As a second-generation Holocaust survivor, I carry the enduring imprint of a history I did not directly experience yet I increasingly feel with every passing day. My family’s survival, trauma, and resilience form the fabric of my identity, shaping how I see the world. I am certain that among other second-generation survivors, I am not alone, especially in these distressing times of rising antisemitism and hostility toward immigrants.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is not just a day of reflection; it reignites deep anxiety, especially now as past horrors echo in today’s realities. It raises a frightening question that has been a mainstay of my family discussions for decades: Could it happen again?
My family’s story is both specific and universal. Before the Holocaust, my ancestors lived in several countries across Eastern and Western Europe, but they never truly belonged anywhere. They were stateless or non-citizens in every country they called home. Their legal vulnerability and societal rejection laid the groundwork for the unthinkable.
When the Nazis came to power, the absence of citizenship rights left them with few options, little protection, and no country to advocate for them. That history lives in me, and it beats louder with every headline about surging antisemitic hate crimes, authoritarianism, and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
In 1942, my mother was just a little girl when she and her sister Hannie were hidden by a brave woman named Louise Anciaux Wouters. Madame Anciaux, a customer of my grandfather’s furrier business in Belgium, risked her life to save them. She was the headmistress of a convalescent home for sick children in Rixensart, a quiet rural village outside of Brussels.
Under false identities, the girls, along with 20 other Jewish children, were given shelter in her care. When suspicions arose and the SS accused Madame Anciaux of hiding Jewish children, she did not waver. She stood firm, even under threat of death. Ultimately, my grandfather was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, but his daughters lived because of one woman’s extraordinary courage.
YEARS LATER, Madam Anciaux was posthumously honored by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” joining nearly 24,500 others who resisted hatred and death with humanity and bravery. Her story is a light in the darkness. But today, I wonder: Who would hide Jews now? Who would shelter immigrants or undocumented children? We like to believe we’ve learned from history, but I see mounting evidence to the contrary.
In 2025, antisemitism is not just a whisper, it has become normalized in ways I would never think possible. From attacks on synagogues to the slurs and threats on social media, the menace has returned in forms both old and new. Holocaust denial, once the domain of fringe extremists, now gains traction in mainstream discourse.
At the same time, anti-immigrant sentiments have become policy in the United States and throughout the world. Just like my great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents, modern refugees and asylum seekers face rejection, detention, and deportation. Borders are closing, hearts are hardening, and the sense of “us versus them” grows sharper every day.
For second-generation survivors like me, these developments are not theoretical – they are triggering. We’ve grown up in the shadows of survivors’ stories, often told in fragments or silences – though in my case, discussions of the Holocaust were almost a daily occurrence.
Our parents’ trauma shaped our childhoods, our sense of safety, and our trust in society. When we see governments strip people of rights, when we hear chants that echo the past, we don’t just worry – we feel it in our kishkes. Our memories come from inherited trauma, a legacy passed down through generations not just genetically, but emotionally and culturally.
Never again?
MY 94-YEAR-OLD mother always has and still insists, “It could happen again.” She knows what it means for neighbors to look the other way, for institutions to crumble, for humanity to vanish under ideology. She is still hurt that her best friend refused to be friends with her when she realized she was a Jew.
I used to argue with her that it simply could not happen again. Not with the existence of America – the “land of the free” and the most powerful country in the world – and Israel, the place where Jews were supposed to be safest from antisemites. That was one of the reasons I moved to Israel. And when she says it could happen again, I am loathed to believe her but I am not so certain anymore.
So how are we second-generation adults coping? Some of us are channeling our anxiety into activism, education, and Holocaust remembrance. Others, particularly now, are struggling with a deep fear for the future. Many of us find solace in community, in telling our families’ stories, and in keeping the memories of both the victims and the heroes alive – as I am doing now. There are second-generation groups – and now “3G”, third-generation ones – online and who meet in Jewish communities internationally, but the weight is heavy. It is not always easy to reconcile hope with the knowledge of how cruel the world can be.
Yom HaShoah is a sacred day of mourning, memory, and resistance. It is a time to honor those we lost, those who survived, and those who dared to protect others at great personal cost. But for second-generation survivors like me, it is also a call to remain alert, to remember that the erosion of rights often begins with indifference, and to stand with all who are vulnerable – because we know, more than most others, what happens when the world turns away.
The writer, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, is the president of Kam Global Strategies, a Jerusalem-based strategic communications company.