Clara Isaacman (née Heller) was born in Borsa, Romania, before WWII. Due to rampant anti-Semitism, her family left Romania and moved to Antwerp, Belgium in
the late 1920s, when Clara was a child. Clara’s father, Shalom, was in the diamond business and owned a soda factory. Clara attended a Hebrew school and a public
school in Antwerp.

Sonia Klein (née Joskowicz) was born on June 16, 1925 in Warsaw, Poland. Her parents Itzack and Jospa Joskowicz, ran a family business selling fruit, vegetables, wood, and coal. Sonia was the oldest of three children; she had a sister and a brother. Before the war, she attended a public school and aspired to be a teacher.

Simone Lagrange (nee Kadousche) was born on October 23, 1930 in Saint-Fons, France, near Lyon. Originally from Morocco, her parents Simon Kadousche and
Rachel came to France in the 1920s.

Moshe Shamir (name at birth Schmucker) was born in an Orthodox Jewish family on April 17, 1922 in Cernauti, Romania (today Chernivtsi, Ukraine). His father,
Avraham, was a teacher in a Hebrew school. He died when Moshe was only five years old. Moshe’s mother, Rifka, raised him and his older brother, Menachem,
on her own. Moshe attended a four-grade Yiddish school, was a member of the Gordonia Zionist youth movement, and sang in the Jewish Choral Temple choir. He
started apprenticeship in a haberdashery store at the age of twelve.

Amy Marczewski Carnes, Ph.D. completed her doctorate at UCLA in French and Francophone Studies in 2007.  During graduate studies, she taught French language, literature, film, and culture courses in both the U.S. and in France.  Her dissertation, entitled Remembering Together:  Francophone African Literature’s Re-Imagining of the Rwandan Genocide, analyzes the strategies that literature adopts for memorializing genocide and considers new models of commemoration that may cultivate reconciliation in post-conflict society.

The word journey comes to the English language from the Old French jornee, meaning a day, or, by extension, a day’s labor or travel.  This word, which we normally associate with something pleasant, takes on a different meaning when placed in conversation with the word Holocaust. 

This was the challenge placed in front of me by colleagues at UNESCO, when they requested that the USC Shoah Foundation prepare an exhibition for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27 – the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

Ben Sonnenschein reflects on the construction of Auschwitz concentration camp in his hometown of Oswiecim, Poland. Sonnenschein also explains he was forced by the Germans to carry lumber and complete other carpentry work during the building of the camp in the beginning of 1940.

Rena Finder survived the Holocaust by working in Oscar Schindler’s factory. Finder is a featured speaker for the Holocaust Memorial Ceremony at the United Nations on January 27, the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Bella Arnett (née Froman) voit le jour le 6 septembre 1917 à Varsovie (Empire russe, actuelle Pologne). Elle a trois frères et deux soeurs. Le père de Bella, Chaim, est un shoikhet - travaillant à l’abattage rituel des animaux selon la tradition juive. Il observe Ger Hasidism et est un membre respecté de la communauté locale. Avant la guerre, Bella fréquente une école polonaise et reçoit une éducation juive à la maison. Varsovie est envahie par les nazis en septembre 1939 ; une année plus tard, la famille

John Baer est né le 26 avril 1917, à Breslau, en Allemagne (aujourd’hui Wrocław, Pologne), de Bernhard et Marta Baer. Son père est représentant pour des usines de fourrures et de textiles et sa mère possède un magasin de chapeau. John a une soeur aînée, Lilly. Il reçoit son éducation élémentaire et secondaire dans des écoles publiques de Breslau, et fréquente également une école hébraïque.