Conversations Series with Holocaust Survivors to Start 20th Year
HBABCs’ Bill Benson, will again serve as the host for First Person, a twice-weekly series of conversations between Benson and Holocaust Survivors before live audiences at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. First Person will open its 20th season on March 13th and continue each Wednesday and Thursday until August 8th. The hour-long program begins at 11:00 am.
The 2019 season will open with Holocaust Survivor Josie Traum. Ms. Traum was hidden as a child in Belgium by her mother Fanny Aizenberg who was part of the Belgian underground resistance. Her mother was denounced and sent to Auschwitz. Her father had gone to England to join the British Army as Nazi Germany prepared to invade Belgium and other countries in the spring of 1940. Josie’s mother survived Auschwitz and was reunited with Josie following the war’s end. Her father survived severe injuries from a bombing in London and was later reunited with Josie and his wife. Ms. Aizenberg, who was also part of the First Person program, passed away in 2018 at the age of 101. Ms. Traum’s husband Freddie is also a Holocaust Survivor and will be a First Person guest later in the season.
The First Person guest on March 14th will be Mr. Marcel Drimer. When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the town where Marcel lived with his parents and sister fell under Soviet control as part of the German-Soviet Pact. Soon after Germany turned on the Soviets in June 1941 and attacked Soviet territory, the Drimer’s town was occupied by German forces. The Drimers were forced into a ghetto. Before the Nazis were to liquidate the ghetto, Marcel’s father was able to arrange places for the family to hide under incredible circumstances and conditions until their liberation by the Soviet Army.
Bill Benson has hosted First Person since the program started in 2000. The program is free and open to the public and requires no tickets. First Person conversations are available on the USHMM You Tube Channel. Information about First Person is found at: https://www.ushmm.org/information/visit-the-museum/programs-activities/first-person-program.
