Transcending Trauma Project Receives Gift for Preservation of 295 Interviews of Holocaust Survivors and Families

May 22, 2014 – PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Transcending Trauma Project of Council for Relationships has received a gift of $55,000 from Julie Meranze Levitt and Jerry D. Levitt. The gift will fund the digitization of 295 interviews of Holocaust survivors and their families. This extraordinary repository of 295 life narratives, encompassing over 50 family groups, describes how survivors coped, the impact on their children, and the legacies that have been passed on to their grandchildren. “We very much hope that with this gift, the Transcending Trauma Project’s invaluable and irreplaceable interviews and oral histories can be preserved for generations to come,” says a spokesperson for the Levitt family.

The gift will be formally announced at an event hosted by Suzanne and Norman Cohn on May 29, 2014. The event is a tribute in memory to Arnold and Esther Tuzman, Holocaust survivors who devoted their lives to perpetuating Jewish life and values through their philanthropy. Micha Feldmann, architect of Operation Solomon, will speak on how his life’s work has been impacted by the death of his grandparents in the gas chambers.

About the Transcending Trauma Project of Council for Relationships

Since 1993, the Transcending Trauma Project (TTP) has conducted 295 in-depth life histories with Holocaust survivors, their children, and grandchildren in order to understand coping and adaptation after extreme trauma. The project’s findings served as the foundation of a recent training program for therapists working with veterans and veterans’ families. Two books based on TTP findings have been published: Survival, Resilience and Clinical Implications in Survivor Families and Narrative Reflections: How Witnessing Their Stories Changes Our Lives.