Before my maternal grandmother died, I interviewed her about her life, which included escaping the Holocaust as a fourteen-year-old girl, moving alone from Austria to America, and eventually becoming editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle magazine. These stories revealed a side of her I never knew—as we spoke, she described living in fear every day as a result of her past trauma—and the first time I heard them, I was in shock. I felt like I hadn’t appreciated my grandma the way I should have, and there was so much I wanted to ask her before her time was up.
As well as forcing me to grapple further with humankind’s capacity for evil and resilience, this experience taught me that communicating through words and pictures is a legacy that has been passed down to me through my family—my grandma was a magazine editor, after all! I also hope to pass this legacy down through future generations. Indeed, when I started this interview, I was simply expecting a small excerpt, but soon it turned into a huge project—one that I’ll share with my children and grandchildren, and that I hope they will share with their children and grandchildren. This is the way that we will all all remember, and be remembered.
From this journey, I have further confirmed how important it is to communicate through people’s stories. Such stories define who we are; by spreading them, we can spread compassion and empathy as well.