About Susan

Susan Straus is the daughter of Jewish holocaust survivors. She tells the story of her mother, Judy Levy Straus, who was born in Germany the day after Hitler came to power in 1933. Susan describes Judy and her family’s experiences after moving to Amsterdam, being deported to Westerbork, a transit camp in 1943, and later to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp that the Nazis used as a propaganda tool to attempt to convince the world that they were treating the Jews well. Judy and her mother survived the war; Judy’s father, who was ultimately deported to Auschwitz, did not. In telling her mother’s story, Susan encourages the audience to think about how victims of the Holocaust could be resilient in the face of unimaginable challenges, and she encourages participants to consider what they can do to promote social justice in the world.