Good evening everyone and welcome. I am read a learner, daughter of Holocaust Survivors and trustee of the museum of jewish heritage, a living memorial to the holocaust. It is my pleasure to introduce the special evening, before we begin tonight i would like to say a few words about the museum. The museum of jewish heritage is the leading New York Institution dedicated to fighting antisemitism and bigotry. For more than 20 years the museum has challenged visitors intellectually, rigorous to understand the ways in which dehumanization of the people cannonball to deeply destructive ends. Engaging with history people have all ages and backgrounds inherits our mission to never forget and to come back combat intolerance that endures to this day but if youre interested in receiving any information of Upcoming Events please join our mailing list. A sign in sheet can be found at the admissions desk. I also invite you to become a member of the museums vibrant community. We are honored to have you with us tonight to celebrate the holocaust survivor author max eisen. At 15, mr. Eisen was saved from certain death at auschwitz by a polish physician who employed him as a cleaner in his operating room. Mr. Eisen 2016 memoir, by chance alone, chronicles his remarkable, persistent liberation and continued healing after the miraculous surviving auschwitz. By chance alone received ten of the top literary awards in 2019. Tonight we celebrate the launch of the books american addition. We had the privilege of hearing mr. Eisen in conversation with veteran producer of a 60 minutes [inaudible]. Leslie [inaudible] at the conclusion of tonights program we invite you to join mr. Eisen for a book signing in the lobby, by chance alone. It is available for purchase in our museum shop. We are honored to be joints tonight by [inaudible] acting council of general of the Canadian Council in new york, mark gordon, executive Committee Member of the usc show a foundation of counselors. Ellie rubinstein, National Director march of the living in canada, Phyllis Greenberg heitman, president of the international march of the living and [inaudible] with [inaudible]. We would like to thank our partners in planning and presenting tonights program, international march of the living, the counselor general of canada in new york, Hanover Square press, and the usc show a foundation. Before we begin please take a moment to silence your cell phones to avoid any disruptions during the program. Thank you. Now please join me in welcoming our first speaker tonight acting canadian Council General [inaudible] [applause] thank you, rita. I was not held up by the impeachment hearings in washington. [speaking in native tongue] what an incredible honor it is to be here with you tonight to pay tribute to her truly remarkable man and an extraordinary canadian. Mr. Max eisen. Since we learned of maxs incredible story my team at the consulate general has been seeking an opportunity to bring up mr. Eisen to new york. I have to state that for a man of his age he has a very busy schedule and it was not easy to get him here. Thank you, max, for joining us and thank you to hanover press usc foundation, international march of the living and that International JewishHeritage Museum for bringing max here this evening to tell his story. As a diplomatmany incarnations and spent time in europe in one of the most memorable opportunities for me as a family was to visit poland and to travel to auschwitz with my family and with my wife and with my son and to see and to share with them the tragedies and the horrors and the legacy of auschwitz. I am deeply and profoundly inspired by the courage and strength of Holocaust Survivors who, despite the depths of the evil they faced, and despite the complexity of their emotions, understand that the holocaust needs to be real for those who are not there and to reconcile the unspeakable horrors of the [inaudible] with the enduring faith in humanity. Canada has been profoundly shaped by the approximately 40000 Holocaust Survivors who resettled in our country after the holocaust. I must add canada has acknowledged the devastating results of our own inaction and apathy towards jews and the nasi era. In 1939 jewish refugees on board the ms st. Louis were turned away and to which are per minister issued a formal apology in our house of commons in november of 2018. The lessons of the holocaust are clear but need to be repeated. As Prime Minister trudeau has said never again is not a phrase, its a promise. A promise to stand up to the dangers of hatred and determination and the irreversible consequences of inaction and indifference. As a new yorker we know all too well and is recent horrific antisemitic attacks, right here in new york, had made it all too clear hatred is not yet run its course on this earth. We must be vigilant because what we also know is that the modern tools to promote hate are infinitely more sophisticated than going balls radio newspaper and film. Speaking with my colleagues and learning i am inspired by the sane that whoever saves a single life saves an entire world. Given the Ripple Effect of maxs unyielding commitment to educate the younger generations about the dangers of racism and bigotry i think we can say that by stating max this surgeon saved much more than one. The opportunity to hear a firsthand account from a survivor is becoming increasingly rare. I am so honored to be with you all here this evening to hear max share his story and i hope we will all leave here tonight with a heightened sense of duty to condemn intolerance and defend human rights in our everyday lives. Please welcome daughter of the holocaust survivor and senior [inaudible] eva traveled with mr. Eisen on the 2015 march of the living where she conducted the choir at the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in auschwitz. Aviva will be joined and accompanied by [inaudible] grammy Award Winning guitarist whose parents were Holocaust Survivors and who lost many members of his family in the holocaust. I thank you all and look forward to a wonderful evening. [applause] good evening. It is such an incredible honor for me to be here this evening and to sing at this wonderful tribute to max eisen paid one of the most remarkable people i have ever met. I have the privilege of traveling with max on the 2015 march of the living when i led the march of the living choir that year and so this evening i would like to share with you a few of the songs that the students and i sang on that very moving trip. I like to invite my colleague and dear friend, Eli Rubinstein to introduce and give context to the song that i will sing. [applause] good evening. The first song we will hear is a song called [inaudible]. The song was written by [inaudible] as she walked along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the land of israel in the early 1940s. She was born in hungary in 1921 because of the antisemitism she experienced. She emigrated to palestine in 1939 to help build the jewish state. She later returned to hungary to fight against nazi but was caught, tortured and executed by the nasis on november 7, 1944 but she left us a remarkable home in italy whose words are mined us of the beauty of nature and that sand in the sea and the rush of the waters in the thundering of heavens that she was robbed of far too early in her young life. My lord, my god i pray these things never end the sand and the sea the rocks and the waters the crash of the heavens the prayer of the heart the sand in the sea the rush of the waters the cry of the heavens the prayer of the heart [applause] every time we sing this song with the children on the march of the living and the very place that hitler sought to destroy the jewish people we know the spirit, the values, the lessons that it represents continues to live on. That weight we are making a statement, hitler you did not win, we will return here year after year reciting the words of the very people you tried to annihilate. Our next song is called [inaudible] and reflects a similar sentiment of hope and defiance written in the 12th century by [inaudible] the worsg relief that redemption would come to humanity. Many jews recited these last words before they were put into hitlers gas chambers. They believed a better date would arrive. [applause] thank you, aviva. It is now my pleasure to invite to the stage, mark gordon and member of the executive committee of the usc Foundation Board of counselors and he will now share with us a joint project between the foundation and the march of the living involving the testimony of max eisen. [applause] thank you, alex. On behalf of the foundation i am grateful to be here tonight to honor and celebrate max eisen and the release of his memoir here in the u. S. I want to thank our colleagues at hanover press for publishing and making this work so widely available. We want to thank the museum of jewish heritage for hosting tonights event and the counselor general of canada for the long support and involvement. We want to think the international march of the living for our partnership between the international march of the living and the usc foundation and for including us in this very auspicious event tonight. The usc nation began working with max and his family in 2019 through this partnership with the international march of the living and together these organizations have a joint project to gather the testimony of Holocaust Survivors in a 360degree video method in the authentic original locations. Together we are working to film at least ten survivors as they take us on a journey from their hometowns to the sites of liberation sharing their unique and personal stories and the places where they experienced them. Eventually, these testimonies will be deeply integrated into the programs and experiences created by the march of the living. Max is one of four survivors so far who have participated and been filmed on location. Our team traveled with max to the auschwitz, Buchenwald Foundation as he shared a story with us and with his son who was on the march for the first time we traveled to [inaudible], slovakia and his hometown of moldova also in slovakia or max recalled his childhood and invited us to share in what was likely im told his last goodbye to his hometown. He wants vibrant prewar Jewish Community that now exists only through him. This committee will not be forgotten thanks to his 306t degree on location interview and the loving details he so generously included in his memoirs. This is all in addition to the usc foundation having not one but two life history interviews of max in our visual history archive. Both were recorded in the 1990s and one was taken by the foundation and one is filmed by the sarah heinberg and both are accessible to the visual history archives and that testimony is among the 55000 survivor testimonies that are now acceptable or available through over 160 universities and museums on Six Continents around the world and there is, of course, his book which is what we are here to celebrate today. Now, as i understand it, max did not always wish to tell his story. In the prologue of the book he talks about the fact that when he first spoke publicly about the holocaust and his experiences at st. Joseph high school in toronto he was very nervous and said he would not do it again. I think this was a very common reaction among survivors at that time. If i may tell a personal story, i too have or have an uncle max or had an uncle max who survived auschwitz and emigrated to toronto where he built a family and lived a life. I visited my uncle max in the summer of 1990 shortly after maybe a month or two after i had been on a trip to Eastern Europe and have visited auschwitz and over dinner i told him my travels and he asked me maybe two, three questions about auschwitz and what i had seen there and after dinner his son, harvey my cousin, who was 34 years old at the time said to me, no, and my entire life that is the most i have ever heard my father talk about his experiences. I said why do think that is and he said well, his attitude is what would be the point, who would listen and we just be complaining to our children or to my children. And so, i think, as individuals we are all here and incredibly indebted to organizations like Usc Shoah Foundation and like the international march of the living, like the museum of jewish heritage and organizations like the hanover press who have created outlets or forums for and a structure around hearing and learning the stories of the survivors so they can be passed down and so we can learn from them and so that hopefully never again. Most importantly, of course, we are indebted to survivors like max who did speak again and again at countless colleges, universities, high schools, Public Events and i think he is led 21 trips to auschwitz where he is educated though students and adults and shared his experiences in addition to, of course, giving his testimony, participating in the 360degree video with the international march of the living and of course, publishing this memoir. Id like now to share with you a short video that shows the behindthescenes of our time with max and his son ed where we filmed the 360degree video that will be incorporated into the march of the livings program. In it you can see the intensity with which max has committed himself to telling this story. Could someone play the video . [inaudible] [inaudible] theres always been avoid their. He is able to speak to strangers more so in ways and expressing feelings that he is with his own family and that is one of my reasons to come here is to see if there was an opportunity to break through some of that. [applause] and now i would like to invite backup, kelly rubinstein the National Director of the march of the living in canada. [applause] thank you, mark. Im honored to be able to introduce the main part of our program, the part we are about to hear from max eisen himself. Ive been traveling with max on the march of the living for well over 20 years now any time continue to be inspired by his courage, his wisdom and his eloquence. I recall in the early 2000s been with max at Queens University in kingston, ontario and for a week and conference training our educators to travel with us to poland in the march of the living. As we were milling about the reception area of the Conference Center a group of queens of students passed by and they noticed one of our staff was carrying a torah scroll in the agent five books of moses written by hand on parchment that the jewish people have read from public leaf or thousands of years been observing the curious look on the student spaces max patiently asked lane to them what these schools represented. He concluded in his approach to speech by informing them that the holocaust the nazis burned thousands of sacred works like this torah they were looking at now. They also reminded the students of the coach quotes from [inaudible] they burn books but in the end they burn of people. The spellbound students were mesmerized during his short speech and only reluctantly troubled souls away to return to their schools activities. At that moment i realized that max was a born teacher, a natural educator who had both a desire and ability to share a story and the lessons of the holocaust with the most diverse audience in the clearest most successful manner. In that moment of teaching, as you heard, its something max replicated countless times as hes crossed canada sharing a story of love and loss with thousands upon thousands of people for the last 20 or more years. [inaudible] who comes from the same part of europe with max wanted something along the following lines. To be a jew after the holocaust is to have every reason to give up your belief in god and to give up on the jewish people and to abandon your trust in all humanity. I have every reason to give up your faith in god and to give on the jewish people and abandon your trust in all humanity but still not to do so. Max, like so many other survivors we no, perfectly example flies ellies sentiment. Despite having every reason to do so max did not abandon his faith or give up inhumanity but instead he continued today can dedicate literally every day of his life around the clock to teaching the lessons of Usc Shoah Foundation that it will never happen again. In that effort, max reminds us of a hasidic quote that said if you believe the world can be broken also believe it can be fixed. If you can believe the world can be broken, also believe it can be fixed. Thank you max from the bottom of all our hearts to not give into despair for not giving up on her world even though you had every reason to do so. Indeed, we are all the better for it. [applause] in a moment i like to invite to the stage my teacher, my hero, my mentor, max eisen. He will be interviewed by sherry from 60 minutes. Theyre currently producing a segment on maxs life and is familiar with maxs story. Max and sherry, please. [applause] thank you. Okay, im the substitute. [laughter] i dont do this for a living so please be understanding. Leslie is sad not to be here. She is a huge fan of max and really wanted to do this but wasnt able to get on a flight back early enough to be here. Youve got me. So, max. Why dont we start by talking about your life and why do we start by, with the beginning of your life, before these horrors. Tell us a little bit about your family, where you lived. I know it was czechoslovakia but it became a part of hungry so what was your life like, your home, your family before the w war. Czechoslovakia was a democratic country. We jews had plenty czechoslovakia. Our president [inaudible] we considered him our grandfather and i live in a town about 5000 people. We jews were 10 of the towns population and approximately 99 of the families were traditional Orthodox Jews and they were