Jordan Newman Weiner invites students and audiences to learn and remember her grandparents with her as she tells their story. Through SHOAH testimony video clips, her family photo collection, and other primary documents, Jordan introduces her beloved grandparents and follows their path to ultimate survival during the Holocaust. Her grandfather, Stephen Newman, was born and grew up in Warsaw, Poland. His parents saved his life during deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 by urging him to join a group of younger Jews. This group of younger people were eventually sent to Majdanek concentration camp for forced labor. Stephen would eventually be a forced laborer in four different camps before he was finally liberated in 1945. 

 

Rose Newman grew up in Lodz. Poland. She was educated to the high school level before Germany occupied Lodz and Jews could not be in school. Her family moved to Warsaw, and were eventually part of the Jewish population of the Warsaw Ghetto. She too was deported from the ghetto. She was imprisoned in Auschwitz. The Newmans met in Stuttgart, a displaced person’s camp in Germany in 1945. 

 

Jordan presents their lives in the US and shows how her life, even as a young child, was full of the stories of their survival. Jordan’s story is told through the eyes of a grandchild who is honoring her grandparents by telling their story. 

 

Jordan lives and works in Seattle.