Holocaust survivors like Miriam and Howard dedicated their lives to giving a voice to the victims of the Nazi regime's inhumanity. But their generation will not last forever.
We must perpetuate their stories and lessons:
Miriam was nine years old the day Auschwitz Birkenau was liberated – one of the youngest survivors of the camp.
After the liberation, not knowing if her family was alive, she left a note with her name at the local train station, which was later found by a family friend.
She told me how, in the days after the liberation, she returned to Krakow to face hatred and violence – because she was Jewish. The rise of anti-Semitism around the world is well known, he told me. We must ensure that history never repeats itself.
Howard was just 10 years old when Nazi Germany occupied his home in Wierzbnik, Poland. In 1942, his family was forcibly separated: his mother and sisters were sent to the Treblinka death camp, while Howard, his father, and his brother were forced into forced labor.
Only he and his brother survived. I am grateful to meet these amazing Holocaust survivors, to hear them share the horrors they witnessed, and to have the responsibility to act on their lessons – now and in the years to come.