Past event
An Evening with Sami Steigmann: Holocaust Survivor and Motivational Speaker (Virtual)
A virtual evening with Sami Steigmann, co-hosted for a Rhode Island audience with Israel Brief and the Rhode Island Coalition for Israel. His testimony and his E.M.E.T. framework went out live to the community over Zoom.
Watch the Recording
Jump to a Section
- 00:00Welcome from Cheryl Dorchinsky and Maria Friedman
- 02:15Sami's story in two minutes
- 03:5144,000 camps, and the six death camps
- 05:18Living with the pain of the medical experiments
- 07:18A cameo in "Eleanor the Great"
- 08:23Choosing hope, and October 7
- 10:33The answer to Jew hatred is education
- 11:46Transnistria and the Romanian labor camp
- 15:15"I am not what happened to me"
- 17:15EMET: educate, motivate, empower
- 18:21Your questions: coping, and quitting cold turkey
- 20:50How he learned about the experiments
- 23:40When he knew his story had to be shared
- 27:45The German woman who saved his life
- 29:15Teaching the Holocaust to young children
- 31:41Education or indoctrination
- 34:49Why Jews need one voice
- 37:09The power of the media, and the No Fear rally
- 42:55Comparing October 7 to the Holocaust
- 46:27Faith after the Holocaust
- 49:10Holocaust education laws nobody enforces
- 55:47Lighting the seventh candle at Birkenau
- 59:18How to support Sami
- 1:00:34The Israeli Air Force and the Mirage
- 1:02:49Antizionism, and becoming a Zionist at six
- 1:04:25A Jewish policeman, Israel, 1961
- 1:07:22Jew hatred on campus
- 1:10:52To one person, you are the world
- 1:13:41Family, and his honorary grandchildren
- 1:17:28Kosher Duck Revolution
- 1:19:52Closing
Short clips
Sami Steigmann: Please Don't Compare October 7 to the Holocaust
Sami Steigmann: I Am Not What Happened to Me
Sami Steigmann: The Woman Who Saved My Life With Milk
Sami Steigmann: How I Learned I Was Experimented On
Sami Steigmann: The Sixth Grader Who Changed My Life
Sami Steigmann: Knowledge Without Action Means Very Little
Sami Steigmann: A Jewish Policeman, and I Knew I Was Home
Sami Steigmann: We Hate People Because We Don't Know Them
Sami Steigmann: To One Person, You Are the World
Sami Steigmann: When Are We Going to Fight for Ourselves?
Sami Steigmann: In Washington Square Park, I Was 'Part of the Problem'
Sami Steigmann: I Did Not Say I Will Try
Sami Steigmann: Why I Start Teaching the Holocaust in Fourth Grade
Sami Steigmann: I Lit the Seventh Candle at Birkenau
Sami Steigmann: How Much I Charge to Speak
Speaker

Sami Steigmann
Holocaust survivor and motivational speaker
Born in 1939 in what is now western Ukraine, he survived Nazi medical experimentation as a child in the Mogilev-Podolsky labor camp in Transnistria. Since 2008 he has spoken to more than 250,000 people about survival, memory, and confronting antisemitism.
AIC brought Sami Steigmann’s testimony to a wider audience on Zoom, in partnership with Israel Brief and the Rhode Island Coalition for Israel. He spoke about resilience, the responsibility of memory, and confronting antisemitism, and took questions live from across the country. The recording runs an hour and twenty minutes; the chapter list jumps to any part of the evening.
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to be.”
Sami Steigmann
In Partnership With
- Israel Brief
- Rhode Island Coalition for Israel
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