Our Beginning
This project began with a need to connect our family histories. To honor....to share...to educate...and to celebrate that we are here today because of those who miraculously survived the Holocaust.
When Debbie Steinerman, Miriam Rosenbloom and Marcie Scudder first met in Vermont at the Jewish Community of Greater Stowe (JCOGS), they knew nothing about one another's pasts. Debbie had recently relocated from New York, Miriam arrived via Houston, Marcie from Boston.
It wasn't long before they learned that they are all Second Generation.
They are children of children who - against all imaginable odds - survived the un-thinkable.
Debbie's parents were born in Czechoslovakia, Miriam's parents in Holland, Marcie's mother in Germany. Debbie's mother survived by assuming a false identity....by running ...by hiding...by outwitting her Nazi pursuers. Miriam's father was taken in by Righteous Gentiles who risked their own family's lives by hiding him. Marcie's mother and her two older sisters - survived by a series of accidents-of-fate. Too young to survive on their own, they were hidden in numerous group homes and orphanages throughout Belgium.
We are the survivors’ survivors.
We were not meant to be.
It is our generation that the Nazis never intended to exist.
With our new found connection and shared histories, the seeds of a project were sown.
An invitation was sent out to all who might wish to contribute. Nine stories - all with present day connections to Vermont - were gathered, recorded and shared. From that, the beginnings of an exhibit took shape and form. The intention was to remember those millions of lives lost ...while at the same time honoring the stories of those who survived.
Our parents were mere children.
It was due to luck, perseverance, strength, courage and the kindness of strangers that they lived.
We are here - today - only because of all they endured.
In April 2017, at JCOGS' annual Holocaust Remembrance Commemoration, the exhibit first opened.
From Generation to Generation ...We Are Here!
“And you shall tell your children.”
The stories were told to us.
The stories will pass through us ...and to generations to come.