Andrew & Amy Cohn Co-chairs, USHMM ‘Poignant, remarkable’ evening

&ANDREW AMY

“I’m always struck by the survivors. I’m always struck by how “ deliberately they speak, how beautifully they speak, how artfully they tell a story.” ~Andrew Cohn

ABOVE: Strategic Advancement Committee Member and Annual Fund National Chair Amy Cohn with husband, Andrew Cohn, in the Andrew, Amy, Alexa and Matthew Cohn Archival Stack in The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center archives.

COHN

Phoenix couple instrumental in US Holocaust Museum’s ‘poignant, remarkable’ evening

ANDREW AND AMY COHN United States Holocaust memorial Museum 2022 Western Region • CO-CHAIRS Phoenix

ABOVE: Strategic Advancement Committee Member and Annual Fund National Chair Amy Cohn with husband, Andrew Cohn, in the Andrew, Amy, Alexa and Matthew Cohn Archival Stack in The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center archives.

THE TASK

UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

“It’s preserving that history so that it goes on in perpetuity.”

~Amy Cohn

of explaining how it came to pass that Nazi Germany and its collaborators would systematically murder six million Jews, roughly two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population, between 1941 and 1945 can seem an impossible one. Mountains of books have been written in an attempt to comprehend and explain the Holocaust; a plethora of scholars have spent their lives studying its context and aftermath; museum exhibits and lectures on the topic are plentiful. And yet, one would be hard-pressed to find a better instructor of that brutal period than someone who actually survived it. “I’m always struck by the survivors,” Andrew Cohn said. “I’m always struck by how deliberately they speak, how beautifully they speak, how artfully they tell a story. It is quite a thing for people that have suffered through as much as some of them have to be able to communicate the way they do. You need to spend time listening to them speak about these atrocities, which they do with a degree of rhythm and elegance you’ve never seen before -- it’s remarkable how they do it.” Andrew and Amy Cohn are Phoenix co-chairs of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “What You Do Matters” Western Region Tribute Event being held on March 30 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. Supporters from 10 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington) will gather at this year’s hybrid event to renew their commitment to ensuring Holocaust history is learned and that its important lessons continue to be conveyed.

There is wide concern that the Holocaust’s history is being distorted and misused at an alarming rate. Physical, verbal and online antisemitic events have risen in the last few years as well, and the Museum’s website states: “These events, part of a larger climate of hatred, remind us of the urgent need to share Holocaust history and convey its continued relevance.” Nights like the one planned for March 30 are intended to assist the Museum in its quest to engage more people and resonate with young learners throughout the world.

“It’s important to understand the Museum is an institution that not only has a bricks and mortar

museum on the National Mall of our capital, but it’s also a national institution that has broad reach across the U.S. and globally, and there’s a lot of programming that goes on in these various regions,” Amy said.

Andrew agreed. The Museum “does an amazing job” of providing programming and outreach for its mission: to preserve and protect history and to provide education for any genocide, not only for the Holocaust. “Its presence is not just in the past, it’s in the present, too, which is why it’s so important that the education is done,” he said.

“I think we’re seeing a lot of careless comparisons and equivalencies with the Holocaust today,” he said. “There’s also a protective cocoon you try to put around it to keep people from being able to hijack the story of the Museum, the story of the Holocaust, the story of the suffering, for their own benefit.” This sentiment is among the reasons for the tribute event and “why we have to keep pushing forward and getting the resources out there and teaching it.” The night itself is about creating an opportunity “to put people in a room together and highlight a story,” he said. “This is not about an individual. This is about the Museum and carrying forth the programs and what the Museum was put in place for, which is to protect the legacy and the memory of those who were lost and to make sure it never happens again.”

Andrew and Amy Cohn were first introduced to the Museum several years ago by friends Bill and Susan Levine, well-known philanthropists in Greater Phoenix. Since then, Amy has gone on to become national fundraising chair and Andrew was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by former President Donald Trump and sits on its executive board.

When Amy and Andrew first visited the Museum, the couple marveled at the diversity of people gathered in front of the exhibits, people of all ages, ethnicity and races. “You could see everybody was really impacted by it,” Amy said. “We had a bit of Holocaust education when we were younger, and we were wondering if that education was available for our children. We realized at that time that we wanted to get involved to make sure that this history stays relevant today, and continues to get taught.”

Pursuant to that goal, this year, the couple were excited to recommend highlighting the work of fellow Arizonan Steve Hilton for his longtime commitment to Holocaust education and the Museum itself. Steve and his wife, Suzi, will be honored during the event with the Museum’s National Leadership Award.

Steve is the son of Sam Hilton, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Sam and his family lived through the Nazi occupation of Warsaw and were eventually confined to the infamous Warsaw ghetto. Sam was deported to Majdanek, and because he lied about being

STEVE AND SUZI HILTON National Tribute Award Honorees

Suzi and Steve Hilton (Phoenix): The Hiltons are dedicated to honoring the memory of Steve’s father, Holocaust survivor Sam Hilton, and are part of the Museum’s Founders’ Society. Steve is a Western Region Adviser for the Museum and serves on its Collections and Acquisitions Committee. In addition to being the executive chairman and co-founder of Meritage Homes Corporation, Steve serves on multiple boards, including as chairman of the Banner Health Foundation board. Suzi also holds leadership positions at multiple charities, including recently serving as a vice chair for the American Heart Association Phoenix Heart Ball.

four years older than he really was, he was sent on to Buchenwald, which was liquidated in 1945. Then the inhabitants endured a death march to Theresienstadt. From there, he was eventually liberated and made his way to the American Southwest. Steve will tell the story of his father’s journey and how he was his family’s sole survivor.

JANE JELENKO National Tribute Award Honoree

Jane Jelenko (Los Angeles): Jane was the first woman partner in the consulting arm of KPMG, where she served for 25 years, and is a past member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Jane continues to hold positions on several corporate and community boards, including SunAmerica Funds and Cathay Bank, and is the founding president and a board member of Center Dance Arts. She is the author of Portraits in Black and White: Holocaust Survivors of Café Europa, a collection of stories and photographs of Holocaust survivors.

Additionally, Steve Hilton was involved in the process of passing Holocaust education legislation in Arizona, which was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey last summer and requires the state’s public schools to teach the history of the Holocaust and other genocides at least twice between seventh and 12th grades. Arizona is now the 16th state to require Holocaust education by statute, according to the Phoenix Holocaust Association and Arizona State University.

Andrew and Amy said Steve’s passion for the Museum more than any single thing he’s done made them want to see him honored. “Steve does this not only from a legislative standpoint, but because of his father’s and family’s direct involvement with the Holocaust,” Andrew said. And by honoring a Phoenician, they will be able to bring several people from Arizona to the California event, which could mean greater fundraising and ultimately, more people exposed to the mission of the Museum. Amy said Steve and Suzi’s friends and families have been especially helpful with that.

And Andrew and Amy believe that sharing stories like Sam Hilton’s are the most effective way of making an indelible impact on people. Books, exhibits, academic lectures can all give the Holocaust context and shape, but a firsthand tale of heartache and cruelty, both witnessed and endured, still seems the most effective tool of teaching the 20th century’s most bloodthirsty decade.

The couple recently watched a video of Sam telling his story and can attest to its effectiveness. Reading something in a book, Andrew said, feels more sterile but “when I see the tears streaming down a man’s face telling me that he went to go wake his father and his father was dead from starvation – those are words that you don’t forget.”

The Museum has been capturing these stories for years so that future generations will be able to watch and hear the survivors’ voices. “The Museum serves a purpose with this and it does an amazing job,” Andrew said.

Amy agreed that the most powerful moments of events like theirs is the chance to hear and meet Holocaust survivors. “It’s amazing to see them with their families surrounding them,” she said. And she believes that it offers the survivors some relief to know that their stories will go forward even once they are no longer around to tell them. That, she said, is one of the great missions of the Museum: “It’s preserving that history so that it goes on in perpetuity.”

Andrew appreciates the way the Museum acknowledges itself as a living memorial to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, as well as the millions of others, including the Roma, the disabled, political and religious dissidents, gay men, ethnic Poles and Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, without confining itself to the past. The Museum’s mission also involves promoting human dignity while confronting hatred and preventing further genocides in the present and future.

“It’s really important to continue to tell those stories. Whether it’s the Holocaust or whether it’s slavery -- both of those were terrible periods of time of the world. And it’s important to protect the message of both of those periods of time and make sure that you can convey what happened, who it happened to, why it happened and make sure it never happens again. And that’s the basis of what the Museum is, and it’s really important,” Andrew said.

The people who will be attending the March 30 event will likely have gone to their fair share of charitable events and “have eaten rubber chicken dinners,” Andrew

joked. But this will be a far cry from that. The Museum always brings a “high degree of elegance,” which he thinks is remarkable given the subject matter. “It’s one of those discussions that most people stay away from because somebody is afraid they’re going to trip over the wrong word, say the wrong thing, and offend somebody at some point, especially in today’s world, but the Museum does it with such a high degree of elegance. It’s remarkable to be quite candid.”

The evening will be filled with poignant and emotional moments, but often those are the most uplifting, Andrew said. He noted that you can tell the impact of the speakers when you watch people at the end of the night versus when they’re just walking in. “It has a lasting impact on people, and every year we lose more and more survivors and at some point we will have none, which is why telling these stories while they’re here, documenting these stories and making sure they’re available for future generations is a blessing.”

The Museum is a repository of all these stories and relics. Andrew and Amy see their job as helping transport this collection from the archives in Washington to share with people in other states and beyond. “That’s what our job is,” he said. “You need some way to connect people back to the mothership, so to speak, and that’s how we use these evenings and that’s what they’re for.”

In 2020, the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year, it was held virtually. This year’s event is hybrid, both available virtually and in person.

Those who attend in person will have the opportunity to tour the Museum’s exhibition “Some Were Neighbors: Choice, Human Behavior, and the Holocaust,” which is presently only on view in Poland and Germany. It looks at ordinary people involved in the Holocaust. “This includes those who did not give in to the opportunities and temptations to betray their fellow human beings, reminding us that there is an alternative to complicity in evil acts – even in extraordinary times,” according to a Museum press release.

In addition to the Hiltons, EDWARD LAZARUS & AMANDA MOOSE United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2022 Western Region CO-CHAIRS Santa Barbara, CA Jane Jelenko and the Tramiel family will receive National Leadership Awards and Peter Hayes, PhD and Edna Friedberg, PhD will be featured speakers along with various Holocaust survivors. The event will be live streamed on March 30 at 6 p.m. P.T. Arizona Jewish life is a media sponsor for the event. Shannon Levitt is a freelance writer in Greater Phoenix.

SAM AND TZIPI TRAMIEL

National Tribute

Award Honorees The Tramiel Family (Palo Alto, Calif.): Holocaust survivors Jack, z”l, and Helen Tramiel, z”l, were part of the Museum’s Founders Society and instilled in their family a deep commitment to philanthropy. Their children, including son Sam Tramiel and his wife, Tzipi, have carried on their legacy. They’ve been dedicated to the Jewish communities in which they have lived, including Toronto, Hong Kong, Japan, and finally Palo Alto, Calif., where Sam has held executive positions at Commodore and Atari and is currently a partner in Tramiel Capital.