OJMCHE has speakers available to share their personal or family experiences of genocide in-person and virtually. You can view the list below to learn more about our current speakers. For more information about planning a Speaker visit, click here. In the case that you are unable to accommodate a speaker visit, we encourage you to read their presentation summaries, which can be accessed by clicking the “Read More” button, or listen to their oral history, if available.
Speakers’ Bureau Mission Statement
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education’s Speakers’ Bureau serves to preserve the memories of local survivors of genocide and mass violence and provide educators and organizations opportunities to discuss and honor survivors’ cultural legacies. Through oral histories of local survivors, liberators, resisters, witnesses, refugees, and their families, we seek to further awareness of genocide around the world and hate crimes in our own communities and elsewhere. We empower our audiences to recognize injustices and take action.
Interested in joining our Speakers’ Bureau? We hold fall and spring interest meetings where we share more information about our program and onboarding process. Please fill out the interest form, tell us a little about yourself, and we’ll contact you to let you know when our next meeting is.
“I never took history seriously. I thought – it’s in the past, why should I care? But I can honestly say that you have sparked a light of passion in me for what happened in the past.” Student Audience Member
Anneke Bloomfield was born on April 19, 1935, in The Hague, The Netherlands. Shortly after Anneke’s fifth birthday, the Netherlands was invaded by Nazi Germany. Fearing for the safety of his family, Anneke’s father found families that would take Anneke and her brothers into hiding. Over the course of the war, Anneke was moved three times to different homes. She was just 10 years old when victory was declared in Europe. She traveled alone from her final hiding place back to The Hague where she was eventually reunited with her parents and siblings.
Clarice speaks on behalf of her father, Captain David B. Wilsey, M.D., who served as a physician in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. Present at the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, Dr. Wilsey was one of 27 physicians who treated 30,000 survivors for over five weeks. His wartime experience was documented in hundreds of letters he wrote nearly daily to his wife between September 1944 and November 1945. In several of the letters, Dr. Wilsey instructed his wife Emily “to tell thousands so that millions will know what Dachau is and never forget the name of Dachau.” Because he would not talk about his traumatic experiences, Clarice feels called to be her father’s voice and continue to bear witness to these events for the younger generation.
To access the letters and photos directly, visit the Holocaust Center for Humanity. In 2020, Clarice Wilsey published a memoir, Letters from Dachau: A Father’s Witness of War, a Daughter’s Dream of Peace.
David is the son of two Holocaust survivors and shares how their experiences impact his life. His father, Henry, was in the Lodz ghetto and then spent five years imprisoned in Buchenwald. His mother, Rachel, was taken from her home in Poland and was enslaved in Oberalstad, a labor camp near Prague. After the war, his parents spent four years in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, where they had their first child together, a daughter. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the local Jewish Federation, his parents and older sister were resettled in Detroit, Michigan. Soon after their arrival, the young family welcomed two more children, David and his younger sister. David and his sisters grew up in a community of Holocaust survivors, always aware of the trauma their parents and their parent’s friends had endured.
Deb Mrowka speaks on behalf of her late Mother, Eline. Eline Hoekstra Dresden was born in 1923 in The Hague, The Netherlands. In 1941, she gave birth to her first child, a son named Daniel. Only three and a half months after Daniel was born, and in the hopes of saving his life, Eline found a non-Jewish family to volunteer to take him into hiding. In 1943, Eline was imprisoned at Westerbork concentration camp. She endured squalor, disease, hard and dehumanizing labor, and starvation until the camp was liberated in April of 1945. She was then reunited with her partner and their son Daniel. After getting married in July of 1945, Eline and her husband were determined to leave Europe after all they had endured. However, it took 13 years for their immigration to the United States to be approved. During that time, Eline had another son and three daughters, including Deb. Finally, in 1958, Eline, her husband, and their five children emigrated from The Netherlands to Oregon.
Eline’s memoir, Wishing Upon a Star: A Tale of Holocaust and Hope was released in 2000.
Debbi Montrose speaks on behalf of her mother, Alice Kern, who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Alice, born in 1923 in Sighet, Romania, experienced the Hungarian occupation of her hometown, deportation to concentration camps, and the loss of nearly all her family. After liberation in 1945, Alice chose to accompany the Swedish Red Cross to Sweden to recover from her experiences in the camps. There Alice met her future husband, Hugo, a survivor of Dachau, and they traveled to the United States together shortly after their marriage. They eventually settled in Portland, Oregon and had four daughters. Alice and Hugo did not share their story with their children until decades later. Honoring her mother’s wishes, Debbi (daughter #3, as Alice always called her), continues to share her mother’s story of courage, hope, and survival.
Alice Koppel Kern wrote her memoir, Tapestry of Hope, which was published in 1988.
Ed Reckford speaks on behalf of his parents, Leopold Rechnitzer and Gisela Ornstein, who fled Austria separately in 1938, soon after it was occupied by Nazi Germany. They were able to navigate the U.S. immigration system through their own ingenuity and tenacity, and a few strokes of good luck. Ed’s parents settled in New York, where Ed was later born in 1949. Ed also shares the experiences of some of the relatives his parents left behind, and the series of unfortunate circumstances that led to their deaths. Ed moved to Portland in 1976, where he found a community of fellow children of Holocaust survivors. He shares his family history as a way to honor their memory.
Estelle speaks on behalf of her mother, Diana Galante Golden, a survivor of Auschwitz. Diana was born in 1922 on the Island of Rhodes, which was Italian at the time. In July 1944, all Jews were deported from Rhodes. Diana and her family were first sent to a detention camp near Athens, then loaded on train boxcars to Auschwitz, where they arrived in August 1944. Diana lost nearly all her family, except two sisters with whom she endured forced labor and starvation at Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the war, with the help of the Red Cross and the American Jewish Committee, Diana and her sisters immigrated to the United States. Incorporating video of Diana telling her story, Estelle shares her mother’s life in Rhodes, her terrible journey to Auschwitz, how she survived its daily horrors, and the fate of her family.
Estelle Winicki speaks on behalf of her parents Stephanie and Max Sucher and her aunt Renate Dollinger. Before Hitler’s rise to power, her family were assimilated German citizens. As the Nazis passed restrictive laws targeting Jewish people, Max and Stefanie fled separately to the United States and England. Renade was taken to England as part of the Kindertransport. Estelle’s parents were reunited in September 1939 before moving to California in 1940. Growing up, Estelle never heard her parents talk about their experiences during the Holocaust. Now that she lives in Oregon, Estelle speaks on behalf of her parents to honor the challenges they went through and to share the stories they couldn’t share themselves.
Eva (Spiegel) Aigner is a child survivor of the Budapest Ghetto. She was born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia, and moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1939 after her father’s business license was revoked because he was Jewish. Here she and her sister miraculously survived the mass shootings of Jewish people on the Danube River due to her mother’s bravery. Eva also speaks on behalf of her late husband, Leslie Aigner z’l, who was a teenage survivor of Auschwitz and three additional concentration camps. After the war both Eva and Les remained in Budapest, where they met and married. They eventually escaped to the United States during the revolution of 1956. Eva continues to share their message of love over hate and accepting others’ differences.
Evelyn Diamant Banko was born on January 21, 1936 in Vienna, Austria. In August 1938, a Nazi who sympathized with Evelyn’s father warned him not to return to his home as he was going to be arrested by the Nazis that night. The family quickly made arrangements to leave Austria. Five days later, Evie and her parents fled to Riga, Latvia. After living in Latvia for two years and securing the necessary U.S. visas and a Declaration of Support, Evelyn’s family took the Trans-Siberian Railroad across Russia through Manchuria, China, and on to Japan. On September 7, 1940, they boarded a Japanese ship in Kobe and, after an arduous journey, arrived in Seattle on September 23, 1940. They settled in Portland, Oregon a few days later.
Although Evie and her parents survived the Holocaust, many of her family members did not. Evie also shares the story of her Uncle Max, who was imprisoned at Gurs and other concentration camps and eventually deported and killed at Auschwitz.
Inge Hoogerhuis speaks on behalf of her mother Celina Hoogerhuis and her grandmother Rebecca Franschmann. Her mother’s experience of life under Nazi occupation in Amsterdam is one of enduring pain and numerous little miracles. After the war, Inge’s mother married and eventually the family immigrated to the United States in 1961. They lived in both southern California and Indiana before retiring to Corvallis, Oregon. The death of her grandmother Rebecca in Auschwitz still reverberates in Inge’s life today. Inge shares with audiences how intergenerational trauma has affected her and can be healed through understanding, art, and activism. She hopes her experience can serve as an example of how to provide compassion and honor to those who came before us.
Jeannie Smith speaks on behalf of her mother, Irene Gut Opdyke, a Polish rescuer who was named Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem for saving the lives of 12 Jewish people during the Holocaust. Irene was born in Poland in 1922 and worked as a housekeeper for a high-ranking German official during the war. She made the courageous choice to hide several Jewish people at great risk to herself and her family. Irene came to the U.S. via Ellis Island in 1949, and she married in 1956. Irene later wrote a memoir in 1992, which has also been turned into a nationally acclaimed Broadway play. Jeannie, a recipient of the Civil Rights award in 2015 from the Anti-Defamation League, travels throughout the U.S., Canada, and the UK sharing her mother’s story and message of hope and love.
First published in 1992, Irene wrote her memoir, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer. It is accompanied by this Teacher’s Guide from Random House.
Kacrna Saron Khut is a survivor of the Cambodian Killing Fields genocide. He was born in 1970 in a small town called Chongkal, Cambodia. When he was five years old the Khmer Rouge murdered his father and moved his family from town to town. After five hellish years under the communist regime, Saron and his family escaped Cambodia and became refugees in Thailand. In 1981 Saron and his family immigrated to Portland, Oregon and made America their new home. A graduate of Cleveland High School and Portland State University, Saron is now a restaurant owner. He established the Mekong Bistro in 2012 to stay connected to his Cambodian roots and help foster community in his new home.
Naomi speaks on behalf of her late grandmother, Sara Klein Papka. Sara was born in 1921 into a poor Jewish family near Warsaw, Poland. Shortly after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, 18-year-old Sara left home alone and, after a harrowing train trip and chaotic stay at the border, escaped into Russia. Sara married Joseph Papka in Lutsk on December 25, 1939, and spent the early years of the war working in a forest labor camp. Joe left Russia in 1941 to join the war effort, and Sara spent the remainder of the war working in factories, battling hunger, and trying to keep herself and her infant son alive. After the war ended, Sara returned to Poland, where she discovered that her parents and many other relatives had perished. Sara reunited with Joe in 1946, and they had two more children before moving to Israel in 1956 and New York in 1960.
Peter speaks on behalf of his mother, Rosa Wigmore, who was born in 1923 in Czechoslovakia (what is now known as Slovakia). In the winter of 1944, Rosa and the remaining members of her family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rosa’s mother, a sister, and grandmother were all immediately killed, while Rosa and two of her sisters endured harsh working conditions, starvation, and torture. Rosa was also subjected to cruel medical experiments against her will, saved from the gas chamber at the last minute more than once, and eventually sent to a third camp, from which she was liberated in May 1945. After the war, Rosa reunited with her last surviving sister. They moved to Prague, where Rosa met and married Peter’s father. Rosa and her husband eventually settled in Australia, where Peter was born, before immigrating to the United States in 1957.
Roger Sabbadini speaks on behalf of his father, Alessandro (Alex) Sabbadini. Alex escaped Fascist Italy to America on the eve of WWII only to return to fight in Italy with the U.S. 5th Army. He was with G-2 Intelligence and was one of the “Ritchie Boys.” Alex joined the fight for personal reasons – to liberate Italy and his Jewish family who were being pursued by the Fascists and the Nazis. Roger shares his father’s story to educate audiences about the dangers of fascism and the risk that anti-democratic movements pose to our society today. Roger lives in Bend, Oregon.
Roger Sabbadini has written a book about his father’s WWII experiences entitled Unavoidable Hope: A Jewish Soldier’s Fight to Save His Family from Fascism.
Rosalyn Kliot was born in April 1945 in Lodz, Poland, after her parents’ courageous escape from the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia. Rosalyn’s parents were both originally from Vilna, a city that has been claimed by both Poland and Lithuania throughout history. After the war, Rosalyn and her parents journeyed to Heidenheim, Germany, where her father accepted a position as an administrator for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), assisting refugees and displaced persons. In 1947, after her father had earned enough to emigrate to America, the family arrived in Boston Harbor and from there went to Chicago, eventually settling in Skokie, Illinois. Rosalyn shares their harrowing experiences escaping a concentration camp so that the memory of the Holocaust will not be forgotten.
Rosalyn’s memoir, My Father’s Book, is archived and digitally available in the library of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and at the Tualatin Public Library in Tualatin, Oregon.
Ruth Bolliger was born on March 18, 1938 in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, only six months before it was taken over by Nazi Germany. Fortunately, Ruth’s grandfather had won the Nobel Prize in 1936, which directly saved his life and indirectly saved Ruth and her parents. They were able to flee Czechoslovakia and Ruth’s first three years of her life were an odyssey through six different countries and three languages; on the run, in hiding, always in flight. Ruth’s parents constantly lived in despair, never knowing whether their little girl would innocently betray them or whether their U.S. quota number would come up in time to save them. To survive, Ruth instinctively “learned” at three weeks of age not to cry, and as a toddler never to speak the wrong language at the wrong time. In 1941 they immigrated to New York City, where Ruth grew up. Ruth speaks about her family’s experience because she sees the critical necessity of educating young people about the Holocaust.
Ruth Kohn was born in 1933 in Vienna, Austria. In March of 1938, Ruth experienced the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany. During Kristallnacht in November of 1938, Ruth’s father was arrested and imprisoned at Dachau. Soon after, Ruth and her mother were forced out of their family apartment and into a small room in the Jewish Quarter. Ruth’s mother wrote letter after letter to any extended family living in the United States. Finally, a cousin wrote an affidavit to sponsor Ruth and her mother’s immigration. Her father was eventually freed from Dachau and was able to escape to Sweden. From there, he worked to secure his own immigration to the United States. In November of 1940, Ruth and her mother were finally reunited with Ruth’s father in Portland, Oregon.
Yvonne Stad Cohen is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 1946. Her parents and brother survived the war under Nazi occupation due to their resistance, luck, and creativity. For nearly three years, Yvonne’s parents lived in hiding while her brother was sent to live with a non-Jewish family for safety. While in hiding, Yvonne’s parents sustained some of their hope by creating puppets and performing puppet shows. After Yvonne was born, her parents were eventually reunited with her brother. The family then immigrated first to Aruba and then the United States. Yvonne feels compelled to talk about her parents’ experiences because she believes it is important to speak out when we see injustices of all types.
SPEAKERS BUREAU EMERITI
The speakers below are not currently accepting speaking engagements. The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is grateful for their continued advisory participation and honors their legacies, as they have shared their stories with hundreds of thousands of listeners since the founding of the Speakers’ Bureau.
June 3, 1929 – August 18, 2021
Leslie was born in 1929 in Czechoslovakia. In the early 1940s his family moved to Budapest in the hope of escaping oppressive Nazi discrimination against Jews. In 1943 the Nazis forced Leslie’s father into a slave labor camp and his sixteen-year-old sister was taken to a factory to do forced labor. In 1944 Leslie, his mother, and his eight-year-old sister were taken from their home to the Budapest Ghetto. From there they were taken to Auschwitz, where his mother and sister were sent directly to the gas chambers.
1934 – March 10th, 2021
Andreas Michael Goldner was born in 1934 in Zurich, Switzerland. His parents were both physicians and had lost their positions. They thought Switzerland would be a safe place however shortly after Andreas was born the Swiss closed the borders to German Jews and actually pressured the German government to place a large “J” on any passport given to Jews. They were expelled from Switzerland and had to return to Germany.
October 21, 1929 – April 2, 2018
Miriam Kominkowska z”l was born in 1929 in Sompolno, Poland, where her father’s family had lived for generations. As a young girl, Miriam’s family moved through the Polish cities of Radziejow, Aleksandrow, and Lubranieć, where they were living when the Nazis invaded in 1939. Soon after the invasion the Nazis imposed harsh laws on all Jews. They were forced to wear yellow stars sewn onto their clothing. Miriam was forbidden from attending school. Soon the Nazis confiscated her father’s lumber business and the family was forced to live on the meager rations allotted to them.