The Germantown Academy Upper School honored International Holocaust Remembrance Day with some beautiful, emotional, and educational moments this past week. On Tuesday, students performed insightful readings in the Roberts Family Library to a large gathering of faculty, staff, and peers. Special thanks to the following readers – Harrison Steinberg ’25, Danny Gass ’25, Mallory Hersh ’26, Sadie Hess ’25, Maddie Kalikhman ’27, Max Toren ’25, Camryn Horwitz ’27, Zoe B. ’28, Lucy Fassler ’24, Armon Meinstein ’24, and Dr. Michelle Friedman – for sharing their purposeful prose.

On Thursday, Upper School faculty and students welcomed Lise Marlowe, the Program and Outreach Director for the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center (HAMEC) in Elkins Park. Marlowe spoke of how her relatives were able to shelter Jews in Denmark during World War II, and how she has made speaking about the Holocaust part of her life’s work. Holocaust survivor Ms. Sarah Meller then took the stage to tell the difficult story of how she, her younger sister, and mother fled from the Nazis and the tenaciousness she demonstrated to keep her and her family alive. She began her presentation with, “Such an amazing group of students and teachers! Please realize that you are the very last generation who will see a Holocaust survivor alive.” 

Head of Upper School Dr. Molly MacKean shared the following with the Upper School families following the assembly: “Ms. Meller captivated our Upper Schoolers with her life story, telling us about how she spent the formative years of her childhood (from the ages of 10-13) escaping Nazi violence in Yugoslavia: how she and her mother and sister spent months in hiding in the homes of non-Jewish neighbors; how they spent months hiding in the mountains amidst Yugoslavian Partisan forces; how she and her immediate family found safe haven in American-occupied Italy after a harrowing escape in an American warship under fire; and how, eventually, she came to call America her home. One of the few Jewish European children to survive the Holocaust, Ms. Meller shared not only a moving story, but also powerful messages. ‘Words matter,’ she emphasized, ‘and kindness matters,’ and her tale was driven by her remarkable resilience and ultimate faith in the human capacity to connect and overcome evil.” 

When asked at the end of the presentation if she had any advice for our students, Ms. Meller shared: “I believe in loving each other.” Such faith in and kindness toward each other, she emphasized, are the only ways to counteract the rise of hate in our world.

A special shoutout to the senior leaders of the Jewish Student Association - Lucy Fassler ’24, Emily Marks ’24, and Armon Meinstein ’24, along with JSA Faculty Advisors Dr. Michelle Friedman and Hannah Soffer – for bringing us such powerful and important education to GA.

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