On Monday, April 15, at 2 PM PDST (5 PM EDST), browse over to WMKV FM and click the “Listen Live” button at the top to hear a live interview with Julie Kohner, Founder of Voices of the Generations, on WMKV Union Terminal Time with host George Zahn.

George will interview Julie about her upcoming program at Cincinnati Museum Center on Thursday, April 17 at 7PM.  Cincinnati’s Union Terminal Building is the home of Cincinnati Museum Center. Every week, WMKV partners with Cincinnati Museum Center to share events and happenings, including rare behind-the-scenes interviews, and delightful and poignant oral histories of the famed Union Terminal building. You’ll learn something new each week on Union Terminal Time!

“Holocaust, The Creative Impulse”, is an undergraduate course at USC taught by Nick Strimple, where the course focuses on the rise of Nazism beginning in 1933, through the end of the war, where aspects of music, art and the media is explored, including how the Holocaust has been depicted through the post war years.  VOG presented “This Is Your Life, Hanna Bloch Kohner”, as the first example of a Holocaust survivor on american television. Julie Kohner spoke to 21 freshman and sophomore students about Hanna’s life through the war, the impact of the This Is Your Life program on Holocaust awareness, as well as the experiences of being a child of Holocaust survivors.

A fundraiser was held to support the Holocaust education program of Voices of the Generations at the home of Laura and Sam Goldfeder, in Beverly Hills, California, on Sunday, November 3 2013, with about 80 in attendance. Special thanks to Laura Stein Goldfeder and Leigh Stein McNamara for their generosity and hospitality, and in bringing guest speaker, Uri Reznick, Deputy Israel Consul General in Los Angeles to this successful event. An article appearing in NewsBlaze.com by Nurit Greenger, captures the essence of our purpose and mission. The article link is; http://newsblaze.com/story/20131108165040nurg.nb/topstory.html

Julie Kohner, founder of Voices of the Generations, was the guest speaker at the Greensboro Jewish Federation Women’s Philanthropy Committee end of the year lunchen on May 21, 2013.  Thanks to everyone for making the visit so special!

 The Yeshiva University of Los Angeles (YULA) Girls High School was recently visited by Julie Kohner, founder of Voices of the Generations, on May 2, 2013. Julie spoke to the entire school in attendance. Some of the students had just returned from a YULA sponsored trip to Poland, which included a visit to Auschwitz. While on their trip, some of students were reading Hanna & Walter, A Love Story, which documented Hanna Kohner’s experiences at the concentration camps, including Auschwitz.

 The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles recently hosted Julie Kohner and Voices of the Generations for a program on April 29, 2013. The program was for the Skirball Docent Corps and staff, with about 50 in attendance.

Many of the docents and staff felt they learned a new dimension of the story of the Holocaust as Julie shows how Americans first learned of the horrors on popular television. It is important to continue sharing these insights into the understanding of Holocaust awareness and education in America.

  It was with great surprise that an email and telephone call has led to this posting. On Wednesday, April 10, 2013, I was notified by Niko Wahl, curator of the Mauthausen Memorial, about 90 miles from Vienna, Austria, that a permanent display of “This Is Your Life, Hanna Bloch Kohner” would be opening along with the an entirely new exhibition at the memorial on Sunday, May 5.

 The museum, which was closed for many years, has been restructured and modernized to enable visitors to bear witness to the testimonies and artifacts from this infamous concentration camp. The result of the contact made by Mr. Wahl led to an invitation by the Austrian Ministry of Culture, for myself and my husband, Steve, to come to Mauthausen and take part in the ceremonial re-dedication of the memorial and museum.

 With more than one-thousand invited guests, including the Heads of State from Austria, Poland, and Hungary, Ministers from Israel and Russia, and American Ambassador to Austria, William Eacho, we had the opportunity to witness the dedication speeches, the introduction of 30 Mauthausen survivors, and ceremonial commemorations to be included in a time capsule that will remain in place at the memorial for at least 100 years.

 I was honored to see the promenant place that Hanna’s story has, just off the main museum entrence. Hanna’s display features an eight minute segment of the “This Is Your Life” episode. As I observed the many guests in attendance who came through the permanent exhibit, I had the opportunity to share Hanna’s story in more detail. This was the experience of a life-time, and the result of work we do at Voices of the Generations, that continues to be rewarding, fulfilling, and ever more important.

 This past Sunday, May 5, 2013, marked the 68th anniversary since the liberation of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Among those liberated that day in 1945 was my mother, Hanna Kohner, who miraculously survived four Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz. Mauthausen was the last of the four camps she was held in, and along with the many  thousands of prisoners who passed through, was placed into forced labor in the winter of 1944. Though Mauthausen was not specifically set up for systematic murder, an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 perished under harsh conditions that included forced labor and starvation. My mother was fortunate to survive this dark period, and her story is one of inspiration and love concurring the evils and brutality that she encountered during the war years.

 As such, I was delighted to hear that Hanna’s story was about to become part of the Mauthausen Memorial. It is Austria’s largest memorial commemorating the darkest episode in this country’s history, from 1938 to 1945.

 The extensive site with its original buildings is a testimony to this time and became a site of remembrance in 1949. In 1970, a permanent exhibition was installed and remained in place until a restructuring in 2010.

After years of work, the Mauthausen Memorial was re-dedicated on May 5, 2013.

Julie Kohner has given several Voices of the Generations talks over the past few months, from Ventura to Palm Desert. Speaking to large groups of students and adults, Julie has made an impact on their lives with the importance of remembrance. Recent engagements have included:

Chaminade High School, West Hills, CA

Students in Marianne Rosen’s World History class had a unique opportunity to connect with the past when speaker Julie Kohner visited them in March.  Ms. Kohner, founder of “Voices of the Generations,” is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.  Her mother, Hanna Bloch Kohner, was imprisoned at a series of concentration camps during World War II, including the infamous Auschwitz camp.  Hanna and her husband, Walter Kohner, were separated during the war but never stopped loving each other.  Their struggles and ultimate reconnection after the war is a story of faith and courage, and is one of the few Holocaust stories with a happy ending.

As a Second Generation Survivor, Julie Kohner has struggled with the questions:  “Who will bear witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust in the future?  How will we teach children about this historical period without the immediacy of personal experience?”  Over the years, Kohner (who holds a Masters in Education) developed curriculum about the Holocaust and her parents in an effort to answer those questions.  Her program, “Voices of the Generations,” uses memorabilia and a unique video recording of her parents to help students feel connected to the past.

“One of our responsibilities as Chaminade instructors,” Rosen remarks, “is to help our students develop into thoughtful, knowledgeable people who will work to make the world a better place and promote justice.  The story we heard from Ms. Kohner was a story of moral and ethical courage–a message which resonated with all of my students.”

“Her passion for passing on her mother’s legacy was so inspiring to me,” said student Peter Dyer, ’15.  “It showed me that I would like to find my own passion and help others.”  Jack Moran, ’15 remarked that “I was so moved by her mother’s story and the way she was able to find happiness out of such terror.”

And from student Rylie Klotz, ’15:  “Because I am Jewish, it was very powerful for me to relate to my own heritage.”  Sam Miller, ’15, observed:  “My favorite part was seeing Ms. Kohner’s mother on the television program because you always think of victims of the Holocaust as sad.  Her mother was happy and seemed to have great faith in tomorrow.  That was extremely motivational.”

That message of hope and courage is timeless, and the Voices of the Generations program enabled Rosen’s students to feel the power of “Me” becoming “We.”

St. Bonaventure High School, Ventura, CA

St. Bonaventure High School recently welcomed Julie and VOG for four programs to their high school history department.

The Desert Tolerance Center, Palm Desert, CA

Julie spoke to the Sunshine Circle at the Desert Tolerance Center. Shaindy Friedman, who directs the Sunshine Circle says the program matches up teens and young adults with Holocaust Survivors.