28 | SEPTEMBER 23 • 2021 

A

new project created in partner-
ship with Jewish Federation of 
Grand Rapids aims to preserve 
the stories of Holocaust survivors who 
settled in the Grand Rapids area.
Launching before the end of the year, a 
special website dedicated to the survivors 
will feature personal interviews, photos, 
archives and more, capturing their jour-
neys both during and after World War II.
“Right now, we have about 10 stories 
that we’re going to be doing,” says Nicole 
Katzman, executive director of Jewish 
Federation of Grand Rapids. “
As we com-
plete them, we’re going to share these 
with the community and with community 
partners, and then continue to add more 
stories of survivors.”
With a small, yet close-knit Jewish com-
munity on the west side of the state, the 
website hopes to spotlight a group of peo-
ple who are sometimes overshadowed by 
Metro Detroit’s larger Jewish community.
Once the website is complete, which 
currently has three stories finished, the 
individuals behind the effort want their 
project to be a template or model that 
other communities in Michigan can repli-
cate and use for their own purposes.
“There are people who settled in 
Benton Harbor and all over the state 
who have similar stories,” explains Rob 
Franciosi, a professor at Grand Valley 
State University near Grand Rapids who 
is helping spearhead the project and 
its research. “We thought by creating a 
model, that might be instructive for other 
people to take and run with as well.”

The idea began during an informal 
Zoom group held during COVID-19, 
Franciosi says, where Jewish Federation 
of Grand Rapids and its partners met to 
discuss a soon-to-be-installed Holocaust 
Memorial Sculpture at Frederik Meijer 
Gardens & Sculpture Park.
“We were trying to figure out ways to 
supplement the educational component,” 
Franciosi says. “We were talking about 
local connections in particular, so as a 

group we decided that some kind of a 
website to honor Holocaust survivors who 
settled in Grand Rapids would be our 
unique contribution there.”
While there are many websites devoted 
to the history of the Holocaust, Franciosi 
says that few, if any, spotlight the west 
Michigan perspective. To help tell the 
stories of survivors, the up-and-coming 
website will use a geospatial software 
program that shows how people traveled 
from Europe to places like Shanghai, the 
Dominican Republic and, ultimately, 
Grand Rapids.
Peg Finkelstein, who has led many 
archival efforts for the website, spent the 
last year scanning and documenting the 
history of the Jewish Federation 

OUR COMMUNITY

New website will share Grand Rapids Holocaust 
survivor testimonies for the fi
 rst time.

Keeping
Memories Alive

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

What the Holocaust 
Memorial Sculpture 
will look like at 
Meijer Gardens.

GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

BELOW: Survivor and Grand Rapids 
resident Joseph Stevens and two 
Polish boys who were part of his 
underground cell during
the war. RIGHT: Here 
he is in the early 2000s.

