Family

Rena Quint, Child Survivor, Found Herself In Her Family History

When Rena Quint was 31, a cousin from Israel came to visit her in New York. She hadn’t seen or spoken to a blood relative since she was 7 years old. “Oh Fredzia, do you remember your sister?” her…
Friday, October 14, 2022

Armenian Scholar Finds Lost Songs in USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive

Pardy Minassian’s childhood in Syria was suffused with sounds from Armenia, the result of her father’s collection of more than 500 audio and video interviews he conducted over the years with Armenian…
Tuesday, October 11, 2022

In the Throes of the Armenian Genocide, His Mother Protected Him and Saved More Than a Hundred Others

When Sam Kadorian was a child, Ottoman soldiers would conduct drills in a field near his home in Mezre (modern-day Elazığ, Turkey), adjacent to the fortress town of Kharpert. Sam would stand close by…
Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Theary Seng

One morning in 1978, Theary Seng awoke alongside her younger brother in their prison cell in Boeng Rai Security Center, about 100 kilometers south of their hometown of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The…
Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Four Siblings—Aged 95, 97, 99, and 100—Record “Last Chance Testimony” Stories of Survival

Sally (Fink) Singer still cries over the spilled milk. Yes, it happened more than 80 years ago. And at the age of 100, Sally knows that her siblings – Anne (99), Sol (97), and Ruth (95), who to this…
Wednesday, April 13, 2022

A Search For Family Leads to a ‘Bittersweet Revelation’

When Deborah Long was a teenager, she often came home to find her mother sitting with the latest issues of Life or Look magazine, quietly tearing out pages. “You see this picture?” her mother…
Wednesday, October 13, 2021

It Took 50 Years For Father and Son to Tell This Story Together

On an autumn day in 1998, Joel Poremba waited in a bedroom with his wife and infant son as his father sat in his Southern California living room with an interviewer from USC Shoah Foundation. This…
Monday, August 30, 2021

Survivor Suzy Ressler Found Success with Old World Recipes and Charm

Suzy Ressler, a survivor of Auschwitz who parlayed her family’s old-world recipes into the Philadelphia-based Mrs. Ressler’s Food Products, died July 3, 2021, at the age of 93. She was remembered…
Monday, July 26, 2021

LGBTQ Filmmaker Puts His Faith in ‘Gifting The Story’

Actor, director, filmmaker and advocate Yuval David has a weapon of choice he employs to attract audiences and disarm would-be haters: a positive embrace of his story and a persistent belief in…
Friday, June 25, 2021

Testimony of Espionage, Scheming, and Survival Reunites and Expands a Family

Above: One branch of the Scheinman family, which expanded considerably after cousin Zoe found and reached out to descendants of the ten children of Shmuel and Feige Scheinman, her husband’s great…
Monday, May 10, 2021