Card

Ron Stux: Ron is the husband of Elizabeth Stux. His future mother and father lived in Vienna where his father worked in the clothing business. In 1938 after they married, his father remained in a cellar because of the danger to Jews at that time. They decided to leave for Shanghai because it was still possible to go there. After the war they learned that living in the Shanghai ghetto was very different from the other ghettos of Eastern Europe because they were free to roam the city and conduct business. Ron’s father worked for a Swiss import and export company until the end of the War after which he worked as a manager of a PX for the US Army that occupied Shanghai. Like everyone else they wanted entry into the US but could not so they settled in Melbourne, Australia. Ron and his family left for Melbourne, Australia when he was three so he remembers very little about that time but he does remember his Ama. In Melbourne, he grew up in a middle class neighborhood with other survivor of the Holocaust. He was a good student and became a research chemist. He met Elizabeth and they married. Elizabeth’s mother moved in with them and insisted on them moving to the US and they did. He found work with a company in the Boston area that made chemical instruments. He worked with that company for 25 years followed by another five years with a software company after which they retired to South Florida. He believes in and is profoundly proud of his Jewish Heritage and it to go onto Perpetuity.

Elizabeth Stux: My story is a difficult one because I was born to two Holocaust Survivors. I have always lived with my mother's memories and have also had my bouts of survivor's guilt. The human will can be broken and controlled through severe and humiliating mistreatment. My mother's spirit never broke. Daily life in our home in Melbourne, Australia was filled with ghosts and my mother conjured up a world of starvation and death. Every piece of food was to be eaten because my mother no longer saw a little girl in front of her but rows of emaciated hollow-eyed children that looked like me. Among all the horrific images, the killing of children had the hardest impact on me. The world as I knew it had been colored by my mother's description of her experiences. My mother told me so many tales that after many years I realized that we are born into our mother’s emotions, and within these parameters we are raised.

Helen Friedman: Helen Friedman's parents fled Poland to Russia during the thirties. Her father left at age 18 to flee the Polish Army but he regretted leaving behind his youngest brother who begged to go with him, and he ended up perishing in the Holocaust. Helen saw her father cry when he told her of this tragedy. Her father survived in a work camp as a shoemaker. Her parents met in Russia and returned to Poland then Germany where I was born before going onto Israel. They came to America in 1951 and settled in Brooklyn. Her father worked seven days a week for 25 years and her mother worked in a bakery. They wanted their children to grow up without problems and sacrificed for their education. She and her brother grew up in a neighborhood where people were of the holocaust so the backgrounds were similar and they did not see themselves as different. She became a sculptor but made a living in real estate and banking. She was married to a man who was from a family of displace persons from Bergen Belsen. She lived in North Dakota before coming to Florida where she aligned herself with Next Generation group. She now has a relationship with a Canadian philanthropist who gives injured Israeli soldiers respite. She lives part time in Montreal and part time in Florida. Her parents talked to her about their experiences but many of the specifics, such as times, exact location had been forgotten. They were wonderful parents and they gave all of themselves. As part of the Next Generation group her parents would be proud that she has aligned herself with this group which is so passionate about telling the story of anti-discrimination.

Sylvia Kahana: Sylvia is passionate about carrying on the message of her Holocaust Survivor parents. She believes that we are in a state of ignorance about the future that there will be a nuclear Holocaust and we must be wary of Iran and its nuclear armament. Her father was a survivor of 14 and knew of the coming disaster of the Holocaust. Today people are ill informed and act as sheep. Now we have low moral standards and ignorance of history with increasing hate crimes. Bullying, and bigotry and she feels it is the same as before with the Holocaust in the Second World War. The Iranian Khomeini threat is not understood by us and she fears ego is in the way above spirituality. Her family survived in Ubekistan and Tashkent. Her parents came to Philadelphia. Growing up she felt different as "greenees". She has been promoting Gen Z for the next generation, born after 1985, to tell stories of the Holocaust Genocide through technology, multi-media, and social media.

Paula Stevens: I met Paula through the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale. She is co-chair of the Membership Development committee, as well as a fund raiser for NEXT GENERATIONS. Passionate in her efforts, she supports both entities. Both of her parents were Holocaust survivors who lost their immediate and extended families. After liberation, they made their way across allied lines to Munich, Germany where Paula was born. The family had to wait two and half years for the US to grant the family visas. Nothing was ever discussed or revealed to Paula as a child regarding her parent's horrifying experiences and personal losses. She never understood why she didn't have grandparents, aunts or uncles. The death of her mother at the early age of 11 yrs., forced her to mature early and become independent. Being connected with other Second-generation survivors has given Paula the opportunity to engage in meaning dialogue as well as establishing an unspoken bond. Her having three children was the greatest gift to her parents who have produced six grandchildren. "I am here for a reason and I will never forget. My departed family will live on through my children and their children".

Nancy Dershaw: Nancy is the Founder and President of NEXT GENERATIONS, a 501(c) (3) not for profit organization of children, grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and all those who are committed to educate future generations by preserving the memories of the past, carrying forward the message into the future by keeping our parents voices alive. When you lose a parent, there is tremendous grief and anguish. However, when you lose a parent who was also a survivor of the Holocaust there are many different layers of feelings. As the President of NEXT GENERATIONS, I am in direct contact with many children of holocaust survivors whose parents have passed away. We feel not only did we lose a parent, but the magnitude of loss and pain is that much greater due to the weight of our parents' past. For many, our responsibilities and our appreciation of our families were different than our peers. We often acted as a parent might. Our love for our parents included keeping them safe and happy and not causing them grief. Taking away any hardships making sure that ultimately, they were as happy as they could be and there were so many joyous moments of happiness. For many of us, as the "children," we were instilled with such a tremendous triumph in being alive and therefore we felt intense gratitude towards our parents for anything that they gave us. First, we are fortunate to be here. Our parents gave us strength and resilience always striving for a better life. We are the witnesses to the eyewitness and have a moral responsibility to take the lessons of the Holocaust to ensure that future generations will learn from the lessons of the past and stand up to any form of social injustice in the future to say NEVER AGAIN!

Alexis is 36 y.o from 3GNY. She is an actress writing her own material about a one woman show on the Holocaust abut a woman who performs in a club in her final hours before she is kicked out of the club in Germany because she is Jewish. Both her parents were children of the Holocaust survivors. Her father’s family was Czech/ Hungarian. The grandmother and grandfather were in Auschwitz but his grandmother’s side survived in Hungary because false papers were made and the family dyed their hair blond as disguise. She states that her Fathers family had 5 sisters who survived Auschwitz. Three went to Australia and Two went to USA. Her parents were born in Europe-her mother in Rumania and father in Czechoslovakia. She has a picture of grandfather’s parents at their marriage. The parents were raised in a Holocaust survivor community in Australia. She states that that is most of the Jewish population in Australia. She went to parochial school there. She met her husband after moving to the USA. He is 2nd generation of the Holocaust. He is an entrepreneur in the technology business. She has three stepsons age 17,14,12 y.o. who go to Yeshiva. She helps 3GNY in its administration.

Jacob is 21 yo and is third generation of Holocaust. Both grandparents were survivors from Aushwitz. Jacob did not know his grandfather, Tomi Gyory but he knew his father Michael’s mother, Zsuzsi. His father has written the story of his heritage and their family who came from Hungary. He remembers his grandmother fondly because at her bedside were the photos of the eight grandchildren that she honored in her prayers every night Jacob’s father is passionate about teaching the story of the Holocaust to the school district they live in. Jacob’s parents are divorced. His father is Jewish and his mother is Presbyterian and Jacob was raised Presbyterian but he did go to Israel as part of the Birthright He felt isolated from the others. However, he grew up in a heavily populated Jewish community and had been to many Bar Mitzvah celebrations. His comment of increasing Antisemitism is as time goes by we see the Jews as different and forget the story of the Holocaust since it is in far past. His father’s statement in his writings about the history of the final solution and the statistic of focusing on the six million killed. He states: “They were regular people with normal everyday lives. No lesser expert in mass killing, Josef Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union whose regime killed tens of millions of his own people, said: "A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.”

Cayle is 41 yo and a member of 3GNY and very proud to be an educator in all of the New York Schools. She is proud to be living in the upper West side of NY where many educated Jews are her neighbors. Both grandparents were in concentration camps- one was Terezin, the other Auschwitz. Her grandfather was beaten many times and refused being a Kapo. He survived as a tailor in Canada and Cayle’s family was raised in Toronto. Her mother was a PhD in Economics. They lived in an antisemitic neighborhood and grandparents raised her since her parents were busy after school. Cayle became a comedian and she early on did acting and was in many television ads. She does not perform now but is happy to be onstage teaching the Holocaust. She is an educational consultant since her brother had a learning deficit and her own children also have the problem. She has a 19 yo in college and a 10 yo and 16 y.o at home. She has also been trained as a volunteer for Security Force.