Resilient Butterfly

Ep. 31 - A Story of Survival That Still Speaks Today

• Pam Feinberg-Rivkin

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0:00 | 54:10

Some stories stay with you long after you hear them. This is one of those conversations. Pam sits with Jenni Frumer and Holocaust survivor Rose Rosenkrantz, whose life began in a Siberian labor camp during World War II. What unfolds is not just history, but a deeply human story of survival, loss, and the quiet strength it takes to keep going.

Rose shares how her parents endured unimaginable conditions, how she was born against all odds, and what it meant to rebuild a life after everything familiar was gone. There’s a tenderness in the way she recalls her childhood, the small moments that carried meaning, and the lasting impact of trauma that doesn’t simply disappear with time.

As the conversation continues, it gently shifts into something just as important—what we do with these stories now. Through reflection, dialogue, and the willingness to listen, there’s an invitation to carry these voices forward. Not with fear or anger, but with awareness, compassion, and a sense of responsibility to speak when it matters.

Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin:
Facebook: @FeinbergCare
Instagram: @FeinbergCare
LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc
YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059 

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the Resilient Butterfly Podcast. My goal is to share inspiring stories of healing and recovery through many diverse approaches and models. Our guests bring incredible lived experiences, insights, andor professional expertise, each with their own unique path. While we highlight and celebrate these stories, our intention is to inform, inspire, and demonstrate resilience and creativity. This podcast does not endorse any one approach. We believe there is more than one way to heal, and we're here to showcase the resilience and possibilities that exist. Welcome everyone back to Resilient Butterfly. I'm Pam Feinberg Rifkin, your host. Thank you for coming. Today I have two wonderful guests. Jenny Frumer has returned with another guest, Rose Rosenkrantz, who is going to tell a story of resilience that is so beautiful. And everyone I know is going to love this. But first, I want to introduce again Dr. Jenny Frumer, a nationally recognized leader in social services, trauma-informed care, working as a chief strategy officer and director of NOW for Holocaust Survivors at Morse Life. With over 38 years of nonprofit leadership, she is also the retired CEO of Alpert Jewish Family Services. Jenny holds a PhD in human capital management and serves on the board of the International Center for Multi-Generational Legacies of Trauma. That's quite a mouthful. And Rose Rosencranz is a Holocaust survivor and miracle baby born in a Siberian slave labor camp during World War II. Rose's story has inspired audiences across the country, including through programs at Tulane University's Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience, and the immersive theater production of Only Miracles, which is based on her family's history. Jenny, if you can share your personal journey, we'll start with you this time. I know that we left you for last last time, and I was like trying to get myself together to even talk to you. So we'll start with your personal journey and your work with Holocaust survivors.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you, Pam. It's such a pleasure to be here and be here with Rose in particular as well. I have always worked with older adults as far back as I can remember, and chose my career working with older adults and their families. And my grandparents were from Lithuania. My father was born in Lithuania, of course, landed in the shores of South Africa, like many other Lithuanians, to escape the Holocaust. My grandfather's family all perished as a result of the Holocaust. They were in the small shtetl of Ponovich in Lithuania, and many of them were burned in the synagogue and murdered in the forest. So I grew up around my grandparents and heard of, or, you know, trying to speak Yiddish and trying to keep it away from us of what happened to their families. But I've spent most of my career working with Holocaust survivors and older adults. And so it is such a natural part of who I am and part of my DNA.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, and you do it so well. Thank you. And Rose, you um in your own right. Being born in this camp to parents that potentially would not even survive, where does this story begin? And just take us on this journey.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you for inviting me. Um my family is from um Poland, and when Poland was invaded by the Nazis, um everyone really in Europe thought uh the war was short-lived because Great Britain and France were um had declared war on Germany. So people just tried to have a temporary fix and and go somewhere until the war was over, especially if you were military age. Um my father and his brother um were 21 and 23, and they uh decided to go to the border with Russia, because Russia was on the side of the Allies, and they were stuck on the border. Um my mother and her brother, who was military age, likewise uh headed east away from the Germans and was stuck on the border with Russia. And uh Russia found itself with hundreds of thousands of Jews running away, and um what were they going to do? So they came up with a plan to um tell the Jews that they were spies, uh, have an excuse to imprison them, and they shipped uh most of the Jews uh up to the Siberian labor camps. Siberia is a very vital area for the Russians. It's rich in minerals, it's rich in lumber and timber, and um so my father um, who got separated from his brother, was put in a camp up near uh the Arctic Ocean. Uh it was um one of the ones that you just didn't live through. It it was the the cold was unbelievable. Most people just would wipe their noses and their noses would come off with their wiping. It was that bitter. And of course, they were not dressed, they didn't have the clothes, the food. He managed to survive two years there. My mother and her brother were sent uh independently to a camp that was a little further south, but still in Siberia. And at some point, um my mother in carrying lumber, um, they had her work in the redwood forests, um, cutting down redwood trees of all things, and um, she was carrying lumber into uh a building, and she started talking to a young man who was working on a uh an engine of some sort, and uh that who ended up being my father. And they discovered that they were uh from the same um city and suburbs in Poland, and they took up um you know discussions and all of that. Uh they were not necessarily a match. Um they weren't looking to for a match, but my mother was going to be shipped to another area, but if she was married, um they would keep her in the camp. Um the the Russians had lost um 30 million or so people in World War I, and they were always looking to uh have their population increase. So they always encourage children. Um my mother went to my father and said, Listen, if I'm married, they're going to, I don't have to go to this particular uh job work site that I'll never come back from. And he said, uh, you know, I have a girlfriend back home. And my mother said, I have a boyfriend back home, but we're not gonna get out of here. It doesn't look too well. It's 1943, the war didn't end yet. So my uncle married them. Um he's not a rabbi, he just pronounced that they were married.

SPEAKER_02

And this is in the Siberian camp.

SPEAKER_01

In the Siberian camp. And uh and they were given a barracks, my father put some crates together and created a bed. And um it about a year and a half later, although women did not have children there, uh miraculously I was conceived and born and um the only child in the camp. Wow. And um where was she?

SPEAKER_02

Do you know if you were born with just the people around helping versus a doctor?

SPEAKER_01

There was no doctor. There was no doctors in the camp. Um there were midwives. Uh, and uh so I mean you weren't prepared for a child. There were no child children's clothes of any kind, uh, obviously no cribs, nothing like that. So my father got a pillow and he wrapped me up in a pillow, took me home from um the hospital barrack uh to their barrack, and my mother was able to find some clothes that people had passed away, and she was able to make some clothes for me. And um, so that was my beginnings.

SPEAKER_02

So she hand sewed clothes just from the material from other clothes. Yes, from adult clothes. Wow. And your mother, how far along do you know even? How far along in pregnancy was she before she rec recognized that she was, did she know right away in her pregnancy?

SPEAKER_01

You know, I never asked it that question.

SPEAKER_02

I'm just curious because I'm sure she was not very uh that that she was small in nature just because she w they didn't have a lot of food.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. How was her health? Uh as well as could be expected under the circumstances. I I know she would dig into the i it's perpetually uh the perpetual ice there. She would dig into the ice, and if she was lucky, she would find a potato. And um she would cook the potato and cook it and cook it and then over made soup, and that would try to last a few days. Um so they were resourceful. Uh my father had a beautiful operatic voice, as Jenny knows. And um the Russians had also arrested the Moscow Opera Company for what whatever reason, just to have again more people up in the Siberian area. And uh he heard them singing on one day, and he he asked them if he could join them, and sure enough, they accepted him, and he got more food. So, anyway, they could be resourceful to get um food so they could last another day, another day. And that's that's how life was there.

SPEAKER_02

So as an in as a newborn, your mom was able to sustain you, obviously.

SPEAKER_01

She wouldn't, I know, was nursed.

SPEAKER_02

And um for how long at what point did did they leave with you from the camp?

SPEAKER_01

Um after about two months, the uh Polish government in exile um was asked to repatriate some of the their Polish prisoners and made an agreement with the Russians to help rebuild the Ukraine area because Ukraine was the breadbasket for the Russia. So they moved some of us, they put us on cattle trains, and it took us about a month to get down to the Ukraine, and we spent the last eight months of the war in Ukraine rebuilding that area.

SPEAKER_02

In what way? What do you mean by rebuilding? Like build literally pounding.

SPEAKER_01

Literally building machines, anything that needed to be done, railroads, uh, buildings, anything.

SPEAKER_02

Do you know how many people there were that came from Siberia back into Ukraine at the time?

SPEAKER_01

Um at least at least one trainful. I I don't I don't know the number. And it took a month by train. It took a month. It was not a good month. I got sick and almost died twice on the train, but uh again, they were resourceful. And um my father said he would give hair free haircuts. Not that he knew how to do it, but he would he, you know, to just to get some money and to pay a woman who had a little sulfur with her. And um, they gave me got some medication for me. So uh anything they could do.

SPEAKER_02

Do you know how big you were when you were born and how it over, you know, over the period of a year?

SPEAKER_01

How um my mother said everyone was very surprised that I was so it looked like I was a junkie.

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01

And um they were um carrying me around to all the barracks to to show them a baby. It was really an inspiration for the people around. I bet you there were a lot of people taking care of you. Um, well, I don't think mother allowed anyone to go near me, truthfully.

SPEAKER_02

And so how long were you in Ukraine with your family?

SPEAKER_01

Just the eight months.

SPEAKER_02

And then where?

SPEAKER_01

And then we uh followed the Russian soldiers as they were going um further west. Um and we were on their tails practically, you know, trying to get back to Poland because there were a lot of stories about what the Nazis had done to the Jews. And um my parents, like all the others, were hoping they were just stories, that it there was no truth. You know, how could the most cultured people in Europe possibly uh gas and cremate other human beings? There's just no way you could believe stories like that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And they were hoping that they were going to go back to their city, lodge, and and find their parents and their siblings. And um and they finally made their way back. And my mother went to her house first, and she was anxious, she's knocking on the door, and mama, mama opened the door. Uh, it was five years, you know, and I'm here, I'm here. And the door opened a crack, and there stood the gardener.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And he looked at her and he like he didn't recognize who this person was. And he looked at her and he said, I thought you were dead. Don't you know everybody else's? And that's how my mother found out her family had that her family had perished.

SPEAKER_02

And the gardener took over the house?

SPEAKER_01

And the gardener, like many Poles, went into the Jewish homes and took them and wouldn't allow us back in to into the house. Um my father, um, we went then into the city of Ludge to find out my father uh had left his mother, who had just had a baby, one month before the war broke out, which he he didn't even see the new baby. There were seven siblings, the parents, and they all went into the Ludge ghetto. And um just two of his siblings um were alive, which he did not see, that he didn't see them. Uh, they had written into the black book all the towns and that you returned to had books that you signed into to say, you know, you're alive, and people would check them. And he checked the book, and he saw that two of his brothers had made it, and they were now uh had moved on to a displaced persons camp in Germany, awaiting to leave there uh to go on into the United States. So my father was anxious to see the last of his family. So we tr then uh knew we could not make a home in Poland. The Polish um people were not receptive to the Jews after the war because they would have to give up the places where they lived. They took over. Um there were pogroms. A lot of a lot of Jews were were murdered by the Poles after the war. Oh, after the war, too. After the war. There was a terrible pogrom in a city called Kelsey, where they about 140 Jews came back and uh they were just they were just murdered in the street.

SPEAKER_02

So um to survive death camps and then murdered after.

SPEAKER_01

So then, you know, where do you go? Yeah. You know, and and then who firstly who are you? You're not a daughter anymore, because your parents um you're not a sister anymore, you have no siblings. So first you had to decide, you know, first you had to think about who you were at at this point in your life and where where do you go? Um the doors were not open to um Jews after the war. The United States still had um, you know, um, there were still barriers all over. You needed to get um wait for visas. And uh so we were in a displaced persons camp in Germany for three years. Oh wow. Waiting to get a visa to the United States.

SPEAKER_02

At what age were you then? Like four?

SPEAKER_01

Um, I was two, three, and four. And that's my first memory is of the DP camp.

SPEAKER_02

And what do you remember of that camp?

SPEAKER_01

Um, the room we were assigned, uh a school building was subdivided for survivors, and we were given um, I guess one of the classrooms was subdivided and subdivided. So we were given a room, which and I remember my parents had a bed and I had a little cot. And um I remember the the doll. Um I have a picture of, I gotta show you. Um this is the doll that my mother found. Now it you notice it has no legs. But I didn't notice that because to me, I just looked at its eyes and its face.

SPEAKER_02

Was this a doll that someone had someone someone had thrown away? Oh goodness. Actually, the f in this picture it could be of looks a little real, this doll.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It's it's true.

SPEAKER_02

But you didn't know that that was no.

SPEAKER_01

I just to me I looked at the face just like you did. And um and this is the first picture of me taken in the Ukraine. And this is your mother? Yes. I what a sweet face. So and I certainly don't look malnutrition. No, you don't.

SPEAKER_02

Your mother some somehow. Was able to feed you well.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, she did.

SPEAKER_02

That's incredible. And so at the age of four, you left the displaced camp?

SPEAKER_01

We um they we went on to um American Naval vessel, and um we arrived in the Brooklyn Navy Yards in New York, and we had no English, um, no job, no place to live, and twenty dollars.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my goodness. Incredible. So what uh where where did you even start? Where did your parents start?

SPEAKER_01

So where do you start? Um we went to my father's, one of my father's brothers that made it to the states. They had arrived three years earlier on the first ship out, and um they had a basement apartment, I remember, in a tenement, and we moved in there, but um the the sister-in-laws did not get along, and they were so we had to leave there and and uh find a place to live until my father was able to get some type of a job. Um see the um American army was coming back, and they got first dibs on apartments, they got first dibs on jobs, and my father just with his wonderful voice, because he didn't know English, you just, you know, you had your hands tied behind you. And um, and interesting survivors, the American Jews were not receptive to hearing any of the stories. Um they were not jumping to help, and so survivors started just to seeking out each other.

SPEAKER_02

Why do you think that was then?

SPEAKER_01

It could have been through guilt. I was thinking that um that they're alive, they just didn't want to hear anything. That's why you don't have um uh, if there are any books that were written right after the Holocaust by survivors. I know you have Elie Wiesel's book, uh night, but that's not till 1960. It took a lot of digesting time uh to just to find yourself, just to get your thoughts. Um the losses that survivors experienced were so great. Um the nightmares were terrible. Yeah. The the voices that they heard, the shadows that they saw were so overpowering that um they they couldn't put it down into words. Uh, and it took a while.

SPEAKER_02

Well, some of those effects are still going on, obviously, from generation to generation. It's it's definitely without, I mean, back in those, in the particular in the 40s, 50s, 60s, there wasn't known trauma care for people. There was nothing that people could seek out some work to be able to get over the to be able to get past the nightmares.

SPEAKER_01

They never did.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I carry an albatross around my neck to this day. Um cry myself to sleep many a night for people who I never met. So um it's it's it's a burden that I have. Um, and then what do you do with it? You know, you don't try to pass it on to your children, but they have it. Sure. Um, my grandchildren have it, you know, they're involved in things. So um not easy.

SPEAKER_02

No, it isn't. And and generational, I think we we know more about generational trauma now, more than ever.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

However, it's so uh physiologically embedded into all of the, you know, into our our bodies and our minds that it's really to be able to. I don't want to use the word fix because it's not a fix. It's be able to get past and be able to heal from it, to be able to heal. And um, it takes a lot. And your children, how many children did you have?

SPEAKER_01

I have two children and uh five grandchildren.

SPEAKER_02

Wonderful. Wonderful. And your parents, how long did they what what type of job did your dad finally get?

SPEAKER_01

Well, they needed a porter in a bakery uh to carry sacks of flour. Um he just took, he had a wife and a child, and that was the only thing available to someone who did not speak English. Um so he took it, and we were able to get an apartment. Um and my mother, I wouldn't try to get a job, but I was so frightened child and um carried on. There was she couldn't find anyone to watch me that um I would stay with. So she couldn't work, and um we managed, you know. Um I never thought I was missing anything growing up, even though obviously we were always um lacking things. We ate meat um for Shabbat, we had the one chicken, um, and that was that was it as far as food goes. And I remember a funny story. I I don't know if I ever shared with Jenny. Um, I remember going with my mother to the market and for Shabbat to get a chicken. And it was if they if you got a chicken with the feathers and they had to take the feathers off, it was 10 cents.

SPEAKER_03

10 cents.

SPEAKER_01

And my mother to save the 10 cents, I remember her put a chicken between her legs and sit there taking the feathers off the chicken. Such a memory of a child who was five, six years old. Um and did you start going to school when you were five, six? The schooling was very challenging. Uh obviously, English was not my first language. I spoke Yiddish and um Polish. And um so when I went to school, the children wouldn't hold my hands playing in the court in the yard, school yard, and um for kindergarten, and the teachers stepped in to do it. But what affected me most with school is in first grade when the teacher asked a question and I was able to understand what she said, and I raised my hand, and I guess I sounded strange, didn't, and the kids in the class laughed so loud and so long that that laughter stayed with me, I guess even till this day. Sure. And I decided that I would never have that again, so I made it my mission never to speak again in class, and that went through elementary, middle, high school, and college. I never spoke in class. Really? Never. And I graduated with a teaching degree, and I said, How am I gonna manage this? I never knew if I had an accent anymore, and so I was afraid, you know, to stand in front of a class. And um I got married early and had children.

SPEAKER_02

You were still in New York during this time?

SPEAKER_01

Still in New York, and um, and then a few years after that, um a program was starting uh in 1988 called The March of the Living. They were looking for people to go on it, uh, survivors and teens. And um we were going to go one week to Poland, visit the camps, and then one week on into Israel, going from darkness to light. And my husband said, I have to go. And I said, go back to Poland. He said, Yes, you have to go. So I signed up for the program.

SPEAKER_02

How old were you at that point?

SPEAKER_01

Uh 1988, 40 something. And um I went as the videographer, believe it or not. They didn't want to include me as as a survivor. So um I went back to let me back up.

SPEAKER_02

Why didn't they not want to include you as a survivor?

SPEAKER_01

Because you were not in one of the I was not in one of the camps, in one of the German camps. They didn't think that being born in in a in a slave labor camp was uh the type of survivor they were looking for. Wow. Um, they wanted one that actually was maybe from Auschwitz or one of the other concentration camps. Well, I went to Auschwitz knowing that my grandmother and um the two babies um were taken on the train there. One of the last transports out of the ghetto, and she was killed there. And I went to inside the um gas chambers, and I went next to the crematoria, and um I just felt I heard her voice, and she said to me, You be my voice. I don't have a voice anymore, and tell everybody what happened to us here. And I came back, went to my synagogue, and asked the principal if I could speak to the school, and just started to talk. Wow. And I couldn't believe it.

SPEAKER_02

And I was and that from that point you haven't been able to stop talking. Exactly right. That's incredible. Well, thank goodness that uh your husband insisted you're going on this trip.

SPEAKER_01

And that's where I met this young lady. Ah she was my roommate one year. Really well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I I had gone as a counselor for the 36 students that were going from the Palm Beach County area. So it was one bus, full bus. And uh yeah, it was a unique experience, and being with Rose was made it extra special.

SPEAKER_02

So the two of you have known each other for since '94. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

At least, if not 86, actually.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Incredible. Very strong relationship. Your children. So you were in New York. Did you teach in New York?

SPEAKER_01

Um a little.

SPEAKER_02

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01

I um I found it difficult, as I said, to be able to speak in front of a a class. Um I really went into teaching, moving down here. But I they gave me the job of being the director of a school, and I found that very satisfying because I was able to do uh things that I had always wanted to do. Um the rabbi in New York, before we moved, the rabbi in New York said to me, if you want to teach here, and I know that you're a Holocaust survivor, please don't teach the children anything too heavy on the Holocaust. Um we don't want to depress them. At which point I said that I I don't teach Holocaust light this so I I can't. Um I was never enthusiastic about teaching.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, how how do you not teach how do you teach Holocaust and not tell the stories?

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. I mean that's the and not the the not depress the kids and yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we all need to know the stories. And a particular time of that we're in now. Um what how do you feel about what's going on in the world in regard to anti-Semitism and the uh what what what's happening in the US versus the you know European countries? There seems to be a lot more of that. And you met with a um a former neo-Nazi recently. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01

Um I was asked to um by Jenny uh again um to meet with an ex-neo-Nazi. Um so we sat on opposite sides of a table and um we could ask each other questions, and it was filmed, it was very informative. I didn't know how I wanted to deal with him, um, whether I should be upset, whether I should be angry. Uh how how it would turn out was a big question. How I should deal with him. Should I shake his hand when I meet him? Um there was a lot of questions. And I think uh what played into the success of the dialogue, I think we were honest with each other, we listened to each other, and we landed up hugging. So um I think then to try to answer your question. How do you deal with anti-Semitism that seems to be growing? Um, you don't have control of world events. Um, you don't have control that there it's been an excursion or a war with Iran. Um but you need to do is you need to deal honestly with your family and your if you're a teacher with your students and uh make sure that they get information that's factual, that's firsthand, not second hand, and um and just have a dialogue, just talk and um and hopefully they can understand that um prejudice and discrimination um uh uh just grows and uh from silence because your responsibility as a person is to when you see something, you need to say something and do something. I think the bystanders in Europe were the main perpetrators of the Holocaust because it didn't have to snowball to what happened unless people so including the churches, including the Pope who said nothing.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So in meeting with a former neo-Nazi, tell tell me and the listeners, what was his what what changed him to now speak on um community and not hatred?

SPEAKER_01

He um was living at home, part of a rock band that uh whose songs were very anti-Semitic, and um he became a white nationalist and was swastikas all over his body. And living at home, he needed to go get a job, and his father sent him to someone's place of work, and it just happened to be a Jewish man, and he got to know him. And um, his Jewish boss was willing to take an employee who had SWAT stickers all on him, and just I think the one-on-one getting to know a Jew, he probably never did. Right. Um, I think that's paramount. You know, so many people have never met Jews, and yet there's hatred for people that they don't even know. Exactly, and and presuppose all kinds of things about what Jews do or don't or are.

SPEAKER_02

It's the unknown, like any other uh minority, I guess to say. It's the you know, it's it's not much different than the bullying that occurs in schools.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Um, it is just at adult level that the bullying continues.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And and then it and then it escalates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I speak about bullying primarily to schools. That's that's what I speak about, because this cyber bullying, they don't realize the effects of bullying and what it can do, and the suicides that have how many suicides have come because of of bullying and laughing at other kids and singling people out because we're all different. We're all different. Sure we are, and our differences together make us strong.

SPEAKER_02

Right. We're all different humans.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

And what what do you think for you growing up the way you were, and also uh being part of obviously a whole lot of people in your family that did not survive, that you don't yourself have any hatred for people, that you have, I could tell, just a love for humanity. What is it that gives that to you?

SPEAKER_01

Um it was a is it was a philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche, and he wrote, Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And the war didn't kill me, and I feel I am here for a purpose. Um, whether it is my grandmother's voice that I speak through, but I'm here for a reason, and um and the reason is to speak to groups, and Jenny uses me as much as she can, and and I'm usually available to do so, and I don't think there's anything more important that I could do um than that. I raise my children, they feel the same way and and are involved with groups and organizations, and my grant certainly my grandchildren uh the same way. So my that's my small part, and um that's my mission.

SPEAKER_02

And your life is so much different now than obviously when you were an infant or a little girl, and and even in elementary school, junior high school, maybe even high school, your life is so different, and that that. You have shown the resilience as a strong woman who is voicing in such a beautiful way humanity, love, connection, and for the ability for people to listen and be with each other. And for you to go and sit with someone who is a former neo-Nazi, that's a strong, resilient woman that gives a lot of courage. Do you have any other pictures you'd like to show?

SPEAKER_01

Um well I have. I mean, it's just so there's it's really important to encourage and support groups and organizations that do take kids. Sure. Um, and I encourage the adults to go as well. So um I do that, uh, I show you that. Here is a picture of gas chamber, and the blue is from the Zyclone B gas. Um so you're standing there, you see scratch marks on the walls in the gas chamber for people trying to get out. You see this. There's no way you can read that in a book for it to make any type of sense to you. So um the what I did also with Israel, um, I asked for a school that has uh Jewish, Arab, and Christian kids in it to make a blanket, a peace blanket. And and I my kids in the school where I was the director in in um here in Florida, uh, I asked my kids also to make some type of a peace blanket. And when I went to Israel on one of the trips, I took and we exchanged blankets. This is from the school that has the Arab, Christian, and Jewish kids so that we could so they can see that we can all live together, the kids can their their view on making something. And just the idea that you have these three groups who you think can't work together. Arabic and they and they did Arab, Jewish, and Christian children in Israel.

SPEAKER_02

That's wonderful. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And they put together this blanket and I brought it back, and it's hanging in the synagogue. So that's another thing. Um, I use this when I go to schools as well. I said, you see, you have three different types of eggs, but when you crack them, look at that. You can't tell.

SPEAKER_02

They're all the same.

SPEAKER_01

You're all the same.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, what we were just talking about, the fact that we're all human, we're all the same inside. We still have the same blood, we still have the same organs. Yeah. Well, you have led a very remarkable life, Rose. And I am so grateful that you've been able to come and share your story. And I hope that a lot of people will listen and be able to take something from this to have some peace in the world that we don't have right now.

SPEAKER_01

And know that you have choices. You have choices, and you just have to learn to make the right choices. And when you hear stories from survivors, because we're getting fewer by the day, uh, pick up and become their voices. Because we have still people who are, you know, they just are Holocaust deniers, and they they have a responsibility. Anyone that listens to my voice today, um, now that you've heard some stories, you now can carry on and share.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Do you have other remarks to Jenny?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I was gonna say that what Rose is referring to is what we sometimes call bearing witness.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And really hearing stories and taking them forward. And also earlier you had mentioned about how long it took survivors to actually talk about their experiences. And I think the what we now know about trauma is that we refer to the Holocaust as malignant trauma, any genocide as malignant trauma, because it was at the hands of other humans. And that kind of malignant trauma really becomes epigenetic in so many ways, which is what you were referring to. Yes. And not having the language, how do you describe what happened? Um, and there were language barriers and there were no words for this kind of atrocity. No.

SPEAKER_02

How can you even imagine such atrocities?

SPEAKER_00

And Rose is one of our ambassadors at the Holocaust Learning Experience as well, working with students who come and visit the um memorial to the 1.5 million children who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis. And the Holocaust Learning Experience continues, and Rose is one of our testimonials talking about her experience. And the program is now in more than half of the school districts in the state of Florida and in nine other states. Um, an ecosystem of around three million students who are learning courage, resilience, moral clarity. And those kinds of moral clarity is is often what Rose is referring to as well.

SPEAKER_02

Sure. To experience the life that you experienced, live the life that you experienced. And uh be able to be uh such um a gracious uh woman without I can say without hatred is so incredible and I wish the world would just uh listen and open their hearts up to something more that you're an ex such an example for.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know if there's time, but I I used to write poetry, a lot of poetry. I have a poem I wrote. Please, is there time? Yes.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

I will make the time. Okay. We who have lived the impossible saw darkness triumph over light. Who would have blamed us if we had struck back with might? Yet people refuse to listen, to understand, to share. Now some want to rewrite history, to change it if they dare. Were the ovens only bakeries, the camps convalescent homes? Then where are over six million people when there are no tombstones? How do you unveil horrors without offering some measure of hope? Without visualizing death? How do you look to the future without visualizing death on every slope? How could we have described to a child who had no morsel of bread what it would have been like to have had a piece of cake instead? Or describe an apple, peach, or pear, or what sugar tasted like. Is there such a thing as happiness? Are there Jews living without fright? Asked a five-year-old to her mother, Mother, are we going to die? Have we lived long enough? What's a butterfly? Over the years I've asked all the questions, but I have found no answers. There never has been any. There never should be any.

SPEAKER_02

It's beautiful. Well, thank you, Rose. Thank you, Jenny, for both of you being here today. I really appreciate it. It's very timely. And um, I wish you all the best. You're a bright shining star for sure. Thank you. Thank you for joining the conversation today. If you are seeking help for yourself or a loved one, please reach out to our Feinberg Consulting Team at 248-538-5425. That's 248-538-5425. And check out our website at feinbergcare.com. I'm grateful for our guests and all who have joined us today. Make sure you follow us on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.