Last night we had our graduation ceremony, and the kids were raving about the storytelling. This vehicle was more successful than anything I could ever have imagined.

Honestly I felt like I was inside the story experiencing what the person was going through.

I have had the privilege of working with Deborah Fripp from Teach The Shoah.  I participated in the program during my tenure as Director of Education at the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre.

The program teaches participants the skills to engage with the personal stories of those who survived the Shoah and those who did not.  This engagement gives docents and teachers the opportunity to share the lives of those who went through the Holocaust in “snapshot” moments. The stories are intended to open a window onto a life, share a moment of a life and convey the visitor to that moment. It allows the visitor to the museum to meet the human beings behind the numbers.

My experience learning this storytelling technique has been invaluable, it has changed the way I approach the exhibition and I have seen changes in the way the visitors respond to the exhibition.

Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff, master storyteller, is extremely generous in sharing her craft. My experience with her was in many ways life changing as she helped me discover the ability to share stories with others in a respectful and honest way.

I would recommend this program to all museums that teach a difficult and dark history. So often individual stories get lost in the attempt to teach the vastness of what happened, but it happened to individuals and it is vital that we remember them respectfully.  This is what Teach the Shoah does.

Dr. Fripp was able to take someone’s story and retell it as if you were there in the moment with her.

I have been reflecting on the work that I have been doing with Jennifer over the last now several years – telling what has become my mother’s and my Holocaust Survival story including and her journey on the ill-fated MS St. Louis. As you know, my sister and grew up as first-generation Americans. We were born into a small German Jewish Congregation in Philadelphia; my father was one of the founders. In our Jewish world, many had numbers burned into their arms, the parents of our peers had experiences that were far worse than my mother and father. We were surrounded by people of extraordinary circumstance and were told the “story” very early in our lives. As G2’s, we lived in the shadow of the Holocaust, simply having to imagine the terror while unable to fix mom’s circumstance. My father rarely spoke of his experience.

The story that I tell has always been difficult for me. Jennifer Zunikoff is the person that unlocked the door and gave me a way to tell the story thus honoring my mother and educating others with a gentle yet defined process. The first time I told it with Jennifer’s expert instruction and support, I cried all the way through. It takes great skill to help work around the emotion created by my history. Jennifer works alongside, gently bringing out the story, helping me find my way through the difficulties created by my memories. Her process is organized and non-threatening. In fact, Jennifer makes space for anyone, everyone to be that person with a story to tell and she teaches those processes that make one’s story come alive. Her generosity of mind, spirit, and time is boundless….and quite remarkable. Jennifer is a warrior and to me, quite the hero.

I simply could not, in this testimony, give you a feeling for the depth of gratitude I have for your bringing Jennifer into my life and the lives of so many to enable us to be Storytellers Of the Holocaust. Thank you.

Something I learned about was how, in ghettos, Jews risked their lives to preserve their culture and teach, making children there happier. Their is a great focus on Jewish suffering when teaching the Holocaust, and Dr. Fripp’s inclusion of a story that involved joy was very important. It helped me reevaluate my view of how Jewish children in ghettos felt.

I first learned of Jennifer Zunikoff’s work with college students researching and telling Holocaust stories over a decade ago at a NewCAJE Jewish Educators’ conference, and I was in awe of the devotion and respect with which the presenters shared their stories. I learned of Teach the Shoah as it was being developed by Deborah Fripp and Jennifer a few years ago, also at a NewCAJE conference. What an essential program this has become! Their invaluable programs should be required for every Middle School and High School program everywhere, in Jewish and secular settings. It is an invaluable visceral experience to hear a Holocaust story told in first person as a result of immersive research and heart connection.

We cannot ever forget. Through guided Storytelling training, the chance to share stories via ZOOM programs, the research, the rituals of the commemoration, the classroom lectures and so much more, Teach the Shoah is ensuring that the memories of those who perished in the Holocaust and those who survived are remembered, as their precious stories are preserved and perpetuated. Teach the Shoah is a lifesaving, life-giving treasure for the ages.

I would 100% recommend her because she was able to captivate us and tell us stories that are relevant to what we are learning.

Dr. Fripp recounts stories from those who lived through the Holocaust from a first-person perspective. After the stories are told, the audience engages in a discussion about what the stories teach and a question about them posed by Dr. Fripp. This style of teaching the Holocaust helps students more closely connect with the people in the time period they are studying, and provides specific, concrete examples of how the Holocaust affected Europe that students can then use as a jumping-off point to analyze the Holocaust as a whole.

Recently, we invited Dr. Fripp to our Grade 9 Humanities class in order to augment our unit on the Holocaust. Fripp worked closely with our teaching team prior to her visit in order to understand where we wanted to go, and she offered excellent suggestions on how to get there. She is an expert in Holocaust education, including the scope, sequence, and pacing of Holocaust curriculum.  Her tips to foreground personal stories, ahead of the perpetrators’ actions, gave us a new way to teach our unit. During Dr. Fripp’s visit, students were engaged, attentive, and even emotional when listening to three uniquely told stories.  Dr. Fripp provided background, thinking questions, and continued to relate her work to our unit’s driving question in a way that classroom teachers cannot always do. The value of storytelling was incalculable.  We will gladly invite her back in years to come.

Your words were powerful.

I like how she humanized the people in the stories and made them more of a 3d character compared to a 2d character usually in books.

This is beneficial because it helps you learn in a way that you cannot by reading articles.

I really enjoyed her story telling. I think Dr. Fripp has such an amazing passion for history that she really made these stories interesting. I also believe that her delivering these stories made them easier to connect with and understand.

What you have created is such a precious gem. We are all so blessed to have this sacred space.

The process of connecting the events into a story with an experienced coach was really valuable. I became the person in voice, and the story flowed in a way that surprised me. Those who have heard me tell the story have responded in amazing ways.

I didn’t know about the personal individual hardships that certain Jewish teenagers went through… Teenagers! It blows my mind that they would have to go through these hardships.

[Moments of Witness, the interfaith commemoration,]  was beautiful. I felt seen, a sense of belonging and a common thread of humanity with the strength to look at the horrors we face as reminders to keep fighting the good fight

Working with Teach The Shoah has showed me the value of my family’s stories. They have helped me develop the narratives in meaningful ways and have given me the confidence to tell my stories that might never have been heard otherwise.

Oh my, there was a moment of striking oral history, ancestral traditions, ancestral connection as I heard my first “Their Stories, Our Voices” through Teach the Shoah. Time folded in on itself and honoring the living experience of a person came to the forefront.