Magazine Feature

Inspiring Hope: A Conversation With Maud Dahme

Maud Dahme, Holocaust survivor and educator, emphasizes the importance of survivor testimony in learning from the past and uplifts our shared humanity.
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Photography by Yehyun Kim

As children in the Netherlands in 1942, Maud Dahme and her sister were sent into hiding by their parents when the Germans ordered all Jews in their town to report for transport to concentration camps. The girls survived as “hidden children,” living with Christian families, and were eventually reunited with their parents, but most of their extended family were murdered in the Holocaust.

On April 5, 2024, I sat with Maud in her New Jersey home for a conversation about her life and work as an educator and advocate for Holocaust education. Perhaps it was symbolic that, upon crossing Maud’s doorstep, an earthquake struck, and for a moment we stood together in her home, surrounded by memories of the life she built after facing atrocities, laughing it off as if it were impossible for an earthquake to happen there. What a metaphor for Maud, who, after a childhood deeply shaken and shaped by World War II, has made it her mission for the last 40 years to tell her story; the message she shares with audiences, young and old, will continue to reverberate beyond her lifetime.

Why Maud Tells Her Story

For three decades after Maud’s family moved to the United States, she did not openly tell her story. “When I came to this country in 1950, I never talked [about] who I am,” she explains. “I learned to speak English, and I learned it without much of an accent. And people never asked, ‘Where are you from?’” So Maud built a life for herself, with the past at a distance, until she learned in 1981 about New Jersey creating an advisory council on Holocaust education. She felt called to speak her truth.

“I couldn’t be quiet anymore. [I realized] how important it is to share my story and for people to realize this [the Holocaust] actually happened.”

At age 88, Maud continues to educate and help ensure we learn from the past. “I think it’s so important for survivors to share their stories,” she says, “especially with our youth, because to kids, it’s a long time ago. … But I think it’s so important for them to listen to a survivor, and they tell me too, it really brings it to life.” Maud points out that while young people have seen films or read books about the Holocaust, to have someone who lived through it share their experience helps to build empathy by personalizing the history. Conversations with survivors also give people opportunities to ask questions directly and engage in dialogue about a critical moment in our collective past. “And that continues to motivate me,” Maud says. “And while I’m on this earth, I will continue to do this as much as I can.”

Maud intentionally approaches her story from a place of resistance and resilience, to tell not only of tragedy but also of the power of everyday people who made the choice to save lives in the face of incredible danger. “I try to be very positive about something very negative,” Maud explains. “I don’t talk about the atrocities. And I think students can relate to that because what we need in the world today is kindness and respect.” Maud emphasizes how people reached across differences to help one another. “People risked their lives to save my sister and I,” she says. “That was kindness. Didn’t matter we were Jewish, they were Christians; we were human beings.”

Maud admits that her mother was upset when she learned Maud was speaking about her experiences. She recalls her mother saying: “You shouldn’t be doing that because it is going to happen again. Maybe not in your lifetime, but your children are all Jewish, and you are putting their life at risk.” And in some ways, Maud’s mother’s fears were not unfounded – antisemitism and acts of genocide continue to affect Jewish communities as well as others. But Maud speaks because she knows the importance of having these conversations, telling her story, so future generations know what happened and can work toward a world in which people reject such hate.

The Power of Place and Testimony

In 2019, I was fortunate to be a participant in the New Jersey Education Association’s Summer Seminar trip to visit Holocaust sites in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and the Netherlands – a trip that Maud has led annually since 1998. I was already teaching about the Holocaust, but going to those sites, experiencing the places where these events happened, was transformative.

Prior to the trip, for example, when I taught about the Wannsee Conference – the place where “the Final Solution” to the Jewish question was decided by high-ranking Nazi officials it was simply about the history. During the trip, when we visited the villa in Wannsee, just outside Berlin, Germany, I was struck by how a decision so brutal could be made in such a tranquil place. The dissonance of that moment, that place, changed the way I communicated about the events at Wannsee. Afterward, I could bring my experience to students and say: “I stood there. I saw with my own eyes.” And that type of experiential learning enriches conversations and builds compassion in a more meaningful way.

Maud summarizes how the power of place enhances personal connection to the history and pedagogical approaches to teaching about it by explaining: “Yes, teachers have seen the films and read the books and have had a survivor come in for maybe an hour or less. But to … experience those sites, to touch it, to smell it, is life-changing. And many teachers have also told me that after they’ve come back, they’ve done wonderful things with their students, and also they feel they can really teach it now because they’ve been there. … So the students are benefiting from their teachers having been on this trip.”

The visits have also inspired educators to bring the power of place to students through field trips to historic sites in their communities, states, around the country, or even to Europe to re-create a similar experience. These place-based engagements add deeper understanding and appreciation, not just for the history of the Holocaust but also for local histories.

Holocaust education is a core component of New Jersey K-12 education. And that is largely thanks to Maud’s work with the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education and the 1994 Holocaust Education Mandate. “We will be celebrating 30 years this month [April] of the mandate in New Jersey,” Maud says. “We were one of the very first states to do this, and it has been so successful all the way, even from kindergarten to 12th grade.” Maud acknowledges that talking about the Holocaust, and World War II more generally, can be an upsetting topic. She says, “Even on the trip, we have our laugh days and our cry days … but there’s ways of communicating kindness and respect even [with] very young children.”

Holocaust education is much more than learning about the atrocities that occurred – it is about building empathy and fostering a culture of dialogue and civil discourse that allows humanity to prosper. Maud sums up that hope: “Yes, we’re learning about a certain period of time, but so much happened before, which is so important also [when we ask] how does this come about? Can we learn from that? Not to repeat it. Unfortunately, in today’s world, genocides continue. And I’m hoping that through the teaching of the Holocaust and people sharing their stories of what they went through, that people try to understand and really reflect and say, ‘We’re going to have to change our ways.’”

Maud Encourages Intergenerational Dialogue 

“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” Fannie Lou Hamer said in 1971. Holocaust education can help build understanding and solidarity across communities to address today’s justice issues. Maud emphasizes this purpose and encourages intergenerational dialogue to foster empathy, understanding and kindness. She acknowledges that young people often receive messages from adults that can be prejudicial. By modeling civil intergenerational dialogue, Maud hopes to influence adults as well and help to shape the way we engage with one another – by centering humanity and working toward a better future.

Through Zoom speaker engagements, especially during COVID-19, Maud asked teachers to encourage parents and caregivers to listen to her talk with children so her story would also influence the adults. Parents and caregivers need to be part of the conversation. The Holocaust, as difficult a topic as it might be, can be discussed with children as young as kindergarten. Children can understand kindness and respect and learn how to have dialogue and not continue the cycle of interpersonal prejudice and hate when interacting with others as they grow up. And parents and caregivers can learn to teach and model as well.

Maud expresses her hope that “through all of our talking as survivors, that we’re able to . help people understand how we really have to care for each other. And my story was classic because two families risked their lives. It didn’t matter that they were Christians, we were Jewish. [If] we were caught there, they, too, would be taken away and murdered. But we were human beings.”

Maud Inspires Hope for the Future 

“Our family tree, [they] cut off so many branches, but our tree is growing again with new branches and new blossoms. Why? Because people cared so much and risked their lives to save us.”
– Maud Dahme

In summer 2023, Maud was invited back to Oldebroek, the farming community in the Netherlands where she was hidden during the war. The people in Oldebroek wanted her to discuss her experiences in the church where she had gone every Sunday with the family who had hidden her as a little girl. The visit brought Maud’s experience full circle as she reflects: “Here I stood 80 years later, more than 80 years later to tell my story. And it was so emotional when I first started to speak. I was choked up just thinking of what all these people sitting out there had done that I could stand here now some 80 years later and thank them. That was, I think, very emotional.”

I was moved to tears when Maud wrapped up our conversation by discussing a photo of her family. The Nazis did not succeed, as she explains: “Our family tree, [they] cut off so many branches, but our tree is growing again with new branches and new blossoms. Why? Because people cared so much and risked their lives to save us. And I’m forever thankful for that because I married, I have four children, nine grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. And our family continues to grow. And only because people cared so much and the goodness. They were good human beings.”

After the interview, Maud and I continued to talk over a cup of tea. I made sure to tell her how truly life-changing the Holocaust site visit trip was to me personally and to my practice as an educator. It fueled my passion in this field and continues to be my guiding light in the work of social justice education. Maud gave a humble smile in response and simply restated the importance of continuing to tell her story and her lifelong commitment to Holocaust education.

To learn more about Maud Dahme, check out these resources:

Chocolate, The Taste of Freedom: The Holocaust Memoir of a Hidden Dutch Child by Maud Dahme

The Hidden Child, A documentary from NJN – New Jersey Public Television and Radio Collection

Classroom Closeup: Holocaust Remembrance, Season 26, Episode 3

In the stories of people, of resistance and survival, kindness and shared humanity, survivor testimony has the power for deeper connection. Our shared humanity is an essential building block for people to dialogue across difference and engage meaningfully in a democratic society today. 

A few months after our conversation, Maud was elected to serve as the chair of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education – 40 years after being integral to its founding. Maud’s story and her legacy will be akin to aftershocks of an earthquake. And my promise to Maud is to remain steadfast in this work and continue to tell her story so it remains part of the narrative for generations to come. 

 

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