Breaking the Silence: Healing Across Generations After the Holocaust

Pictured: Claire Sicherman, speaking at the Yom HaShoah Commemoration on April 23, 2025.

April 29, 2025

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre hosted a Yom HaShoah Commemoration in partnership with Temple Sholom Synagogue and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. About 360 community members gathered in person at Temple Sholom, with another 360 joining us via live stream, to honour the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to stand in solidarity with survivors and their descendants.

One of the evening’s most moving moments came from Claire Sicherman, author of Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation and a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. In her role as descendant speaker, Claire offered reflections on inherited memory, the weight of silence, and the ongoing journey of healing across generations. We are honoured to share her full remarks below:

I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, a member of the third generation. My maternal grandparents, Marie and Jindřich Lipa, were the sole surviving members of their respective families. They both survived the horrors of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. My grandmother, my babi, also survived Neugraben and Bergen-Belsen, while my grandfather, my děda, survived Schwarzheide and Sachsenhausen.

Like many grandchildren of survivors, I grew up in a house filled with silence. My family didn’t talk about the Holocaust and how it impacted us. I knew not to ask my babi questions. Sometimes I would catch glimpses of her Auschwitz tattoo when the sleeve of her blouse rolled up her arm—the numbers 72540 etched into her skin, a permanent reminder.

Pictured: Claire Sicherman’s great-grandmother Klára Lebenhartová in 1921.

I was named after my great-grandmother, Klára, who was murdered in the Shoah. It is an honour in the Jewish tradition to be named after someone who has passed away. But for many years, I was haunted by Klára and my ancestors. I grew up with nightmares, and carried a heaviness in my body, which I later understood was grief. I couldn’t stop picturing concentration camps, crematoriums, and smokestacks. I was consumed by the way my family died.

It has taken many years of healing to change the relationship I have with my ancestors. Eventually, I began to form a connection with them that wasn’t haunted and plagued by ghosts. I realized that my family led a wonderful life in Prague before the Holocaust—held large gatherings in their summer home, went mushroom hunting, swam in the lake, picked fruit from the garden. It was a good life. Until it wasn’t.

As a descendant, I recognize the importance of honouring and remembering my ancestors and continuing to invite them to be a part of my life. After years of working on my own ancestral healing, Klára is now a source of support for me. So many of my ancestors are a source of support. If I’m going through a tough time, I turn to them for strength and guidance. They hold me as I write, coach, facilitate and teach. I feel them with me now as I speak with all of you.

I chose to break the silence in my family to give my ancestors a voice—so they wouldn’t be forgotten, and so I could speak about them with our son, Ben, a member of the fourth generation.

I learned that healing moves backwards and forwards through time. In other words, when we each do our own personal healing work, we are not only affecting the generations that came before us—we also have an impact on the generations to come.

A photo of Klára sits on the highest shelf in my office. She is surrounded by objects I have found during my walks: shells, driftwood, feathers, rocks. She sits with me as I work, as I meditate, as I do yoga, as I write. She surrounds me with her love. I talk with her, I touch her cheek, I smile, and she smiles back.