Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann recalled the horrors he endured as a young child in a conversation with employees of theSkimm media company in New York City last week organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).
Born in Romania in 1939, Steigmann and his family were deported in 1941 to a Nazi labor camp, where he was subjected to gruesome medical experiments over three years of internment.
Steigmann’s visit to theSkimm office was part of an ongoing initiative to bring Holocaust survivors to U.S.-based media and tech companies in an effort to educate about the Nazi genocide and raise awareness of the perils of rising contemporary antisemitism eight decades later.
The talk with Steigmann — whose full life story is detailed on his website here — was moderated by theSkimm Executive Producer Rachel Klein. A total of 44 people attended the event in-person, with another half-dozen joining virtually.
“I never saw myself as a victim,” Steigmann said. “I am a survivor. I am not a survivor of the Holocaust. I am a survivor of life.”
Additional media outlets and companies participating in the initiative include Google, The Dallas Morning News, The Tennessean, The Washington Times, and National Religious Broadcasters.
Other Holocaust survivors who have shared their testimonies include Toby Levy, Menachem “Mickey” Warshawski, and Maud Dahme.
As the number of survivors with living memory of the Holocaust dwindles with each passing year, the need to enshrine the lessons of the past and pass them down to future generations is only growing more imperative.
