 Good evening. And the latter is the volume group. Can you hear me back there? Oh, OK. How's that? Is that better? Yes. OK. Good. All right. So good evening. And let me first introduce myself. I'm Ramiro Salazar. I'm the director of the San Antonio Public Library. On behalf of the Library Board of Trustees and the library staff, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all of you. It's great to see such a robust crowd for a very special program. Tonight, she will be hearing the story of a very special guest. She will be formally introduced shortly. And it's a story that I hope will resonate with all of you. The Holocaust Learn and Remember series was started five years ago with the idea of using the Holocaust as a tragic event to remind us that we should really strive to value our differences, to respect each other, and value our differences, not only our cultures, our beliefs, our value systems, our religions, our color, that we need to respect each other in order to build a better world for all of us. You'll hear more about the mission of Holocaust and Learn and Remember from our co-founder, Hawi Neskel. Actually, Hawi and I thought of this idea that, of course, our staff are the ones that do the hard work and put it together. So I will acknowledge them shortly. I would like to thank several folks and individuals and groups that have made this program possible. Again, this is our fifth year. I'm going to start with some of our sponsors, Carmen and Stephen Goldberg. I'm not sure they're here. I didn't see them. Also, Rabbi Samuel and Lynn Stahl. Betty and Jack Bexler. They have been consistent supporters of the Holocaust Learn and Remember series, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation, and, of course, our partner, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in San Antonio. And Ellen Oliver, the director of the museum, is here, and she'll be speaking shortly. I also would like to acknowledge we have a library board of trustees in the audience, Margarita Sanchez, representing District 3. Thank you, Margarita, for being here to witness the programs that the library has to offer to the community. I would also, as I indicated earlier, Hawi and I thought of the idea. But the staff, both from the Holocaust Museum, Memorial Museum, and the San Antonio Public Library are the ones that really work hard to put it together along with the San Antonio Public Library Foundation. So I would like to recognize and acknowledge Candelaria Mendoza, Library Services Administrator, Kaley Holmes, who is our coordinator for services to adults, our marketing team led by Caitlin Cowart. All of them have worked for many, many months to offer the various programs. And we are offering programs throughout the library system in this month of January. So I invite you to visit our website, sapl.org, my sapl.org, for additional information on various programs that we are offering throughout the library system. And at this time, I would like to invite Hawi Nesfell, as I indicated earlier. He and I kind of thought of the idea, and he will tell you more about that story, Hawi. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the fifth annual Holocaust Learn and Remember. There's no more powerful tool than education to change, or as we say in Judaism, to repair the world. What started off, as Ramiro said, as a casual breakfast conversation six years ago has turned into a citywide program of free speakers, events, learning opportunities, digital material, storytelling, and keynote speakers like you'll hear tonight. Over the past five years, thousands of San Antonio citizens have heard firsthand account of stories related to the Holocaust, as well as other learning opportunities that detailed not only Holocaust survivors like you heard tonight, but also stories of liberators, rescuers, targeted groups, not only Jews, but several other targeted groups. And all of these things are done solely for the purpose of educating our citizens here in San Antonio and for the effort of never repeating what happened during World War II. Participating youngsters around town, their parents and grandparents, and I have my eight-year-old daughter here and my dad here as well, over the past five years have been encouraged to not only learn and remember, but also to think and to act. So tonight, I'll invite you to learn, remember, think and act, but also go back in time in history and learn from somebody else's experience. At this time, I want to call up my friend, Eleanor Villes, to come up and talk to you about the San Antonio Memorial Museum, Holocaust Memorial Museum, of which she's the director, and then also to introduce her speaker tonight. Good evening and welcome. My name is Eleanor Villes, and I serve as the director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, a subsidiary of the Jewish Federation of San Antonio. The mission of our museum is to educate the public to the dangers of hatred, prejudice, and apathy, all factors that in the Holocaust led to mass murder. By teaching the Holocaust, it allows us to examine basic moral issues, human behavior, and what it means to be a responsible citizen. This month houses the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is observed on January 27th. It is an international memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust. Holocaust is the genocide that resulted in the annihilation of 6 million European Jews, as well as millions of others by the Nazi regime. The day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly on November 1st, 2005. January 27th is significant, as this is the date in 1945, when the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated by Soviet troops. The resolution establishing January 27th as International Holocaust Remembrance Day urges every member nation of the UN to honor the memory of Holocaust victims and encourages the development of educational programs about Holocaust history to help prevent future acts of genocide. It rejects any denial of the Holocaust as an event and condemns all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief. 72 years from the liberation of Auschwitz, it is more important than ever to remind ourselves of the universal lessons of the Holocaust and to foster a shared culture of remembrance. We partner in gratitude with the San Antonio Public Library for this program, this program, Learn and Remember. This program furthers the mission of the museum to educate the community in a great effort to never forget and to the great desire for never again. At this time, I would like to introduce Hannah Pankowski. Hannah is a Holocaust survivor and an author. Her extraordinary experience is about finding refuge in the Americas. Please welcome Hannah Pankowski. Good evening. I am Hannah Pankowski. You know, I look slightly different. But it's okay. All I need is my break. But I have to see young audience here too and I want to remind them that this was the age when the war started. So, when my childhood was a very happy one and I never dreamed that it's going to happen, what happened to us. And I remember when my childhood really ended and I was in day camp and the teacher gathered us and said, be ready, we have to leave the camp right now. When I brought the boss to go back home, I left behind my childhood because, you know, in the war, there are no time for the children. The children grow up very fast. I wish I had more time to narrate everything. I don't have that much time. So, I'm going to point these main events and how we finally adapt to new life. Well, from the very beginning, we knew the Nazi soldiers approaching our city. My father and my brother left the city in order to hope to find the fighting unit instead of fighting. My mother and I stayed behind. And I remember when the first group entered the city and I could hear the marching on the street. And with the Jews, especially, we were forced to go on the street. We were given the flowers and they told us to throw the flowers on the soldiers. And this was done for propaganda reason. They took the film and they say, you see, the Jews welcome us here. Of course, it was not so because we throw the flowers with the soldiers with the bayonets on our back. So, we didn't throw the flowers right in the spot. And the bad things started coming very fast. So, I'm going to go to the high like what happened. Very first, the careful was imposed and we couldn't go on the street after the dark. Then, as it was not enough, the ration of food was very limited and we would start giving hungry, starving. And as it was not enough, they forced the Jews where the yellow stars. And why the yellow stars? Well, to be easy identified when you walk on the street and to humiliate and do whatever they wanted, arrest us or even the killer. And I thought, I don't want a yellow star. I take it out but you couldn't do this because if you were on the street, they were patrolling and asking of identification. And in the paper was stamped that you are a Jew, the Jew. And you were a Jew and didn't wear the yellow star. You'll be killed on the spot. So, I have no other choice to wear the yellow star. But you know what? I understood and I was proud to wear my yellow star. I was proud who I was in my heritage. I was the yellow star and proud. In the beginning, we could go to school. Later on, we were not allowed to go to school but in the beginning of the war, we allowed to go to school. And for a little while, it was okay. It looked like it would be normal life but it wasn't. And I remember one day in school, we were sitting in a class and we smelled smoke. And we looked in the windows and crossed the street from our school was a beautiful synagogue and we saw the synagogue burning. And we saw the people with the yellow star, a Jew, who was standing and throwing the gasoline on the synagogue. Behind them were soldiers, machine guns. And if you didn't throw the gasoline, they would kill you. And it was filled again with propaganda reasons. And they say, you see, we don't do anything. The Jews are burning the old synagogue. Meantime, we deprecified children to the school and we could hear the screams of the people who were trapped inside the burning synagogue. And we thought, oh, this was going to happen to us. Our teacher tried to calm us and I'm sure she was just as scared as we were. Well, we survived this time but for many of my children was not for too long. Next thing what happened is they forbid the Jews to walk on Main Street. And this means if you're friendly across the street you have to walk all around the city to go to see them. At that time, they evicted our school from our building and they allocated us in the school that happened to be across the street with the highways. What does it mean to me? In order to go to school I have to run all over the city to reach the school and then come home to run again. So one day I was a child in the picture. I said to my little girlfriend, I don't understand all my life I walk on the street why I cannot walk today on the street. And I said, I'm going to cross the street. Well, I stopped crawling the street and my little friends start screaming, Hannah, Hannah, come back. Germans, then I noticed the two essential soldiers took their machine guns and started shooting. I couldn't go back because I was already on the street and I roam as fast as I could. I managed to cross the street. How I managed to survive? I don't know. Probably with my destiny so I could be today and talk to you. Well, I was walking but I have a little friend who tried to do the same thing and he wasn't there talking. The bullet hit him and he fell on the street and the essential soldiers wouldn't allow to pick up his body. He lay on the street and they said, you see, this is what happens to you if you don't obey an order. Things are getting bad. At that time they start talking that they're going to form ghetto and ghetto is where all the Jews were part of the city and we had to go and leave this enclosure. My mother decided that she was going to escape. I had to stop for a minute and say about my mother. My mother was a very accomplished, talented painter. Her own work was lost during the war. And when I think today she lived a sheltered life but when I think today how a heroic action she undertook and tried to escape Germans. And I have to explain here. At that time there was part with Russia of non-intervention and Poland was divided in half. West Poland become German and East Poland become Russian. So, as I mentioned before, my father and brother left the city. We didn't hear from them. We didn't know if they are alive or not. But at that point my mother said, I escaped and it was so risky and she was told, you have just one percent chance of survival. And she said, well, if I'll die, I'll die with her. But if I survive, we both survive. How he managed to arrange the escape, I wish I asked her, but I never did. All I know that she told us, she told me, we're going to leave. Run to your grandma, I say goodbye to her. And I remember I run to my grandma and I say, we're leaving, but don't worry grandma, we'll be pretty soon back. And my grandmother hugged me, kissed me and said, I never see you again. And she didn't. She died in concentration. Well, I returned home with her. She arranged the bus and the driver and how she obtained false identification from us. So we pretend that we're not you. And this, as it is, was punished by death. And the driver accepted to take us out of the city and drive us to the part of Poland, occupied by Russia. When we left the city, at some point, they stabbed us and searched the bus. They asked us out of this noble truck, stepped out and started searching. We had so many weapons, I don't know, to word. We're searching for a little girl, but I knew I was scared. I was petrified because they took my mother to one room and they took me to another room. But I knew that I cannot look scared because if I do and I betray, they're going to suspect that I am not the person I am to damn my shoes. And this, what I said before, the children grow up fast. I understood. I had to smile, rip her light, the woman searched me and she let me go. I just can't think of what was going on my mother's mind when I was separated. But we were not kicking. We managed to escape. The driver took us to the frontier and the border one river. They divide Poland, West Poland from East Poland. And he took us to the river which was in deep forest. And by that time was already winter and snow was cold. He drove us home in the forest, turned around and left us alone there. But Germans knew that some Jews wanted to escape. So they had the dog, the searching light to see if anybody tried to escape. If you catch them, they kill you on the spot. And all of a sudden we heard the dog barking and the searching light going on. And all my mother could do, drop, throw me on the snow and recover herself on the snow. We were afraid to breathe. And they still down there. And somehow the dog lost sense of us and we helped him going away. And the searching light disappeared. Once again we survived. We managed to cross the river but then we entered Russian part of Poland that they occupied. Well, we managed to escape but life in Russia was not picnic either. And then didn't like us too much either. Luckily my mother knew some friends in the nearby city the other stalkers. They lived there and she said, let's go and see if we can find them. And we found them. We knocked at the door and the woman opened the door, saw my mother and couldn't believe it. And then she said, do I have surprises? I guess what? She went back in the house. I came back with my mother. And I don't have to say you how happy was that he was alive too. Well, we learned that my father was alive too by sending him to work in Russia. They allow us to join him and we went to Russian in this earth. First adaptation I would say to Russian life began. I have to say that when we left the house, my house and my city, we left everything behind. We just woke out with nothing. And I was asked how important it is for the children here. We didn't close when we go to school in the matching colors. We didn't close them, but we left everything. Everything was nice. And this was important. Well, I say the life in Russia was not easy and I'm going to go very briefly what happened in Russia. Of course, I was sent back to school and I had to learn Russian. I had to undergo the humiliations from other children and from the teachers because this was the colonists' chance in Russia. And I went to capitalism's country. As I mentioned, my mother was an artist. So once we settled, it was already spring, she decided to go outside to do some skittish. So she took paper and paints and would go outside and start drawing. But this just so happened in the back of the house, there was a railroad going by. And before she knew, two circuit services were on the side and they grabbed her and arrested her and accused her of being spied. In the meantime, we didn't know what happened to her. She didn't return home and it was evening and getting late and she was still not at home. So I released very late at night. We saw her coming to our party. How she was saying, they told her that she is not going to see the light of the day anymore. And there were various interrogations and she looked at one of them and she asked, why are you stirring at me like this? And she said, because you have an interested face, I want to paint you one time. We go to Boston to let her go. Then my father went to Russia as a worker. But of course he was not. He was a businessman and a scholar and well-to-do man, but he was not in Russia. And he belonged also to a political organization that was prohibited. And someone in the village of Seattle when they were leaving, recognized my father and denounced him to speak with service and was doomed to die in Siberia. But what happened? In 1941, in June, the Germans broke part of the migration and as you know, they invited the Russians. We're living very close to the border. The German army advanced very quick and before we knew they were all scared of them where we live. We have to run again and we'll run for our lives because staying behind with the Germans would be saddened that this way we have a chance. I am not going to go into the details how terrifying and how difficult was this cave to go inside in Russia. But again, we managed. I survived it. Well, as we sent, we sent to... I have to get quick. The Russia was very difficult. We sent us to part of Russia in the forest. Big cold, 50 below zero. We didn't have proper clothes and we were starving. But this, for you, for the youngest one, no matter what, we sent it. I went to school. I have to walk in the snow, foldable three kilometers to school and they run back. Education was very important for my parents in Oman-de-Word. The survival in Russia was very... It was miracle that we survived. But I have to go ahead and we were ended with, okay, we survived. Then the Polish government in exile had a pact with Russia and they allowed the Russian refugees to go back to Poland at home. And we started reading the deed. We're going home, going home. But going home was not what we imagined. The very first thing we saw was a tunnel from the graveyard. The street was paved with them and we tried not to walk up there. We saw the homes, but the homes were empty. No one really knew we survived. All my little friends except the two, three little girls survived. All my teacher, all my friends, my cousin, my ankle, and everybody was gone. And we saw in the silent city, the devastating. Well, we were lucky we survived. One causing that survived. But we realized what's happening in Poland and the Poland become a communist satellite. And we knew we cannot stay in Poland. We have to run and we have to run again and escape. We tried to escape to Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany. And today when I look at these refugees from Syria and the Somalia, and I can see myself, this is how we were escaping, trying to save our lives. When I taught it, I give a presentation with the hope that there's never a repeat of the horrors. But unfortunately, they're still happening today. But even more, more we have to be aware what it is and so prevent these things. Well, when we escaped and we were sent to Germany to this place where some can't. This place where some will be, there's some who has no home, no country, no place to go. And leaving this place where some can't, there's no paper. There is no work, nothing to do. And we're just wondering our hope to start new life. What's going to happen from now? Because at that time we tried to go to some country, the United States, I have an uncle in the States who tried desperately to bring us things. He wouldn't let us in. All the doors to choose were closed. Not country, the world will accept them. And we sit there and thought, now what are we going to do? We have no house, no home, no place to go. Well, my uncle was lucky. He managed to get us a visa to Cuba. But when we were ready to go, the Cuban government said, uh-uh, no, we don't devolve the visa. So he managed to get us a visa to Mexico. We were not enough to integrate Mexico. But here comes the adaptation to new country, no language, nowhere to go. And nobody, we didn't know nobody was going. But when we were in wars, when we arrived in Mexico, the customs service looked in our patient papers and said, you can enter Mexico. You will use a expire yesterday. And by that time, my mother fainted. And my father asked, we have no place to go. We can't go back to Poland. The doors are closed. What do you want us to do? You can enter Mexico. And my father was perpetual optimist. He got, gets hold of a telephone directorie and started looking for the names. And when there was a Jewish name, only that he thought they were Jewish, started talking, died in November, was talking Yiddish, of course, but didn't speak Spanish. And many people hung up on him, other laugh at him, but he finally found somebody who answered him in Yiddish. And they say, don't worry, we'll do something about it. And sure enough, they come and we were able to get into the city. Well, about myself, my adaptation was very difficult. I went, couldn't speak Spanish. I was informed that the girl my age, I was about 17 and 18, is an old mate, because the girls at that time, I'm glad they changed it now, but at that time, 65 years ago, the girls were getting married early. And they say, a day-team, then you should have already the children. And besides, your refugee, you have no money. And with mom, no money. Nobody's going to marry you. And here I stood, thinking, what I'm going to do? I could go to work, because we have temporary permanent permits to stay in Mexico. And my father risked his life, but he found some little jobs so we could survive. But what I'm going to do? I can't go on the street after that, because younger girls don't go on the street after that time. I can't work. I can't get married for what I'm going to do. And it was a very difficult period of time. But then I found out this school in Mexico don't cost almost nothing. So I started going to polytechnic to be a physical chemistry of bacteriology. And over there, I met my classmate. What happened is he had a cousin. And he said, introduce me to his cousin. And as I said, every rule has exception. And I met this young man. And 65 years ago, we were sitting here. 65 years before grandchildren were living here. But then when my husband finished training at school, we went for residency or internship to the United States. And they let him go, but I couldn't go. Because why? Because I was in Russia and I was educated in Russia. I was communist at that time. You younger people don't remember this, but they would not let me go in the United States. It took us a long time, a lot of effort, to finally I came to the United States. But that time we were expecting our first baby. Now the other adaptation came to light in the United States. I found myself all alone in a city of Baltimore. I had been here to go back to work. He installed me in a little hotel downtown and go back to work. And here I was, no language, no money. I had five dollars in the pocket. And I spent the night there in this hotel. The next morning I was starting to want to call something free. And I realized that I couldn't afford the restaurants in the hotel. And I was scared to death to go on the street. But I did. And I walked in straight line. And I found something that looked like losing. People were eating. I walked in and I didn't know what to do. I just stood there, my tears in my eyes were starving. Two young men approached me and stopped speaking to me. Only thing I can say in English, thank you. And he showed me what should I do. And it simply was a cafeteria. So I ordered my scrambled egg. I still remember it. A thousand coffees. The life in the United States was difficult. But we overcome it. We finally ended in San Antonio. And when we established ourselves, my children grew up with the growth of our parents here. And talking about the adaptation. If you want to do something, if you work hard enough, you don't achieve what you want. I learned Spanish because I failed to mention that when I found this young man, he didn't speak Polish. I didn't speak Spanish. And he said, oh, you learned Spanish. I learned Spanish. My mother began to think again. My father decided he wants to do something. And he started collecting Jewish books. And today in San Antonio, UTSA is one of the largest collections of Jewish books, 6,000 volumes. But not only that, he, at the age of 84, learned English and computers. And catalog his book on the computer. My mother became a painter again. And today the shop on the Holocaust Foundation gets hold on her painting. And they had all her collections are now in LA. And they are for part of the traveling exhibit with the going exhibit them all over the United States at Manjaro. So, as I said, I learned English. And then I was giving classes of talks at schools and organizations because I felt some important issues. But I knew that I cannot do this for too much longer. So I took creative writing calls and wrote the book. The book was published at Texas Tech University Tech. So I have said with difficulties, lots of crying, hard times, you can do whatever you want. And we, the survivors, they feel it hit them. He couldn't exterminate us all. He didn't broke our spirit. We formed new families. We sent our children to school. And our children and grandchildren are educated, productive citizens. There are teachers, lawyers, engineers, doctors, nurses. So we show that you can do it if you really make yourself do it. I know sometimes it's very hard. And I'm so glad I see so many young people here. And my message to them, stay in school, education is more important. And open your mind and fight prejudice, discrimination, and ignorance. And I think like that. I'd be glad to answer. So we have about ten minutes for questions. Do you have any questions? Uh-oh. Are you over? No, I'm fine. Someone with a mic, okay? There are any questions? You can raise your hand. Okay, the gentleman here. Do you have any fears about what you see in the United States today with President Trump compared to where you grew up in the polls? Do I have to answer this? I think I do. I did want to say thank you, my Aunt Helena, who passed away last July, she went through something very similar. She made it through World War II survival labor camps and thank you. Thank you so much. First of all, I'd like to thank you for doing this presentation because I think it's very important and we're at imminent points in our lives where we're being affected by everything that's happening right now. As the gentleman mentioned, the thing with Trump, do you plan on continuing to do these seminars because I think it's important for our youth today and as an educator myself to allow our students to learn and know that this truly did happen because many questioned them and they'll say, well, my parents said this never happened. It's a lie. And I would love to see that you continue your work. Thank you. I intend as long as I am in capacity to do it and will because it is essential for these things to prevent these things to happen. I'm Shalon Burt from a Brook Army Medical Center and once again, thank you very much for your testimony. What about the element of faith within your own life and in the struggles and if that assisted you in going through the crossroads and the journey that you had, can you comment on that? I don't know the faith of hope. You just think that you have to do it. You have to survive. And I guess it's the faith that you will survive. And it's a difficult question to answer. I don't think I can go on too much of a fail because if you lose your hope, I wouldn't say faith. If you lose your hope for the future, then you lose the faith too and you don't survive. Well, you are definitely a legacy of hope and faith. So thank you very much. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I had a question about how you traveled from Europe to Mexico, how it is that you came to be there. Thank you. If I was going to tell you how it would happen, you would take me whole night, I think, because it was just a ride after the war and transportation was very, very difficult. The Jewish organization in Germany joined the organization because it helped very few of us that could get out of Europe to provide the transportation. But in order to get to Mexico, we had to go to France, to Portugal, to Brazil, to Trinity, to Panama, to Trinity. And this was the time we arrived on Mexico. We were too late. Our views expired. But they tried to, the ships were impossible to get. They were so full that we couldn't get any tickets on. So they arranged for us to fly. But we fly from one little town to another little town. It took a long, long time. I'm exhausted because I answered the question. Well, I was just a little bit older than you are. How old are you? What's 10? I am your, do I look, do I look thin? You have a question over here? I'm glad you asked. Thank you. What was your favorite subject in school? Oh, I could be mad, very mad. But you have to remember that I went, after the war started, they were not like you have now. I had to go to Russian school. I didn't know the language. I had to learn. And I have to adapt to the living rules over there. But I think I like the math the most. We have a question right over here. Thank you very much for coming over here. I can tell that just listening to you and the way you express your experiences that you are a very talented writer, I would imagine your mother's paintings just as how you write. My question is on the other end of the spectrum. What would you say to someone who is in denial, in denial of the reality of the Holocaust and all of its, all the evil surrounding it? Like I guess you'd say like I'm a person currently studying psychology and although the topic of guilt is not discussed, I guess you could say it's very easy to suppress guilt instead of taking responsibility for it. Does that make, sorry, I'm nervous. Does that make sense? Yes, but so those who deny exist, exist in the Holocaust, how you can deny what you have so much evidence of? It's one person we like, two persons we like, but you have a hundred of survivors to test them on the same thing. How you can deny when we have soldiers who liberate this concentration camp which was going on there? How can you deny the truth? It's like they say the son doesn't exist because it's back today. Thank you for coming tonight. We had a question studying for tonight for school. We did lots of research on refugees in the aftermath of World War II and it was really sad reading articles about people who after the war went home and there was no home or their homes were occupied or communities were gone and it was an angle we've never thought of. And so having to leave your home, did you guys attempt to go back or was there anything to go back to or how we just couldn't understand going through that so you surviving it like how do you feel about that and did you attempt to go home or what was there? Well, when we left the Russia we wanted to go home but the home wasn't there anymore. It was destroyed. If people wasn't there they would perish. There was nothing in Poland. There was no home anymore. And then personally when I go from country to country and like in Israel the door for us would close because the Israel was an English mandate and they would not allow the Jews going. Where is my home? Where did my family live? When did I have my house and my workplace and my chair and family surrounding me? This is my home. We have a couple more questions right here. Oh, thank you for coming and sharing your story with us. Oh, nice to know what happened to your brother. My brother, well my brother survived too and he immigrated with us to Mexico. He was married there. He had a daughter in the grass. Unfortunately I lost him in a car accident in Mexico. He was fighting in the very first line of battles against Germany, but he survived this. Hi, I just want to thank you for being here and let you know that I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for you. I'd like to know how exactly you felt at the moment that you knew that the war was over because for us 9-11 is a day that we all remember and sticks with us and we know exactly what we were doing at that moment. So for you that would have been like knowing the war was over. Do you remember exactly how you found out and exactly the way that you felt? I do. I do remember, but I most remember the day when the war started because this was the end of my childhood, the end of my home, the end of my family that didn't survive. But yes, I do remember and we had great expectations as I mentioned that the war ended and we're going to go home. Unfortunately, there was no home. You had to keep going and like I said, we found our families and we found our homes. How long did you live in Mexico City? In Mexico City, actually living there just for years but we have our family living in Mexico so we're constantly going to Mexico City. Yeah. And you went to, did you go to Mexico City? My daughter went. Yeah, I was in Yiddish, Yiddish, in Mexico and the other one was in the Yabne. Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish. I don't speak Yiddish. Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish. You read Yiddish? No. Did you read Yiddish? No. Remember, I was growing up in Russia. I see. And this was forbidden language. And I want to congratulate you. So I was forbidden to even speak my language Polish at home. We have forced to fight Russian and believing in Russian was constant here. We were there. So I'm going to... And of course, we'll tell you more, some more. Hannah, did your mother's art confront y'all's journey and what y'all experienced? Did her paintings depict some of the things that y'all had experienced or some of the tribulations y'all had encountered? Yeah, my daughter explained it better than I do. I am Helen Pankowski and I'm one of the... The one that she talks about when she talks about her kids. So I'll make this brief, but it's really very exciting for us as a family because my grandmother's art... In Russia, she was too depressed to paint and she really didn't paint again until she went to Mexico. And she was very depressed there too, but a painting was commissioned and because they didn't have a lot of money, she... My grandfather pretty much said, you know, you need to do this. And fortunately for us, the people who commissioned the painting did not want it in the end. But it got her started painting again. Now, I remember nothing survived from her time during the war. So in Mexico, although she wasn't in a concentration camp and although they were not religious, in her family and while she was going up in my mother's family, that is the basic themes that she began to paint. So there are Holocaust imagery. There is... She really liked painting 17th and 18th century wooden synagogues, a lot of images of the stereotypical, the pre-war, the shtetl, the Jewish life, just everyday life. And then later on, she painted images of Mexico. So it's a whole different group of paintings and really painted up until the end of her life. Mexico, things from San Antonio, stories from biblical stories. So a lot of these paintings for years were in my closet because the burning synagogue and the concentration camp. And recently, about two years ago, we started worrying like, what's going to happen to these paintings? And we got worried that they're going to end up behind the dump somewhere. So we were very fortunate to have lovely coincidences and events that were, my mother mentioned destiny. The Goldrich Foundation, the representative from the Goldrich Foundation came to San Antonio, saw the paintings, fell in love with them and we donated everything to them. And that was what my mother was referring to, that they are in the hands of the Goldrich Foundation, who their family founded the Holocaust Museum in L.A. And they're very involved in educating for the Holocaust. And so the future of the paintings is that they have now been put into a collection and they are going to be exhibited throughout the United States and the world. So does that answer your question? And they're going to use them as education, history, and painting. So they have my book and writing and my mother's painting. So this will be yours, the last question. Hola, Mrs. Pankowski. Yes, I'm Spanish. Yo también hablo. También hablo, Mrs. Pankowski. Ay, yo ahorita escucho. It sounds really good. What is your message as another immigrant? I'm an immigrant myself. What is your message for all of us as immigrants to this country? Who came here to find a good life and good opportunity? What is your message for all those that are, like, who fears for, you know, the new government and all of these? What is your message of hope for those who think they're going to be deported or not? Well, this is a very difficult question to ask. I cannot predict. I wish all of my habits, you stay here. But the message is, have a hope. And I don't know, you're working or studying. This is so important. Because I think, let yourself know that you are here and you're a productive citizen and you access to the country, not the burden. You work, you pay taxes. You should be welcome here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. In the darkest minute in my life, while we have a hope, somehow we'll survive, it's going to be okay. Thank you so much. Program, I want to acknowledge Nowcast, who is streaming live this session. The Executive Director, Charlotte Ann Lucas, who's back here. You will, this session will be archived and can be accessed later. Tell your friends that it's available and this program will also be promoted via social media through Nowcast as well as through the San Antonio Public Library. Again, thank you for coming. Thank you, Hannah, for sharing your story with us. We greatly appreciate that. Thank you.