Remembering the unimaginable
“As I walk around here, I just feel good. Because it doesn’t allow my parents to be forgotten. And my siblings, they’re not forgotten, and they never will be,” says Madeleine Kessler. Her three older siblings were killed in concentration camps 80 years ago. As a resident of Philadelphia and an ardent supporter of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, Madeleine belongs to a shrinking group of survivors who want others to remember their stories.
In 1964, artist and Holocaust survivor Nathan Rapoport was commissioned by Jewish community leaders to create a sculpture memorializing the victims of the Holocaust. Nearly 61 years later, Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs is now part of the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza, a living classroom available to all passersby.
Supported by the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation (PHRF), the plaza is open 365 days a year, exhibiting artifacts, lessons, and a historical experience of the genocide that killed six million Jews during the Holocaust.
As incidents of antisemitism continue to rise, Holocaust education requires organizations like PHRF to keep the memory of those who perished alive and to share the stories of resilience from survivors. The foundation relies on the kindness of legacy donors and the power of authentic outreach to achieve its goals.
Addressing rising antisemitism in the U.S.
Source: The Antidefamation League
Eszter Kutas, PHRF’s executive director and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, says education is the antidote to intolerance and hatred. “When antisemitism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia are rising in a country, it really speaks to its inner illness,” she says. “When these ideologies grow and we start scapegoating marginalized groups, we need to take a hard look at our society and come up with new ways of thinking.” This is where she says historical context is especially important, so that people may learn from the travesties of the past. “How do we engage in Holocaust education in a meaningful way to prevent the formation of those biases that are present in our society?”
Antisemitism has been steadily on the rise since 2015, according to The Anti-Defamation League. And with less than 250,000 living Holocaust survivors, the recollections of the atrocities regarding their attempted genocide are becoming rarer. Organizations like PHRF are dedicated to continuing to educate people about the dangers of religious intolerance and other forms of bigotry so that future generations will not repeat their mistakes.
Despite this monumental task, PHRF is an extraordinarily small team of two. Eszter works with associate director Sophie Don to manage all operations of the organization. This includes overseeing the Memorial site, education programs, donor engagement, and marketing and communication. They had been working with disparate platforms, so the decision was made to partner with Network for Good (now Bonterra) for streamlined fundraising and engagement.
Sophie and Eszter work in partnership with PHRF’s board to retain excellent relationships with existing donors. The mission of PHRF resonates with many in the local Jewish community, including those closely connected to survivors of the Holocaust. For PHRF, maintaining those close relationships with donors is paramount to the preservation of the plaza. “We rely on a distinct group of donors who will care about this type of mission,” says Eszter. “So, we need to cultivate those relationships and go back year after year.”
Passing the torch of tolerance
Since 2017, PHRF has made considerable strides in forwarding Holocaust remembrance and education. They’ve created multiple curriculum programs for local teachers to use when educating students, training over 1,500 teachers from over 90 different schools. They also use an app called IWalk that allows students to utilize the technology on mobile devices to hear and see the experiences of survivors while walking the plaza.
A variety of exhibitions and artifacts can be seen at the plaza near the memorial statue. A slab of the railroad that once led to the Treblinka concentration camp is walked upon by visitors daily, a harrowing reminder of the packed cattle cars that once held Jewish prisoners. These tours give life to the stories that will pass on with their original tellers. The effects have been felt by students and teachers alike. “Especially as a young Jew, studying our past struggles is an important experience,” says Ben, who completed the Bar Mitzvah program provided by PHRF.
These invaluable programs and exhibitions would not be possible without the generous donations and dedication of the PHRF’s donors. Sophie says that working with Bonterra has helped to facilitate better engagement by centralizing donor information, helping to ensure consistent and personalized outreach. “Learning how to look at specific things, like which group of donors looks at which emails, that’s been really interesting,” says Sophie. “When I go into a donor profile, I can see their actual engagement and how that has changed over time.” This has allowed the team to gain deeper insights into their donors’ behaviors and preferences, which will inform their stewardship and cultivation efforts going forward.
Philadelphia cares
PHRF has educated tens of thousands of students, teachers, and visitors about the horrors of the Holocaust and what can be learned to prevent future violence and antisemitism. Their next project will be a mural debuting in 2025, featuring the work of artist Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson. PHRF is also pursuing an endowment campaign to ensure the growth of their programs. “This endowment will allow us to really focus on the mission of our work, which is Holocaust education, and help decrease our need for year-to-year fundraising,” says Eszter.
Her advice to other nonprofit leaders to succeed is to stay true to their mission and find the supporters who support their efforts. “I think when you have a small organization, it’s so important to set the direction and know where you are going. What is it that you are trying to impact? Stay true to that. And I think you need a dynamic board and a set of truly dedicated donors who understand your mission very, very clearly,” she says.
Supporters like Holocaust survivor Suzanne Cohn prioritize the foundation in honor of her family. “We have an enormous responsibility to teach,” she says. “Because when we are gone, who’s going to tell our story?” She says that when the monument was erected, she brought her parents — both Holocaust survivors — to see it. Their words motivate her, and others involved with PHRF, to keep going. “They said: Philadelphia remembers. Philadelphia cares.”
