Welcome to From Rubble to Roots, a new podcast from the Center for Jewish History. Every family has roots. But some lie buried deep beneath rubble, under the weight of war, loss, and silence. In this podcast, we follow Holocaust survivors and their children as they gather what remains, hold onto what they can, and try to understand what it means to inherit such a history.

New episodes of this limited-edition podcast will be released every other Thursday.

If you are a Holocaust survivor or the child of a survivor, we invite you to share your story. Please contact gi@cjh.org to learn more. We would be honored to record your family history and help strengthen the roots of memory for generations to come.

With support from:

Episode 4
The Survivor Who Can't Remember Surviving: The Ernie Brod Story

Born in Vienna just weeks after the Anschluss, his father vanished into a Nazi prison, his brother was sent away on the Kindertransport, and he and his mother were confined in a Jewish encampment with almost no chance of release. Their escape depended on something no one could have predicted: a desperate moment, a crying baby, and a guard’s sudden shift in mood. It was a narrow, improbable break that set the course for the rest of his life. Decades later, he would build a life in America, reunite with his brother, and uncover truths long buried by time and war, fragments of a past he would spend a lifetime learning to understand.

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Episode 3
Surviving Kristallnacht and the Kindertransport: The Erica Gorin Story

Born into comfort in 1920s Berlin, she fed elephants at the zoo and slipped secret poems of gratitude beneath the challah cover. Then comfort turned to chaos. The world turned against her. At sixteen, she crossed an ocean alone, seasick, heartbroken, clutching hope tightly. By nineteen, she was dancing in New York, speaking perfect English, and smiling through a lifetime of loss. What becomes of a girl taught to “walk tall and be proud you are a Jew” when the world tries to break her?

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Episode 2
The Man Who Escaped Death Ten Times: The Isak Borenstein Story

He cheated death more than ten times. From brutal labor camps to near-executions, from collapsing mountains to unexploded bombs, Isak Borenstein endured horrors that defy imagination. He survived shootings, beatings, starvation, forced labor, and the relentless cruelty of the Holocaust, witnessing the murder of friends, neighbors, and strangers alike. Every day was a test of courage, quick thinking, and sheer luck, and yet he lived, and lived with hope. How did he do it?

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Episode 1
Surviving Trembowla: The Story of Judith Koppel

The debut episode, “Surviving Trembowla: The Story of Judith Koppel,” features Sabina Barash of New Orleans sharing her mother’s remarkable story in conversation with Jewish history journalist Miriam Malka Frankel. From Rubble to Roots is supported by Ancestry®, reflecting a shared commitment to filling in gaps in family histories and reconnecting survivors and their descendants with lost family members.

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