This past week, we marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and International Holocaust Remembrance Day. While each year I find myself reflecting on the extraordinary legacy, this year however, I am not just focusing on the legacy of survival that this day commemorates, but on what it means to have a legacy of triumph.
My personal connection to this day is very clear, as all four of my grandparents survived the Holocaust, with my two grandmothers enduring the horrors of Auschwitz. Their stories, like those of countless survivors, transcend mere survival and illuminate a path forward for all humanity.
My grandmother Miriam Zuckerman’s story particularly stands out. Three times, she was selected by Dr. Josef Mengele for the gas chambers. Three times, she made the desperate choice to run back to the line of the living, knowing she risked being shot dead on the spot. Her slight frame made her appear weak, but her spirit proved indomitable. This spirit – this choice to live, to persist, to hope – would define not just her survival, but her approach to life after the Holocaust.
What’s remarkable about my grandparents and the survivors like them, isn’t just that they lived through unimaginable horror, but how they chose to live afterward. My parents were part of a group called Children of Holocaust Survivors, that worked actively to process their inherited trauma and ensure it wouldn’t cascade down to future generations. Born in Transylvania after the war, my parents later immigrated to Pennsylvania, where they met and married in Philadelphia. Each of my grandparents and parents alike made a conscious choice: to build rather than to burden, to create rather than to carry on a vendetta of hatred toward those who persecuted them.
It is striking for me to reflect on the absence of hatred in our home. Despite the magnitude of what they endured, I never heard my grandparents nor my parents, or any other Holocaust survivors that I have met, express vengeful thoughts toward Nazis or Germans. There was no seething anger, no calls for retribution, no passing down of hatred to the next generation. The only residual fear that manifested was an inexplicable wariness of German Shepherd dogs – a small psychological echo of unspeakable trauma.
This absence of hatred wasn’t passive forgetting – it was active choosing. The survivors I knew channeled their energy not into revenge but into rebuilding. They refused to accept the status of eternal victims or refugees. Instead, they devoted themselves to reconstruction: physical, financial, spiritual, and communal. They rebuilt their lives in new countries, established businesses, raised families, and strengthened their faith.
THERE ARE still, unfortunately, many conflicts around the world, big and small, where inhumane tragedies take place. They must be fought against – and prevented where possible – and this legacy of creation rather than maintained hatred, offers crucial lessons. True resilience isn’t just about enduring hardship; it’s about emerging from it with the determination to create something better. It’s about refusing to let trauma define your future or dictate your relationships with others.
Rebuilding their lives
We’re seeing similar attitudes now in survivors of Hamas’ October 7 atrocities, whether it is in the form of Yuval Raphael who is soon to be competing as Israel’s representative in Eurovision, or in the numerous survivors who attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration events in Washington and who continue to rebuild their lives.
The survivors’ approach adopted by my grandparents and many of the younger generation from October 7 to post-trauma life, provides a powerful template for breaking cycles of violence and hatred. They have demonstrated that the most powerful response to destruction isn’t retaliation, but creation. The most effective answer to hatred isn’t more hatred, but the steady, determined work of building a better world.
I am not minimizing anyone’s suffering, or suggesting that these massive traumas should or could ever be forgotten. Rather, I believe that the most profound victory over perpetrators of violence is to live well, to build, to create, and to thrive. It’s about taking responsibility not just for one’s own healing, but for the healing of others, and contributing to a better world.
The legacy of Holocaust survivors and the resilience of October 7 survivors teaches us that when we are confronted with trauma, either on a personal or communal level, we have a choice: We can choose to be defined by our trauma or to be driven by our hopes. We can choose to perpetuate cycles of hatred, or we can build cycles of creation.
The survivors I knew chose to thrive not despite their trauma, but perhaps because of it. They chose to focus not on punishing the past but on building the future. I learned from my grandparents that it is not enough to live but that I needed to choose the path of creation rather than nursing hatred.
In honoring their memory, we would do well to follow their example: As Deuteronomy 30:19 tells us: “Choose life, so that both you and your future generations may live.”
The writer is the chief communications officer and global spokesperson for Aish, following a career as an award-winning producer and marketing executive with HBO, CNN, and Food Network. She is the founder of Kosher Network International, which she built into the world’s largest Jewish food and lifestyle media company, and is an eight-time bestselling author.