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We Teens Are Combating The Pandemic By Befriending Our Elders

[additional-authors]
March 31, 2020
Charlie Nevins Face Times with Holocaust Survivor Leon Malmed on March 31, 2020. Photo courtesy of The Righteous Conversations Project

As teenagers, it is hard to comprehend the irreparable mark this coronavirus will have on our generation. We are in the middle of a tremendous shift away from our normal routine: online school, 17th and 18th birthday parties over Zoom. The city we’ve grown up in suddenly is a ghost town. These new realities will define this time period.

Yet, it is hard to deny the tremendous privilege we have to be able to quarantine with our families and have online access to our friends. In reality, these obstacles we face are insignificant compared to those faced by elderly people forced into isolation, often by themselves or with a single family member. This isolation can be lonely and alienating, especially for Holocaust survivors, who, to an extent, already are isolated from society due to their traumatic history.

The Righteous Conversations Project, a program of Remember Us, was founded in 2011 to connect Holocaust survivors and teens through filmmaking, writing and face-to-face meetings. Remember Us unites these two generations to carry on the stories of the Holocaust, knowing they are more than a series of events that can be printed in a textbook — they are lessons of strength and bravery that must be carried on. Now, more than ever, this mission is crucial, both to protect the legacies of the survivors and to provide comfort in a time of unimaginable loneliness.

As high schoolers, we are overwhelmed by the abundance of time suddenly presented to us. With the seemingly endless library of TV shows to binge-watch, it is easy to get sucked out of reality. But these enticing options are mind-numbing and pull us further and further away from reality. Instead of bingeing on a Netflix show, we could look at this excess of time as an opportunity to engage with those members of our community who are most isolated.

As members of the Remember Us Teen Board, we have learned firsthand how fulfilling and transformative a relationship with a Holocaust survivor can be.

As members of the Remember Us Teen Board, we have learned firsthand how fulfilling and transformative a relationship with a Holocaust survivor can be. Hearing their stories is life-changing, but perhaps what has surprised us even more are the small intersections we find between generations. We all have a song that transports us back to our childhood and the friend who showed compassion to us in a time of need. Personally, we know these unexpected connections can mean the world to both the teen and the survivor, serving as a reminder of the universality of the human experience.

That’s why Remember Us is creating a new initiative to pair teens and survivors for daily check-ins over the phone. We hope our generation will not let the physical limitations of quarantine impair our ability to reach out to this vulnerable generation of Holocaust survivors and make the life-changing connections with them that we know are possible.

[See Oseh Shalom from The Righteous Conversations Project on Vimeo.]

If you, too, feel the need to reach out and make a difference in these survivors’ lives, please contact Remember Us. Whether you are a rabbi, principal or parent and are in a position to extend this opportunity to someone in your life, or you are a high schooler and are curious to participate yourself, contact us so we can begin building a network of connections as soon as possible. We hope that with your help, we, together, can succeed in providing a source of light in a time of darkness for many survivors. ​If you are a Holocaust survivor or a Jewish elder looking to receive these calls​, we would love to connect you to our program. We also are developing a program to assist our community’s elders in sharing their memories and reflections for posterity.


Tess Levy​ ​is president of the Remember Us Teen Board 2019-20 and a senior at Windward School. Levy has been accepted to Yale University and is a member of the Kehillat Israel community. Charlie Nevins​ ​is a member of the Remember Us Teen Board and a Righteous Conversations Project intern and teacher. Nevins is a junior at Crossroads School in Santa Monica and a founding member of the UNICEF Young Ambassador Program, as well as a member of the IKAR community.

To contact Remember Us, email ​samara@remember-us.org​ or call (310) 463-8863.

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