Since 1979, Vida “Sister” Goldman Prince has been Chairman of the Oral Histories Project, at the St. Louis Holocaust Center (which became the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center In Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein in 1995 and is now the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum).

“I bless the day in 1979 when I read a small article in the St. Louis Jewish Light about the Holocaust Center that had been established in 1977,” said Goldman Prince. “I quickly became interested and phoned Alex Grobman, the center’s director. We met, and Alex tutored me over the next couple of months and supplied me with different periodicals to learn more about the Holocaust.”

What she read affected her deeply. She became in awe of people who endured so much emotional and physical pain.

“I knew I had found something I wanted to do for as long as I was able. Little did I know then that the survivors’ lives would become so much a part of my life,” said Goldman Prince.

Goldman Prince shared her feelings and visions with members of what was then called the Holocaust Commission, and the Oral History Project was created. The project is dedicated to recording and preserving audio interviews of not only Holocaust survivors, but also liberators of Nazi concentration camps and other non-Jewish witnesses living in Europe during World War II. The archive of oral histories is available on the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum’s website, stlholocaustmuseum.org.

In partnership with the Jewish Light, the Holocaust museum is allowing the Light to republish a portion of this oral histories project as a celebration of life and a crucial part of honoring and remembering the past. Over the past year, the Light has shared these stories with the community through its website and email newsletters.

Click here to visit all our survivor stories.