2023 30thAnniversaryCommemorativeBook SINGLEPAGES-small - Flipbook - Page 40
PRESERVING
CONNECTIONS
We have a more
unique connection
to the United States
Holocaust Memorial
Museum than many of its
supporters. Joyce’s father, Jacob
Yessenow, as an 18-year-old
infantryman in the 11th Armored
Division helped to liberate Austria’s
Mauthausen concentration camp
on May 5, 1945. Jacob took many
difficult-to-view and haunting
pictures of the dead and dying
victims in the camp. Though he
personally was able to bear witness
to these atrocities, we, as children
of a liberator, were able to donate
these historical photographs to the
Museum several years ago, so that
the pictures could reach the widest
possible audience.
Before our Danube River cruise
several years ago, the Museum
arranged for us a personal guide
who took us to Mauthausen from
the boat’s stop in Linz, Austria.
Remarkably, once there, the
admission staff said that we were the
first children of liberators to have
38 l UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM LEGACY OF LIGHT GUARDIANS
ever visited the camp. They were so
overwhelmed that we came to visit,
they literally hugged us. Absolutely
no one else was there, making the
site even more eerie. We noticed
many homes amidst the bucolic
surrounding hills in which people
had lived back during the war. From
these homes the citizens could not
avoid seeing the concentration
camp’s imposing walls just 50 yards
away from the soccer field where the
guards frequently played men from
the village. Without the Museum’s
connections, we would not have
experienced such a meaningful day.
We believe that people need to be
continuously educated on the facts
of antisemitism and the Holocaust,
and lessons learned from it, so that
such an event is remembered and
never repeated. We hope that our
gift of photographs to the Museum
can play a small but meaningful and
impactful role in this endeavor. Our
Legacy gift will enable individuals
worldwide to experience the
transformative, educational, and
personal-growth opportunities
afforded by the Museum.”