Until she was 19, Tobi Bassin, Lower School English as a second language (ESOL) specialist and mother of junior Brielle Bassin and alumni Jonah Bassin (‘23) and Addie Bassin (‘21), knew very little about her own family’s involvement in the Holocaust. She grew up learning about it in school, but when she would return home, her father refused to talk about it.
“It wasn’t until I was 19 years old, when he got very sick with cancer, he thought he was going to die, and he realized my family doesn’t know what I’ve been through, what my family was through, and I need to tell them,” Tobi said. “And that was the very first time that I learned about part of his story.”
Learning her father’s story inspired Tobi to share it and teach other second-generation (2G) Holocaust survivors to do the same. So, in addition to devoting her career to being an educator at a Jewish school, she volunteers as an instructor at Maggid through the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). The program focuses on educating 2G survivors on how to share their families’ stories with others.
“Maggid gives children of Holocaust survivors the unique ability to learn more about their parents’ narratives and help them to share their family’s experiences publicly,” Tobi said. “Our program connects peers who can relate to these uniquely difficult conversations and who know the importance of preserving these narratives.”
The program helps participants prepare an oral presentation with a slideshow, which they can then share with a variety of audiences. As not every Maggid participant has the technology skills to create a slideshow, teens can receive SSL hours by helping participants with the tech side of the project. Maggid participants, prepared with their parent’s story and artifacts like pictures or diaries, tell their story and what they want their presentation to look like to the teen they are paired up with, who then creates the slideshow.
Junior Gloria Jeruchim volunteered at Maggid after her father went through the program to learn how to share her grandfather’s story. Jeruchim found it impactful to meet and work with people who are older than her but have similar stories.
“You’re helping them make presentations about a relative or a story from the Holocaust, which is very meaningful to me, because my grandfather is a child survivor from the Holocaust,” Jeruchim said.
Tobi felt inspired to train to share her father’s story with others and help train others to do the same. She feels that it is important to tell these stories from a personal place rather than a generic lesson.
“[It’s important] when students learn about the Holocaust through a personal story, a story that when I tell it, it’s about somebody that I care for,” Tobi said. “I’m talking about a real person. JCRC finds that teaching the Holocaust through personal stories is the best way to do it.”
Tobi’s daughter Brielle also volunteered to help Maggid participants create their slides and tell their stories. Since she felt inspired by her mother’s work, she took the opportunity to volunteer alongside her.
“I’m so proud to be her daughter and to be the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, and I think that especially today, it’s so important that these people are sharing their stories and keeping their memories alive, and that the younger generations like myself are stepping sort of into the pools of helping the Maggid and JCRC program,” Brielle said.
Brielle has seen the impact that Maggid volunteers like herself have by helping those who are going through an emotional time and struggling to tell their stories. Tobi’s father had passed six months prior to the beginning of her volunteering. She found it difficult and emotionally draining to share her father’s story. She recalls being extremely emotional during this time, but felt it was still important to carry on with her work.
“These people are doing something really difficult and putting themselves outside of their comfort zone,” Brielle said. “And I think that’s a really important part that many people should think about, because even though it might be a difficult topic, or you’re scared because you don’t know how your audience is going to react, it’s still important to share these stories and to educate others.”
As the mother of Jewish children and a Jewish educator, Tobi takes pride in her Jewish identity and she values the importance of talking about the acts of hatred towards Jews and passing on lessons to her own children, as well as using them as unifying experiences.
“The truth is that we survived that situation where 6 million people died, and we came out stronger in our souls,” Tobi said. “We are never going to give up and Jewish people generally see it as we will never forget that, we will never let this happen again. And I think that’s why there’s so much discourse and so much talk since October 7, because we cannot just be complacent and be okay with this happening. We rise up. We will never give in.”
