"A meeting with Hermann Göring led my grandfather to believe it was no longer safe..."
"She pushed a note through the train window… and that's why I exist..."
*** I’d be mighty grateful if you’d share this one - just click the title to take you to Substack, and then click the little cycle icon ***
This week, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, David and I recorded an astonishing conversation with Vivienne Cato, Calum Isaacs and Hannah Wilson.
Hannah works for Generation 2 Generation, a charity that provides speakers to share their family Holocaust stories using eye-witness survivor testimony. Calum and Vivienne are two speakers who share their family histories as descendants of Holocaust survivors.
Vivienne shares the story of her mother Eva Cato, a Slovak Jewish survivor who spent three years in hiding under a false identity, and reflects on her experience of growing up in the shadow of survival, luck and loss. She also tells the astonishing story of how her very existence pivots on a cigarette carton hastily pushed through a train window.
Calum tells the story of his grandmother Mirjam Finkelstein, who survived Nazi persecution through a series of extraordinary events, including a somewhat sketchy prisoner exchange involving fake passports, and considers how Mirjam’s survival has shaped his family’s history.
We also explore:
Why Holocaust education matters more than ever.
How personal testimony cuts through misinformation, distortion and online extremism.
The role of ordinary people, bystanders, appeasement and complicity in enabling atrocities.
The way in which students often respond to their stories with quiet focus, empathy, and deep moral questioning.
How Holocaust education connects to wider conversations about racism, antisemitism, democracy, and civic responsibility today.
What good Holocaust education looks like in practice.
The challenges teachers face.
The way in which these human stories help young people develop critical thinking, empathy, and historical understanding.
This episode is about remembrance, and how bearing witness is not only about preserving the past, but also about shaping the kind of world we want to live in.
