Listen well to those who will tell their story

We have twenty years. Thirty if we’re lucky. These are the last opportunities we’ll have to hear testimonies if those who bore direct witness to an evil which tried to destroy this ancient community.

It is our duty — today — to find the survivors who want their voices heard, and listen carefully. To note well the witness accounts which will, in a short time, no longer be available first hand.

We must listen, because the perpetrators of the Holocaust took so much from our survivors: their way of life, neighborhoods, family, friends, and countless else.

Because these individuals clung to their dignity and humaneness, fighting tooth and nail those who intended to tear it away. And they survived.

Survivors give us so much, we often wonder what we can possibly do to touch their lives — but we can respect their beautiful human selves, by giving space to those who desire nothing else, and listening well to those who choose to tell their stories.