Joseph Warech, Michelle’s father, left Poland in the spring of 1939, just months before Germans invaded. He was eleven years old. With his family, he made his way to Le Havre, France, then to Cuba, where his family worked in shoe manufacturing to make ends meet. Finally, he made his way to the United States, for whom he would eventually fight in the Korean War. Warech was a polyglot, speaking Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish, English, and Polish. And, of course, he is a large driver of Michelle's passion for telling these stories.

“It’s a great responsibility to be guardians of this historic collection,” she says. “In particular, I believe that bringing the history of the Holocaust to thousands of people of all ages every year honors the memory of those brutalized and murdered by the Nazis and their many collaborators. It is a mitzvah that we will continue until we are no longer able.”

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