Dedicated to fighting antisemitism and bigotry. The museum has challenged visitors intellectually to understand the ways in which dehumanization of a people can evolve to deeply destructive ends. People inherit or mission to never forget and to combat intoll ran that endures to this day. If youre interested in receiving any information of upcoming events, please join our mailing list, a signin sheet can be found at the at missions desk. I also invite you to become a member of the museums vibrant community. Were honored to have you with us today to celebrate the haul cost surviveogy, author, max eisen. At 15, mr. Eisen was saved from certain death at allwitness by a polish physician who employed him as a cleaner in his operating room. Mr. Eisens 2016 memoir by chance alone i chron hell us persistence, liberation, and continuing aling after miraculously surveying auschwitz. By chance alone received canadas top literaryward in 2019. Tonight we sell integrate the launch of the books american edition. We have the privilege of hearing mr. Eisen in conversation with veteran producer of 60 minutes, shari finkelstein. Leslie stall was held up in washington for the impeachment coverage. At the conclusion of tonights program, we invite you to join mr. Eisen for a book signing in the lobby by chance alone. It is available for purchase in our museum shop. We are honored to be joined tonight by the act Council General of the canadian consulate in new york, mark gordon, executive Committee Member of the usc Foundation Board of counselors, elie reuben stein, national director, march of the living in canada, Phyllis Greenberg hideman, president of the international march of the living, and cantor with guy tartist guitarist. We want to thank the Hanover Square press and the foundation. Before we begin please take a moment to silence your cellphones to avoid any disruptions during the program. Thank you. And now please join me in welcoming our first speaker tonight, acting canadian counsel general, khawar nasim. Thank you, riotly. I was not held up by the impeachment hearings in washington. Speak. What anen credible honor it is to be here with all of you today to pay tribute to truly remarkable man and extraordinary canadian, mr. Max eisen. Since we learned of maxs incontribute story my team the consulate general has been seeking an opportunity to bring mr. Eisen to new york. I have to say for a man of his age, he has a very busy schedule it and was not easy to get him here. Thank you, max, for joining us and thank you to hanover press, usc foundation, the international march of thely and the museum of jewish heritage for bringing max their tell his story. As a diplomat ive head many incarnations. I i spent time in europe and one of the most memorable opportunities for me as a family was to visit poland and to travel to auschwitz with my family, with my wife, with my son, and to see and to share with them the tragedies, the horrors and the legacy of auschwitz. I am deeply and profoundly inspired by the courage and strength of Holocaust Survivors who despite the depth of the evil fay faced and despite the complexity of the emotion understand the holocaust needs to be real for to who were not there reconcile the up speakable herors of the shoah with endue are faith in humanity. Canada has been profoundly shaped by the approximately 40,000 Holocaust Survivors re schmidt our country after the holocaust, and i must add, canada has acknowledged the devastating results of our own inaction and apathy towards jews in the nazi were a when in 1939 jewish refugees onboard the ms st. Louis were turned away, and for which our Prime Minister issued a formal apology in our house of commons in november of 2018. The lessons of the holocaust are clear, but need to be repeated. As Prime Minister trudeau has said, never again, is not a phrase, its a promise. A promise to stand up to the dangers of hatred and discrimination and the irre versable consequences consequenf inaction and indifference. As a new yorker, we know all too well and as recent horrific antisemitic attacks in new york has made it clear hatred has not run its course on this earth. We must be vigilant because we know that the modern tools to promote hate are infinitely more sophisticated than the radio, newspaper and film. Speaking with the colleagues and learning im inspired by the saying, whoever saves a single life, saves an entire world. And given the Ripple Effect of maxs unyielding commitment to educate younger generations pout the dangers of racism and bigotry, i think we can say that by saving max, this surgeon saved much more than one. The opportunity to hear a firsthand account from a survivor is becoming increasingly rare. Im so honored to be with you, all here this evening, to hear max share his story. I hope well all leave here tonight with a heightened sense of duty to condemn intolerance and defend human rights in our everyday lives. Please join me in welcoming aviva rajsky, daughter of a holocaust survivor and a senior creantor. She traveled with mr. Eisen on the 2015 march of the living where she conducted the choir at the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in auschwitz. She will be joined and accompanied be a grammy Award Winning guitarist whose parents were all cause doing holocaust survive you. I thank you all and look forward to a wonderful evening. [applause] it is an event to sing at this wonderful event in tribute to max eisen, one of most remarkable people i have ever met. I had the privilege of traveling we max on the 2015 march of the living when i led the march of the living choir that year. And so this evening i would like to share with you a few of the songs that the students and i sang on that very moving trip. Id like to invite my colleague and dear friend, elie rube enseen to give context to the songs im going to sing. Good evening the first song is a song written as she walked along the shore of the sea in the land of sailor in the early 1940s. He was born in hungary in 1921 but because of the antisemitism she experience shed emgated to palestine to help build the you jewish state. She returned to fight against the nazis but a was caught, tortured and county by the nazis in 1944 and left if with this remarkable poem, whose words remind us of the beauty of nature, the san and the sea, the rush of the waters, the thundering of heavens but she was robbed of far too early in her young life. The sand and the sea the rush of the water the cries of the heavens the prayer of the heart the sand and the sea the rush of the water the cries of the heavens the prayer of the heart [applause] every time we sing this song with the children on the march of the living, in a very place that hitler south destroy the jew quiche people we now the spirit, values, lessons that her life represents continues to live on and in that way were making a statement, hitler you did not win, we will return here year after year, reciting the words of the very people you tried to annihilate. Our next song reflects a similar sentiment of hope and defiance. Written in the 12th century, the words express an undying belief that one day redemption will come to humanity. Many jews recited these very worried their last breath before the perished in gas chambers, still believing a better day would arrive. Sing with me [applause] thank you. It is now my pleasure to invite the stage mark gordon, member of the executive committee of the shoah Foundation Board of counselors and will share with us a joint project between the Shoah Foundation and the match of the living involving the testimony of max eisen. [applause] thank you. On behalf of the usc Shoah Foundation im grateful to be here tonight to honor and celebrate max eisen and the release of his memoirs here in the u. S. I want to thank our colleagues a hanover press for publishing and making this work so widely available. We want to thank the museum of jewish heritage for hosting tonights event, and to the Council General of canada for the long support and involvement. We want to thank the international march of the living for the partnership swing the march of the living and the Shoah Foundation for including us the is in auspicious event tonight. The usc Shoah Foundation began working with max and his family in 2019 through the partnership with the international march of the living and together the organizations have a joint project to gather the testimonies Holocaust Survivors in a 360degree method in the authentic only locations. Together were working to film at least ten survivors as they take us on a downgroom their home towns to the sites of liberation, sharing their unique and permanent stories in the places where they experienced them. Eventually the testimonies will be deeply integrated into the programs and experiences created by the march of the living. Max is one of four survivors so far who have participated and been filmed on location. Our team traveled with max to the Auschwitz State Museum with the shared the story with us and his son who was on the march for the first time. We traveled to show vac ya and his home town slovakia where max recalled this childhood and invite is to to share what is likely his last goodbye to his home town. A once vibrant prewar jewish community. It witness until be frothing because of this 360 on location interview and the loving details he so generously included in his memoirs. This all in addition to the usc Shoah Foundation having not one but two life history speier interviews of max in our ire archives, rolledded in 1990s by the Shoah Foundation and once filmed by the Holocaust Education center, both are accessible through the visual history archive. That testimony is among the 55,000 survivor testimonies that are now accessible or available through over 160 universities and museums on Six Continents around the world and theres of course this book, which is what we are here to celebrate today. Now, as i understand it max did not always wish to tell his story. In the prologue to the book, he talks about the fact when he first spoke publicly about the holocaust and his experiences at st. Joseph high school in toronto he was very nervous and said he would not do it again. And i think this was a very common reaction among survivors at that time. If i may tell a personal story, i, too have i have an uncle max had an uncle max who survived auschwitz, and emigrated to toronto, where he built a family and lived a life. I visited my uncle max in the summer of 1990, shortly after, maybe a month or two after i had been on a trip to eastern unand visited auschwitz, and over dinner i told of my travels and he asked me, maybe two or three questions, about auschwitz and what i had seen there, and after dinner, his son, harvey, my cousin, who was 34 at the time, said to me, you know in my entire life thats the most if ever heard my father talk about his experiences. And i said, well, why do you think that is . He said, well, his attitude is, what would be the point who n who would listen. It would just be complaining to our children. To my children. And so i think we are as individuals all here incredibly indebted frankly to organizations leak the usc Shoah Foundation, like the international march of the living, like the museum of jewish heritage, and organizations like the hanover press, who have created outlets or forum for and a structure around hearing and learning the stories of the survivors so they could be passed down so we could learn from them and so that hopefully never again. Most importantly, of course, we are indebted to survivors like max, who did speak, again and again, at countless colleges and universities, high schools, public events. I think he has led 21 trips to allwitness where he educate both students and adults and shared his experiences in addition to giving his testimony, participating in the 360degree video of with the international march of the living, and of course, publishing this memoir. Id like now to share with you a short video that shows the behind the scenes of our time with max and his son when we filmed the 360degree video that will be incorporated into the march thereof livings programs. You can see the intensity with which max committed himself to telling the story. Could somebody play the video. Always been difficult to express his feelings to family. Theres always ban void there an area you couldnt get. To you cant access that part of him. Hes able to speak the strangers more so in ways expressing feelings than he is with his own family. [applause] id like to invite back eli ruben rubenstein. Thank you, mark. Im honored to be able to introduce the main part of the program, the part were about to hear from max eisen himself. Ive been travel wig max on the march of living for well over 20 years now and each time continued to be inspired by his courage, wisdom and is eloquence. Recall the early 2000s being with max for a weekend conference training our educators and chaperones traveling to poland in the march of the living. Also we were milling bought the reception area of the conference center, a group of queens students passed by. They noticed one of our staff was carrying a scroll of the law. The ancient five books moses written by hand on parch empty. Max patiently explained to the stupid what the scrolls represented. He concluded by informing during the holocaust the nazis burned thousands of sacred jewish he reminded the students where they burned books they in the end burned people. The spellbound students were mesmerized during mansions short speech and only reluctantly tore themselves away to return to the school activities. He realized max was a born teacher, natural educator who had both a desire and ability to share his story and the lessons of the holocaust with the most diverse audiences and the clearest, most accessible manner inch moment of teaching dismiss max has replicated thousands of times, sharing his story of love and loss. Eli said to be jew after the holocaust is to have every treason give up your belief in god, and to abandon your trust in all humanity. To have every reason to give up your faith in good, give up on the jewish people and abandon your trust in all humanity but still not to do so. And max, like so many other survivors, perfectly emt semi identifies the sentiment. He did not abandon his faith or give up on humanity. Instead he continued to dedicate every day of his life, around the clock to teaching the lessons of shoah to young and old alike so it will never, ever happy again. In that effort max remind us of a quote, if you believe the world can be broken, also believe it can be fixed. If you believe the world can be bren, also believe it can be fixed. So, thank you, max, from the bottom of all of our hearts for not giving into despair, not giving up 0 on the world even though he had every recent to do. So indeed were all the better for it. [applause] in a moment id like to invite to the statement my teacher, my hero, my meant youre, max eisen. Max will be interview by shary finkelstein of 60 minutes, they are producing a story on maxs life and she is familiar with maxs story. Max and shari, please. [applause] thank you. In the beginning of your life before these horrors. Tell us a little bit about your family, where you lived, i know as czechoslovakia then became part of hungary but what was your home life, your home, your family, before the war . Czechoslovakia was a democratic country. We jews had plenty golden years and czechoslovakia. President how much we considered him as our grandfather and i live in a town of about 5000 people. We jews were 10 of the population. Approximately nine jewish families and i would say 99 percent of these families were traditional Orthodox Jews and they were Small Business people, farmers, and my town there was two jewish doctors. There was a jewish dentist. A jewish book butcher, baker and beautiful Jewish Synagogue and we had a, torah which is a school, jewish school, cantor, rabbi, its amazing looking at towns in toronto where its very difficult for all the jewish communities to get together and this was a beautiful jewish community. I live in a large dwelling with my paternal grandparents and uncle and aunt. In many jewish people extended Families Together and imagine so many people would be taking care of you or i was going by smell who was bringing the best cooking that particular day. Because you are all literally in the same a the same dwelling. A large lshaped house we lived in the front part in the leg of the l so we had my mothers kitchen a woodstove and bedrooms every bedroom had a fireplace made of tiles, ceramic tiles. There was no Running Water we had a well in the yard we had a beautiful house. And an outhouse but ahead two younger brothers and the center of the house lived my paternal grandparents and my aunt bella who was an invalid and my grandmother had own kitchen and bedrooms and my aunt had another kitchen and bedrooms and so on. Hence the kitchen choices. Lots of choices. When i think of fiddler on the roof he said, how lucky he would be if he could have so many chickens. We had chickens, geese and ducks roaming all over the place and a big vegetable garden and we had a huge orchard with fruit trees. Life was wonderful at first 10 years of my life, was born in a as czechoslovakia was the first victim of nazi germany abin 1938 mike into his petition. We were given to hungary and we knew we were in mortal denture when this happened 1938 it was too late we chose to leave and finding out much later there was nowhere people would take jews in any way. When this happened you go from democratic lifestyle and the fascist country, hungary was a fascist country remember so vividly and 38 my father had a crystal radio and somehow managed to find out that hitler was making a very important speech in berlin and remember all his friends my father mustve been in his late 30s. They all came to our home to listen to this radio speech. This was the language we spoke in my home. I remember hitler said, we are going to eradicate the jews from the face of the world. I was nine years o