My children are third generation Holocaust survivors. Someday, they will have the responsibility of carrying forward the incredible stories of their maternal grandparents, Mira and Saul. To do this well, they'll need to tell not just what happened, but what it felt like, with all the color and shadow that give form to memory.

Which is why, as we commemorated Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) this week, I was especially grateful for a recent discovery made by my nephew Jack.

During lockdown, Jack spent about a month with my in-laws and family in Toronto. With time on his hands, he started digging through boxes in the house, unearthing a videotaped interview my mother-in-law had given to the Shoah Foundation almost 25 years ago.

Her story we’ve always known. Born in Bratislava in 1935, Mira Szusz (as she was then called) and her younger sister spent months in hiding with non-Jewish farmers. Their parents first hid elsewhere with false papers, eventually reuniting with the children and hiding together in a house that also lodged German soldiers. After the war, they immigrated to Canada.

Those are the facts. But they don’t do justice to the story.

On the tape, my mother-in-law recalls with remarkable clarity what could only have been experienced firsthand: How it felt when she went to church while posing as a Christian child, whispering Hebrew prayers, a small act of rebellion. How her father refused to give up his siddur when he went into hiding, even though it placed him in grave danger, and even though he wasn’t then a particularly religious man. How frightened she was by the sound of the German soldiers' boots. Almost always, my mother-in-law frames her answers with the words, “I remember.”

You can’t imagine what this video means to us. Because today, our wonderful Bubi Mira, as her 12 grandchildren lovingly call her, is in cognitive decline. She can no longer remember the events of her childhood.

And my mother-in-law is not alone. With advanced age, memory is slipping away for many survivors. Soon, fewer and fewer will be able to provide firsthand accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust — along with the extraordinary stories of human strength and resilience.

While we still have the gift of living survivors, it is our urgent collective challenge to find ways to transmit their memories.

As just one approach, UJA has been funding Witness Theater since 2012. The program, brought to New York by our nonprofit partner Selfhelp Community Services, pairs high school students with Holocaust survivors. Over the course of many months, survivors share their stories, describing what they endured. The students then perform these stories before an audience. On Long Island, UJA's Witness Project offers both a performance and a fine arts dimension.

This year, there are four virtual Witness Theater performances. On Yom HaShoah, I watched the moving performance put together by the students at the Yeshivah of Flatbush. While the students could meet survivors only virtually, it was clear that they’d nonetheless forged deep, life-changing friendships. You don’t become a “witness” to the darkest hours of a person's life without becoming irrevocably bonded to them. And I have to believe that the experience meant even more for both student and survivor during these days of isolation and lockdown.

For the last two years, UJA Young Leaders has also offered a Third Generation Holocaust Survivors group. This growing cohort of people in their 20s and 30s has been gathering for a variety of virtual programs, including a monthly speaker series to hear the stories of survivors. It’s been noted that the second generation has sometimes struggled to hear and tell these stories, being too close to their parents’ trauma. But with time and distance, the third generation has come forward with new conviction, taking it upon themselves to become the guardians of invaluable memories.

As the years go on, it will be the sacred responsibility of this third generation — including my children — to tell their grandparents’ stories. They will bear testimony for those who no longer can, creating a bridge between a past almost out of reach, and a future dependent on our collective memory.

Shabbat shalom