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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