Second | Third Gen Holocaust Survivor
Writing Workshops

Register for 2025 Writing Workshops

UPCOMING WORKSHOP

Exploring the Stories We Carry Across Generations

Some stories are lived.
Others are inherited.

The Holocaust did not end with those who survived it. Its memories, silences, and questions have been carried forward by their children and grandchildren.

For many descendants, family history exists in fragments of stories, moments never fully spoken, and the emotional legacy quietly passed across generations.

This one-day writing retreat offers a supportive space to reflect on those inherited memories and begin shaping them into written stories. Through guided exercises, reflection, and conversation, participants explore how family history continues to shape identity and how writing can preserve and illuminate these experiences.

No previous writing experience is necessary, only curiosity about the stories that shaped your family and, perhaps, your own life.

Time spent writing, reflecting, and, if desired, sharing with others who carry similar histories helps create new stories, tools for continuing narratives, and a deeper understanding of how inherited memory shapes identity.

Stories created during the retreat can also be archived as part of a growing collection of descendant narratives, helping preserve these voices for future generations.

Facilitators

Stacey Goldring, founder of Searching for Identity, works with descendants of Holocaust survivors to explore identity, generational memory, and family history.

Kathleen Triebwasser, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, is a therapist, educator, and writer whose work examines the intersection of story, memory, and identity and how personal and historical narratives shape who we become.

Space is limited to create a thoughtful and supportive environment.

Some stories were never fully told.
This retreat offers a place to begin

Our workshops provide a confidential and safe space for Holocaust survivors’ children and grandchildren, known as the Second and Third Gen, to discuss and document their family’s story and explore how the Holocaust has shaped their own lives.

To the Second and Third Gen:

It is not necessary for you to write to attend. Your presence is what’s important. However, you are encouraged to write. Share your parents’ stories and your own upbringing stories.

Scroll down to see about our upcoming workshop.

I hope to see you at our next workshop! In the meantime, just write!

Stacey Goldring,
SFI Writing Workshop Facilitator

Reviews from our Feb. 1, 2026 | One-Day Writing Retreat

Lots of Second and Third Gen say the don’t know where to start when it comes to writing about and preserving their families’ Holocaust survivor story. Our SFI One-Day Writing Retreat provided the opportunity to write about their family’s stories. Participants were guided with carefully crafted writing prompts to make it easy for them to write about their parents’ and or grandparents’ Holocaust survivorship and what it meant to them. The writers created a personal collection of stories for self-reflection or to gift as a lasting legacy to their family.

"The workshop was fantastic. I have a pretty good understanding of my family’s Holocaust experience but I was given the space to think deeper about how their experiences shaped their lives, and ultimately the lives of their descendants."

–Sondra  

"SFI Writing Retreat was a wonderful experience, a safe place to open up memories of our parents and grandparents secrets, joys, fears, being able express the loss we feel of not knowing in full the lives of our parents/grandparents.A safe place to express sadness, and understanding our individual goals for being at the retreat and in turn seeing that some of our individual goals as also the goal of the "group:" keeping the Holocaust in the thoughts of the world as genocide continues, and to humanize those who otherwise are dehumanized."

–Karen

I loved it!"

–Jared 

We hope you join us in our
next One-Day Writing Retreat.

  • “My legacy is to share the righteousness of my parents’ lives, heal others in my daily deeds and educate others about the human spirit’s potential power. I honor my mother and father every day of my life.”

    -Shoshana Volkas, Second Gen

  • “The workshop provided an opportunity for me to put into concrete form what has been in my head for many years and understanding the connection with where I am today. ”

    -Helen M., Second Gen

  • “As my father’s memory fades, so do the tattooed numbers on his arm, but as a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor, I am here to pick up the torch, keep his memories alive and share our story.”

    -Lisa U., Second Gen

  • “The workshop has brought to reality many things I didn’t realize about myself and has given me an opportunity to use my writing abilities to share my thoughts in a fruitful and worthwhile venue. Let me not forget Stacey's contribution. Her encouragement and enthusiasm have been major catalysts for me and, I would venture to say, for the others who attend the workshop.”

    -Ethel H., Second Gen

  • "These unknowns brewed stress and fear. The pressure from withholding knowledge would explode emotionally, like pipes bursting, causing a flood. Although, as a child, I couldn’t articulate the pain and fear caused by secrets, I felt it."

    -Jarred S., Third Gen

  • "The writers' workshop makes me think, stop, and put thoughts to paper. Most of the things I've written, I feel will be valuable for my family to have when I'm gone. The prompts that Stacey gives us make me do this, something I wouldn't do on my own."

    -Molly K., Second Gen

“This workshop is so revelatory, psychoanalytical, and healing too. It allows us to glimpse inside our psyche and find answers that eluded us for so long. Sharing our stories forges strong bonds. I appreciate our virtual connection to the entire world. Our group is diverse in terms of birthplace, education, religiosity etc., yet our mission is identical. We need to tell what hasn’t been told by our parents.“

— Anna Osztreicher daughter
of Salamon and Friderika (Klein) Lebovics, pictured