On Wednesday, January 8th, the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) will host second generation Holocaust speaker Lisa Salko, who will appear on the HHREC MemoryKeeper series to present 13 Jewish Drivers’ Licenses.
In November of 2018, Salko, her sisters and cousins traveled to Lichtenfels, Bavaria, Germany to reclaim their grandfather’s and two great uncles’ drivers’ licenses which had been confiscated by the Nazis 80 years earlier, shortly after Kristallnacht. The drivers’ licenses had been rediscovered while the town was digitizing records in 2017. What started as a trip about reclaiming a part of their family turned into something so much bigger than them.
13 Jewish Drivers’ Licenses is about a small Bavarian town coming to terms with its darkest past. Salko shares the story of her weeklong trip which coincided with the 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht.
“I’m grateful to be sharing my personal story with you.” said Salko. “ It’s an important story; one of discovery, reflection, reconciliation, and hope. It is extremely relevant given the rise of antisemitic occurrences in our country today, throughout Germany and Europe, I’ll be taking you on a journey to Lichtenfels, Germany where my maternal family is from, and introduce you to a remarkable group of Upstanders, and share all they have done to educate their community about the Holocaust and the importance of Holocaust remembrance.”
Salko is a member of the HHREC GenerationsForward program, which is composed of second and third generation children and grandchildren of Holocaust victims and survivors, who share their family stories. She has presented 13 Drivers’ Licenses at synagogues, libraries, educational symposiums, middle and high schools; at Manhattanville University, Baruch College/CUNY, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the German Consulate in New York, the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in NYC, and Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Israel. This past March, she appeared as the keynote speaker at the HHREC High School Human Rights Institute at Iona University.
Salko also served as a consultant and appeared in a short documentary film 13 Drivers Licenses’, an internationally acclaimed and award-winning film directed by Ryoya Terao, a Documentarian and Professor at NYC College of Technology/CUNY. The film has won over 30 awards worldwide.
Salko is a real estate professional at Benerofe Properties Corp., a real estate and private equity investment firm based in White Plains, NY.
The program will commence online via Zoom at 7:00PM. The event is free and open to the public. For more information visit the HHREC events page at hhrecny.org.
