Moment of Witness

Provides the script for a powerful Holocaust commemoration with a focus on real people, the lives they lived, and the communities they called home. 

Filled with story and remembrance, Moment of Witness guides participants from any background through a 45-minute experience to help fulfill the responsibility that Holocaust survivors have entrusted to all of us: to remember, to tell the story, and to act. This responsibility becomes more important every year as the fragile window of personal witness to the events of the Holocaust closes with the death of each survivor.

Designed to be used in a group setting (from teens on up), including schools, churches and synagogues, families, or with any intergenerational or interfaith community, Moment of Witness includes first-person accounts of daily life before, during, and after the Holocaust; questions designed for personal reflection or group discussion; a listing of lost communities; additional resources, and a guide for leaders to plan and direct the experience. 

Moment of Witness provides a deeply thoughtful way for groups of any background to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom HaShoah and immerse participants in a strong and emotionally resonant program.

"Despite our earnest effort, there is still evil in the world. People are still persecuted for who they are. Anger and hatred, nurtured by prejudice, continue to take root in our communities. We proclaim: There is still hope. We each can make a difference." —From Moment of Witness

Moment of Witness is adapted from the previously published Light In the Darkness.

Deborah Fripp is an educator and president of the Teach the Shoah Foundation, an organization providing resources on commemorating, teaching, and understanding the Holocaust for communities, families, and educators. She currently lives in Singapore.

Violet Neff-Helms is a longtime teacher, a freelance writer, and executive vice-president of the Teach the Shoah Foundation and an alumna of Yad Vashem's How to Teach the Holocaust in Formal and Informal Jewish Education seminar. She lives in Northeast Texas.