Teaching & Learning About the Holocaust:
“Among the Last of the Witness Generation:
Twin Steven Hess and Survival in
Bergen Belsen”
Steven Hess and his twin, Marion, were born in Amsterdam, Holland in 1938 to German Jewish parents who
had fled Nazi Germany in 1936. After the Nazi occupation of Holland, the family was eventually sent first to
the Dutch Transit Camp of Westerbork and then deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the
camp where Anne Frank died. As the war was ending, his family survived two weeks on the infamous “Lost
Transport,” a cattle train with two thousand sick and starving Jews destined for extermination. About 750 of
them did not survive the journey.
Freed by the Russian army, the family was one
of a handful to have survived intact. Of the
approximately 110,000 Jews from Holland sent
to Nazi camps and killing centers, fewer than 5%
returned. Mr. Hess and his twin sister are also
among the very few children under 15 to survive
any concentration camp, and —some seventy
years later--no doubt one of the very last still
living camp twins of the very few that had
survived.
Mr. Hess has taught and lectured widely on the Holocaust. He holds a B.A. from Columbia and served four years as a U.S. Naval Officer.
Mr. Hess spent his career principally in the photographic equipment manufacturing business. He resides in Rochester, NY.
Shelly Shapiro, Director, Holocaust Survivors & Friends Education Center, will work with teachers on lesson
development and sharing.
Location: Jewish Federation Community Services Building, 184 Washington Avenue Extension,
Albany, NY 12203 / Phone (518) 783-7800
Date/Time: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 / 4:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Note: There is no fee, but registration is required. Please register by Tuesday, March 15.
A light supper (vegetarian choice included) will be provided. A Certificate of Participation will be provided.
For more information and to register, please contact Diane Freer at the Holocaust Center, located at the Golub Center at (518) 694-9984 or email survivors@crisny.org, or Mary Miller at the Capital District Council for the Social Studies,
theliaisoneditor@gmail.com.