hmTv at HMTC Podcasts Ep 439: Legacy Chronicles with Donna Rosenblum and guest Felice Katz on hmTv
Legacy Chronicles: Honoring the Past and Shaping the Future
Episode 439 – Felice Katz
Host: Donna Rosenblum | hmTv
In this deeply moving episode of Legacy Chronicles, Donna Rosenblum sits down with second-generation Holocaust survivor Felice Katz to explore memory, inheritance, and responsibility across generations.
Felice shares the powerful story of her parents, Julian (Yachil) Katz and Ethel Bauer Katz. Her father carried the physical scars of the camps but rarely spoke of what he endured. Her mother survived three years in hiding in southeastern Poland and miraculously lived after being left for dead in the snow when her family was murdered in 1944. Felice recounts their chance meeting after liberation, their journey through displaced persons camps, and their eventual immigration to America, where they rebuilt their lives in New York.
The conversation turns to what it meant to grow up as a child of survivors. Felice reflects on realizing her family was different, discovering the truth of the Holocaust as a young girl, and the emotional weight of having no extended family because an entire world had been erased. She discusses how her mother eventually wrote her memoir Our Tomorrows Never Came, and how Felice herself became the keeper of the story, first assisting her mother’s presentations and ultimately stepping forward to speak when her mother could no longer do so.
Felice explains why she continues to share her parents’ experiences at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center, honoring a promise that their memory would never disappear. She also offers heartfelt guidance to other second-generation survivors and families everywhere: ask questions, record stories, and preserve testimony while you still can.
This episode is a powerful reminder that remembrance is not passive. It is an act of responsibility, courage, and love.