Escaping Auschwitz with Jonathan Freedland and Dan Raviv

Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World joins former CBS News correspondent and Moment contributor Dan Raviv for a conversation about the heroic efforts of Vrba and why his report did not achieve its goal—of ending the Nazi slaughter of the Jews.

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Letters from the Lingerie Drawer: A Daughter’s Journey with Eleanor Reissa and Yehuda Hyman

What if you could suddenly see your parents’ lives before you were born? And they were Holocaust survivors, who had suffered greatly but still somehow found each other. This is what happened to Tony-nominated director and Broadway/television actor Eleanor Reissa when her mother passed away, leaving behind 56 letters she’d received from Reissa’s father in the years after he survived a death march. It took Reissa 30 years to have them translated from German and discover her parents’ story. She discusses what she learned and her recently released memoir, The Letters Project: A Daughter’s Journey, in conversation with playwright and artistic director Yehuda Hyman. Reissa also reads several selections from her book.

This program is in commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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Dr. Ruth

Becoming Dr. Ruth with Ruth K. Westheimer and Tovah Feldshuh

Ruth K. Westheimer has led a remarkable life. Long before she became a world-famous sex therapist, she escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport to Switzerland and was a teenage sharpshooter in the Haganah. As a young woman she studied and taught at the university in Paris before making her way to the United States—and “becoming Dr Ruth.” She is in conversation about how to live life to the fullest with Tovah Feldshuh, the six-time Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor who plays her in the Off-Broadway show Becoming Dr Ruth. Westheimer and Feldshuh are joined by Moment editor-in-chief Nadine Epstein.

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As Nazi Holocaust Survivor Die, Care Costs Rise

As Survivors Die, Care Costs Rise

by Thomas Siurkus On June 7th the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution urging the German government to “reaffirm its commitment” to Holocaust survivors in their final years, and “address the unique health and welfare needs of vulnerable Holocaust victims, including home care and other medically prescribed needs." “Germany needs to show its leadership and do the right thing by fulfilling its commitments and obligations to all survivors by taking action to provide mental health, medical and home care needs for all survivors directly and immediately,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who introduced the resolution, in a statement. “Time is of the essence and survivors can no longer afford these delays—they deserve to live out the remainder of their days in the dignity and comfort they deserve.” The five-page-long-resolution, co-sponsored by Ted Deutch (D-FL), reminds the...

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Auschwitz, in 2011

by Kayla Green Today marks Yom HaShoah, the day we commemorate those killed during the Holocaust. Across the world, people share stories of those who survived and those who didn’t, of yellow stars and barbed wire, of a terrifying life lived in ghettos and camps. Among the camps, Auschwitz is often pointed to as the pinnacle of the Nazis’ brutal science. The horror that occurred at the three death camps that comprise Auschwitz should be memorialized as, in the words of a plaque at the camp, “a cry of despair and a warning to humanity.” However, to some people, Auschwitz, or rather, Oświęcim (the Polish pronunciation of the word, which was used before Nazi occupation) is more than the site of the world’s most terrible genocide: To this day, Oświęcim still exists as a town. More specifically,...

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