My Story is Your Story: Mie Jensen paired with a Holocaust survivor to share her story

My Story is Your Story

A cohort of 20 young participants (age 18-35) from around the world are paired with Holocaust survivors and work together to share their stories via social media platforms.

During the nine month program, participants heard from experts in the field of Holocaust Education and digital storytelling and share their
survivor’s story in installments on their various social media accounts.

The program culminated with a conference in Israel on Holocaust Remembrance in the Digital Age.

More about the programme is available on their website. 

Shoah Memories

Research student Mie Jenson paired with Michal Ashkenazi to share her story on Instagram @shoah_memories. 

From her post introducing Michal:

Michal was born in the Netherlands in 1935. Her father was Ashkenazi and her mother Mizrahi. She had four siblings and they lived in serious poverty. Between 1940-42, she lived in an orphanage because her mother got sick. Instead of going home when her mother recovered, she was sent to the ghetto in Amsterdam and she never saw her parents again. Due to the success of the underground movement, Michal was able to escape the orphanage and she lived in hiding with 8 different families during the war.

58 members of her closest family died in concentration camps. Michal was close to being caught and sent to the camps multiple times.

So, over the next year, we will learn about what she describes as a “string of miracles”. We will learn about what it was like to live in hiding, her experiences of constantly moving and finding her place in a new family, her emotional experiences, and being a child during the war. We will learn about her journey to Israel shortly after the war ended.