My grandmother, Miriam Sharir, was a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp. 1.1 million people were brutally murdered in this place of horror. Only 7500 survived by the time it was liberated on January 27th 1945.

Her unbelievable strength is what got her out of there. The fate of 9 other family members who were also deported to that camp was never to make it out alive.

I grew up by her side, always close by. During my teenage years, she gradually began to share with us some of her horrific experiences, as well as her incredibly heroic moments in the camp.

She never wanted me to go there. She didn’t think I had any reason to.

It has been a little over a decade now since she left us. Since then, I’ve been watching my nieces and nephews, 4th generation since the Holocaust, grow up and I found my reason.

Only two of them had the privilege to be around her in her lifetime, until they were 6 years old. I couldn’t help but wonder, how will they all remember what happened in the Holocaust? How will they pass it on?

They’ve never heard a thing from the woman who had been there; they never lived through the implications. I realized that I, as a 3rd generation, was the last link between those who experienced the horrors, and the future generation who only hear the stories.

Last year I went to the death camp, and documented the life of 4 generations since my grandmother’s survival. I gathered my family’s photos and scattered them in frames throughout the camp.

Scenes of a Jewish wedding, a Bar-Mitzvah or lighting of the candles in Hanukkah, were all that the Nazi’s sought to exterminate – and in that very place there would now be a proof to how they failed.

There was a storm that day. It was bitter cold, the winds were high and the rain was pouring with only moment’s break of a deceiving sun. The frames got wet and repeatedly kept falling, as did I. It was a physical and emotional struggle. But I kept thinking that nothing can even begin to compare to the struggle my grandmother went through in that place.

Although it’s very personal, I decided to put out this series of photos so that more people can learn the importance of never forgetting what happened just 73 years ago. January 27th also marks The International Holocaust Remembrance Day; on the date Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. I wish this day was commemorated by everyone, everywhere. We must all know that if we forget the past, the future can never be guaranteed.

Dedicated to my grandmother, her family members who were murdered in Auschwitz and the 6 million Jews exterminated during the Holocaust who did not live on to see their next generations.

More info: noamchen.com

Generations of survival: My grandmother (left) with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations

Our Triumph: 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations to the Holocaust

My grandmother’s wedding after surviving Auschwitz

My mother, 2nd generation, on her wedding day

My uncle, 2nd generation, on his wedding day

My grandmother with her son and daughter, the 2nd generation

My Bar-Mitzvah ceramony (3rd generation)

My sister, 3rd generation, on her wedding day

My cousin, 3rd generation, on her wedding day

My cousin’s family, 3rd and 4th generations, light the Menorah in Hanukkah

My grandmother with her great-grandson (4th generation)

My mother (2nd generation) and us (3rd generation)

My brother’s family, 3rd and 4th generations

My cousin’s family, 3rd and 4th generation

My cousin and her daughter, 3rd and 4th generation

My grandmother with her newborn 4th generation

My nieces and nephews, 4th generation

My grandmother, in the only photo of her’s I ever took before she passed away

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