealed their identities to survive and protect their loved ones. Following the war, these Holocaust survivors and their descendants struggled to find those left behind. Learn how personal artifacts help families piece together their past:

July 13–27 | Global film screening
Register for the discussion below and receive complimentary, on-demand access to watch The Seven Boxes, a documentary about Dory Sontheimer, whose parents escaped Nazi Germany and raised her Catholic. After their deaths, she followed their trail of letters, photographs, and documents and discovered relatives in six countries.

July 20, 7 p.m. ET | Live discussion
Join us to explore this inspiring story, and how preserving Holocaust evidence and researching our own family trees can deepen understanding of history.

Speakers
Judith Cohen, retired Chief Acquisitions Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Michael Gruenbaum, Author, Somewhere There Is Still a Sun: A Memoir of the Holocaust, donor of artifacts to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and cousin of Dory Sontheimer

Joshua Taylor, President, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society

With video remarks from
Dory Sontheimer, subject of the documentary Les Set Caixes (The Seven Boxes)

Moderator
Bianna Golodryga, Senior Global Affairs Analyst, CNN

Closing Remarks
Anna Fechter, Community Operations Manager, World Archives Project, Ancestry

This program is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

For more information, please contact calendar@ushmm.org.

WATCH HERE