‘Impactful’ for teens to have in-person interaction with Holocaust survivor
Holocaust survivor Marie Steinaway was overwhelmed with emotion when she shared her story in-person with teenagers for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began more than a year ago.
Steinaway, 85, spoke outdoors at the Mandel Jewish Community Center of the Palm Beaches’ Boynton Beach location with teens of the zIsrael Fellowship, the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County’s high school Israel education and engagement program. A few other teens joined on Zoom.
The gathering was part of the annual Zikaron BaSalon (Memories in the Living Room) program, which included several events – in-person, virtual or hybrid – in Palm Beach County with survivors telling their stories to different audiences. The program was part of the Federation’s IsraelDays series.
Steinaway, who lives in West Palm Beach and has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, said she missed meeting with young people, as she shared her story in-person many times before the pandemic. She described her experience speaking to the teens at the Mandel JCC.
“I was a little nervous, and the day that I spoke about myself and the Holocaust was a rainy day, but I learned to live with all kinds of weather during the war years, so it didn’t bother me one bit,” she noted. “I’m glad none of the students decided to up and leave. They all stayed there with me as we were under a canopy.”
When she speaks to people, Steinaway shares her story of her family’s journey from Brussels, Belgium to France, and recounts her time in a concentration camp, escaping with members of the French Underground, being hidden in a nunnery and farmhouse and emigrating to the United States in 1947 before her 11th birthday. Although her parents survived the Holocaust, she didn’t see them while she was hiding during the war.
Steinaway thought the teens she spoke to at the JCC were very attentive.
“They kept looking at me as I spoke, and as I spoke, I spoke to everyone,” she said. “I didn’t just look at one person.”
Steinaway said, regarding her message to the students, “I told them that family is very important.”
“I also told them, as far they’re concerned, to never forget were they came from and who they are, because Jewish history goes back over 5,700 years, and during those years, we’ve suffered a lot,” she said. “It’s been a very hard road, but we have always survived, and for them to have that history of who they are and where they came from is very important, and family is also extremely important.”
Among the teens in attendance was Jacob Rothman, a 17-year-old 11th grade student at Park Vista Community High School in Lake Worth. Rothman said it was the first time he ever met with a Holocaust survivor.
“In my AP history class a few weeks ago, we were talking about World War II, and that’s literally a lifetime ago, so to talk to someone and to listen to someone who experienced this was quite surreal,” he said.
Rothman said, when explaining what he took away from Steinaway’s story, “Jews during that time probably had to go through more than anyone in history.”
“It didn’t matter whether you were in a concentration camp or not, Europe was not a safe place for these people,” he continued. “You never knew if you would be alive the next day, or if there would be a Nazi at the door ready to kill you. It’s a very heartbreaking thing that people had to experience.”
Peter Eckstein, the Federation’s director for Jewish Education & Israel Engagement, explained the importance of teens hearing survivors’ stories first-hand in-person after hearing them virtually over the past year.
“When you hear the story first-hand, it has a real impact, and if you’re in the same space, it has even more of an impact,” Eckstein continued. “Teens are growing up looking at screens, so to actually have an interaction in real life is real impactful.”
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