10 | MAY 12 • 2022
essay
An Incredible
Journey — and
an Incredible Life
A
s a docent, I recent-
ly led a tour at the
Holocaust Museum
& Cohen Education Center in
Naples, Fla. It was an experi-
ence I will remember for the
remainder of my life.
A survivor,
Suzanne Cohn, a
hidden child of
the Holocaust,
had requested a
tour. It was also
to include her
husband, friends
and other mem-
bers of her family. To say I
was nervous in the days lead-
ing up to the tour would be a
huge understatement. What
could I possibly tell her about
the Holocaust?
Her story is a remarkable
one which I will briefly share
before describing the actu-
al tour experience. She was
born in 1938 in a shtetl in
Poland. She was relocated by
the Nazis with her family to
a ghetto in 1942 where they
lived for a year. As a child,
Suzanne witnessed her grand-
mother being seized by the
Nazis; she was forced to dig
her own grave and then mur-
dered. With tears welling in
her eyes, Suzanne described
how her grandmother looked
at her as she was being led
away. She clearly had a pro-
found love for her grand-
mother who predicted a long
and fruitful life for Suzanne.
During another selection
by the Nazis, Suzanne, her
family and others ran to a
school and hid under a stage
in the auditorium. She was
5 years old. She recalls her
uncle saying to her parents
that her crying would give
them away. Her mother
tightly held her close to her
chest as the soldiers passed
over them. They were not
discovered. After three nights
with no food or water, they
fled. Her father dug under a
barbed wire fence and pushed
her through.
They made it to a factory
and spent three weeks in a
utility closet where food was
smuggled in by a former fac-
tory worker. They thereafter
moved in with a Christian
family where they spent three
years moving to different
homes owned by different
members of this family. Her
sister, who Suzanne described
as a gift and her best friend,
was born in that home.
Suzanne often hid under
the floorboards and on one
occasion, which I found to be
an interesting metaphor, she
hid behind a Christmas tree
when soldiers came into the
home believing the family was
hiding a Jewish family.
She adopted some of the
religious practices of this fam-
ily including crossing herself,
going to church and saying
Christian prayers and seeing,
but not understanding at the
time, her mother’s tears. She
believed she was Christian. She
did not know she was Jewish.
Her father became a member
of the Polish underground.
This family is included in the
Righteous Among Nations.
At the end of the war,
Suzanne and her family went
to a Displaced Persons Camp
in Germany. She described
this experience as “joyous.”
They were together again.
They no longer had to whis-
per and for the first time in
years, they could live openly
and without fear.
With respect to the muse-
um tour, I had decided that
whenever Suzanne wanted to
speak, I would immediately
stop and step away into the
background.
Also, I tried to make the
tour as interactive as possible
since not only Suzanne, but
other members of her fam-
ily, especially her husband,
Norman Cohn, were very
familiar with the history of
the Holocaust. Throughout
the tour, which lasted over
two hours, Suzanne would
often comment on her life
especially when the exhibit
was relevant to her expe-
rience. For example, she
spoke at length about life in
a DP camp. She also spoke
eloquently and passionately
about the importance of not
remaining silent in the face of
injustice as we ended the tour
at the genocide exhibit.
I may have been the docent
who ostensibly led the tour,
but I was the visitor who was
given an extraordinary view
into Suzanne’s life. I listened
and learned so much from
her. She is a proud, strong,
resilient woman whose jour-
ney and life have been noth-
ing short of miraculous.
I have shared her story
with my children, and I will
do so with my grandchildren
when they are older. I will
never forget her.
Alan Gershel is a docent at both the
the Zekelman Holocaust Center in
Farmington Hills and the Holocaust
Museum & Cohen Education Center in
Naples, Fla. He served as a federal pros-
ecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice
for 30 years, a law school professor and
as the grievance administrator for the
Mich. Attorney Grievance Commission.
Alan Gershel
Alan Gershel and Suzanne Cohn
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