Bearing Witness is a program started by students at UCLA and associated with UCLA Hillel, the Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles, the ‘1939’ Club and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.  It is a non-secterian, non-denominational project intended to bring together students with Holocaust survivors.  Over a series of four sessions, students meet one-on-one with survivors and record their stories.  By focusing on one-on-one interactions both students and survivors are able to make connections that reach beyond the history of what they record into a future of friendship and understanding.

 

Bearing Witness engages UCLA students in a unique opportunity to cross intergenerational boundaries by learning with someone who has experienced the Holocaust first hand. Through Bearing Witness, students are partnered with a Holocaust survivor over lunch sessions to gain insight into their lives before, during, and after the Holocaust. The intimate setting in which survivors and students are able to ask questions is ideal for nurturing a genuine and personal relationship with a survivor. Students take part in reflection sessions that incorporate service-learning to recognize that the strength of survival manifests itself in living beyond the tragedy of the Holocaust.

 

We are calling on thoughtful and enthusiastic students to take action. By empowering students to internalize the story of survival, the Bearing Witness experience cultivates memories by honoring not only the surviving, but also those who are bearing witness.