They have gathered on living room couches, on university lawns, in synagogue sanctuaries, in public squares, and even in embassy conference rooms for intimate conversations that have enormous global impact. Since 2011, more than 2 million people have met Holocaust survivors to learn about their experiences and help carry their history and hopes into the future.
The effort is the work of a grassroots organization in Israel called Zikaron BaSalon and relies on an empowerment model: A volunteer host invites a Holocaust survivor to speak to family and friends at any size gathering, in any location. Zikaron BaSalon provides hosting tips, discussion prompts and support materials to create a meaningful discussion. To date, participants in 65 countries have hosted survivors in salons, often to mark Yom HaShoah, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or other significant dates.
But 78 years after the end of World War II, Zikaron BaSalon is aware that it must move into a new era of commemoration that does not rely on living survivors.
“As long as we have living survivors, these are the people who need to be in salons,” said Sharon Buenos, global director of Zikaron BaSalon. “But unfortunately, we don’t have many survivors left, and there are many regions where there are no survivors at all. And yet we still have a duty to remember.
The effectiveness of first-hand accounts is especially significant in an era of rampant anti-Semitism, growing ignorance, and freely circulating disinformation about the Holocaust.
Last year, the USC Shoah Foundation and Zikaron BaSalon formed a partnership to keep the model of intimate engagement alive using testimonies from the visual history archive. In 2022, hundreds of people hosted salons centered on taped interviews with survivors through the Zikaron BaSalon/Bringing Testimony Home.
The hope is that even more people will sign up for Yom HaShoah this year. On April 17 and 18, Zikaron BaSalon/Bringing Testimony Home is providing hosting kits containing a 30- to 45-minute video of an edited testimony, along with discussion prompts, historical background material, and tips for moderating the evening. The idea is to empower hosts to lead guests through meaningful engagement with the testimony—and with each other. Individuals as well as organizations are invited to host.
“We’re always trying to find new ways for people to engage with the countless voices we have in our visual history archive,” said Dr. Corey Street, USC Shoah Foundation Deputy Executive Director. “Zikaron BaSalon’s model of bringing testimonies into homes is a simple and direct way to keep these stories alive in people’s hearts and minds.”
Buenos said she is excited to see the sense of intimacy so central to the success of the Zikaron BaSalon being carried over from the salon with living survivors to those using testimonials.
“When you hear a person’s story, you get a point of view and a narrative and you can tap into that and see the story in a different way,” she said, especially when “you’re sitting with your close friends and your family and you’re all huddled together a sofa.
For Zikaron BaSalon/Bringing Testimony Home, the USC Shoah Foundation team prepared seven testimonies from the visual history archive in Hebrew, English, and Spanish that cover a wide range of experiences.
Testimonies included in the sets include: Agnes Adachi, born in Budapest, who was an assistant to rescuer Raoul Wallenberg; Dr. Edith Egger, who survived Auschwitz and became a prominent writer and psychologist; Eli Alevi, who was interned in the Thessaloniki ghetto in Greece before being transported to Auschwitz; Erica Gold, who worked as a courier for the French Resistance as a teenager; Kurt Thomas, who escaped from the Sobibor death camp during the 1943 prisoners’ uprising; and Yehuda Bakon, who survived Auschwitz and later became a prominent Israeli artist and one of the “Birkenau Boys.”
The DIY idea of Zikaron BaSalon appeals to younger generations, said Dov Foreman, a youth spokesperson for the USC Shoah Foundation. Foreman, who is 18 and lives in London, creates TikTok videos with his 99-year-old great-grandmother Lily Ebert, which range from talking about her experience in Auschwitz to strange messages about Shabbat Shalom. The videos have garnered hundreds of millions of views.
Forman encourages others to research and share their own families’ stories.
“There is so much hate in the world, and social media is an echo chamber where misinformation and Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism can spread so quickly,” said Forman, who hosted a salon for family and friends last year. “The only vaccine against hate is education, and I think the way to fight misinformation is not to pick fights with people, but to use social media to do the opposite – to spread love and positivity and spread the voices of survivors.” “
Learn more about registering to host a Zikaron BaSalon event at your home or community center.
A version of this article was first published in March 2022.