Teen helps Holocaust survivors tell stories through art projects

It was four years ago that Shira Israeli, then a ninth-grader from Shoham studying at Atid School for Science in Lod, was assigned to create a film about her family’s Holocaust experience, as a project for English class.

“It was a real problem for me, because my family doesn’t talk about the Holocaust,” said Israeli, now in 12th grade.

Israeli knew only the bare details of her family’s experience, including the fact that her paternal grandfather was born in Germany, but not much more than that.

What she did have was a box of photos that had been sitting in her parents’ attic for decades.

She began digging into the box and her family’s Holocaust history, and, through painstaking research, developed her own connection to historical events, eventually developing Stage for Memory, a project for Israeli youth with survivors.

Israeli was able to establish the program last year, when she was in 11th grade, thanks to her participation in LEAD, a non-profit organization that aims to develop the next generation of leaders while they are still in high school. In LEAD, youth initiate, plan, and lead their own projects, and Israeli began creating art groups with survivors. She eventually brought together some 40 high schoolers and 15 survivors in two groups, one in Lod and another in Ramat Gan.

The groups meet every week and work together on drawings and sculptures. They record the survivors’ stories through films, artworks and illustrations.

With 150,000 Holocaust survivors left in Israel, and about 15,000 who die each year, it is vital that the younger generations hear those stories, said Israeli.

“In the coming decade, we’ll hear one day that the last survivor has passed away,” she said.

“I wanted to help them in some way, especially after the pandemic. I wanted the youth around me to feel a connection to the Holocaust and to the siren when they hear it,” she explained, referring to the two-minute siren sounded countrywide on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked this year on April 18.

“We’ve heard unbelievable stories. One survivor told us how he survived as a baby in Italy and was shipped to Greece,” said Israeli. Another husband-and-wife couple from the Ramat Gan group told her that the meetings helped them speak about the Holocaust for the first time in years.

At the same time, there are other survivors who find it difficult to share their stories, and still others, often Russian-speaking survivors, who do not know Hebrew, making it difficult for the participating youth to communicate with them.

“I look at it as the greatest experience of my life so far,” said Israeli. “I’ve learned so many tools, how to communicate with big organizations and to think that everything is possible. ‘No’ is never an answer.”

Israeli is currently working with Yad Vashem and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to exhibit the artworks and stories that have been recorded, because she wants the public to have access to these histories.

“I don’t want the stories to sit in an attic, I want to give them a stage,” said Israeli, who hopes to have 15 groups next year.

As for the box of photos that sent Israeli on her path, she first looked at the faces that she did not recognize, and then embarked on research with her grandmother’s blessing, who helped put some names to the faces.

“My grandmother told me she was proud of me and my work,” said Israeli, adding that the process has helped her family understand their own history better.

“Shira is a great example of the strength and force our youth has to lead change,” said Amit Bohensky, chairman of LEAD’s Friends Association. “Seeing a 17-year-old teen successfully pulling together a group of powerful groups and other youth and making a difference is amazing.”