The Generations After, Inc.

Shoah Survivors & Descendants of Greater Washington, DC

Board Members

Generations After Officers and Board Members

Officers

Shelli Klein, President
Shelli is an educational assessment specialist and former teacher who has been involved with second-generation activities for many years, first as a member of Generations of the Shoah–Nevada and then as a member of The Generations After when she moved to Maryland 10 years ago. Shelli is an active member of the Book Group and co-chairs the Program Committee She is the daughter of survivors who met and married in a DP camp in Austria, where she was born. As an educator and as a child of survivors, Shelli is committed to Holocaust remembrance and education.

Olimpia Sulla, Vice President
Olimpia is a child of a Holocaust survivor and is married to a 3G, giving her a generational perspective on the impact of the Shoah on families and future generations. She served on the Generations After Board as membership liaison and as treasurer and is currently an active member of the Membership and Finance Committees and the Book Group. She is a representative of The Generations After to the JCRC of Greater Washington’s Holocaust Commemoration Commission. Olimpia had served as a liaison to a Jewish Advisory group with the Polish Embassy, bringing our voice to the international arena. Olimpia is a lawyer by profession.

Ruth Lipman Kummings, Secretary
Ruth is from a small town in Connecticut. Her mother and father were both survivors from Poland. A resident of Washington since 1970, she was a special education teacher for 40 years and is now retired. A member of the Book Group, she also co-chairs the organization’s Program Committee.

Simon Sznurman, Treasurer
Simon was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1947. Both of his parents lost their families in the Shoah. He came to the US in 1963 and attended high school and college, the latter while working full-time. Now retired, Simon worked for Fortune 500 chemical/oil companies, primarily in the finance and supply chain areas. He and his wife of over 50 years, Nina, have three children and two grandchildren.

Board Members 

Michlean Amir
Michlean is the daughter of survivors who managed to escape from the Czech Republic. She lost many close relatives in the Shoah. Her career has been as a librarian/archivist with a focus on scholarly research in Jewish history and, for the past 20 years, specifically on Holocaust studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Michlean is an active member of the Book Club and Writing Group and served as co-chair of the organization’s Program Committee.

Anat Bar-Cohen, Past President
Anat Bar Cohen is the daughter of two survivors from Poland and was born in the Turkheim Displaced Persons Camp. Anat helped start the 2G group CHAIM in Minneapolis, was a founding member and is on the Coordinating Council of Generations of the Shoah, International, the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors and Descendants, and has been on the Board of Generations After for many years. Anat has been involved in second-generation groups in Israel as well. She has lobbied for survivor welfare and given testimony on this issue to a Senate subcommittee. She helped start the Gen After Writing Group, edits the newsletter, and is a member of the Program Committee. She is retired from her work on public health and cancer issues.

Barbara Brandys
Barbara was born in Warsaw, Poland, to parents who both survived the Lodz Ghetto and who lost their entire immediate and extended families. Barbara emigrated to Israel in 1968 and moved to Bethesda, MD, in 1985. She holds B.Sc. in Chemistry and Physics and Science Education from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and M.S. in Library and Information Science from The Catholic University in Washington, DC. She retired from the National Institutes of Health Library where she worked developing specialized databases. Barbara joined Generations After 17 years ago as a board member and, since 2016, has chaired the Remember a Child Program Committee. Her mission as a Board member is to preserve the memory of the 1.5 million child Holocaust victims.

Barbara Heller
Barbara is an architect in Washington, DC. Her mother, uncle and grandparents fled from Nazi Germany to the UK in November 1939, one week after Kristallnacht. Among the artifacts in their possession was a family tree created in 1934 that traced the family’s German roots to 1685. The author of this family tree, Jakob May, was murdered in Auschwitz along with his wife. When Barbara’s husband, Mark Heller, died unexpectedly in 2017, she designed a headstone that included a family memorial listing the names of all Shoah victims in the family who did not have graves. As Mark said, “The best way to defeat Hitler is to reconstruct the European Jewish community that he tried so hard to destroy.”

Dena Litow Hirsh, Past Vice President
Dena is the daughter of two survivors who fought as partisans in Poland in an area that is now Belarus. Her mother was the only surviving member of her family. Dena started a group for children of Holocaust survivors in the Poughkeepsie, New York, area, and helped to run several Yom Hashoah programs before moving to Maryland with her family in 1995. She has been involved with the Book Group, coordinates the Writer’s Group, co-chairs the Speakers’ Bureau, and serves as a liaison from the organization to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington’s Holocaust Commemoration Commission. Dena is corporate manager of licensing and education and Potomac office manager for Washington Fine Properties.

Matthew Gever
Matt serves on the planning committee of 3GDC (Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors) as the newsletter editor. His parents Eli and Rocha Gever (nee Levinson) are both survivors from Latvia. In December 2018 Matt participated in a study trip to Poland that examined Polish-Jewish relations and the purported resurgence of Jewish life in Poland. When not working on Shoah-related events, he is active at Sixth and I synagogue and with DC Jews on Bikes. Matt received a Bachelor of Arts in History from UCLA in 1998 and a Masters of Public Affairs from the University of Texas in 2001. He currently works as an analyst for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Genie Glucksman
Genie, the daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland, grew up in the midst of a large survivor community in Queens, NY, and has been actively engaged with issues related to the Holocaust since her college days, when she was part of a 2G group. Genie is a retired Jewish educator and a lapsed sociologist. She conducted video-taped interviews in the Washington area for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, has taught courses on the Holocaust and has participated in planning Yom HaShoah Commemoration programs in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay-area, and for many years in Greater Washington. She has been a member of Generations After for 20+ years, having served as co-president with Anat Bar-Cohen and as vice president. Genie is a member of the Book Group and is co-chair of the Speakers’ Bureau committee.

Louise Lawrence-Israëls
Louise was born in Haarlem, Netherlands, in 1942. She and her family were in hiding during the war, and she was three years old when she was liberated. She lived in Sweden and Holland and then moved to the U.S. when she married an American medical student. She is a retired physical therapist and was a long-time representative of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Friends of Greater Washington before it merged with The Generations After. She is a volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Susan Miles
Both of Susan’s parents are survivors from Lodz, Poland, who lost their entire immediate and extended family. Originally from Queens, NY, Susan has a BS in Elementary Education from the University of Maryland College Park and a JD from Catholic University, Washington, DC. She works for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Susan joined Generations After in 1984, was a board member for a number of years, and co-led a monthly discussion group/book club. Currently Susan is an active member of the Book Group, Program Committee, and Nominating Committee. One of her interests as a Board member is promoting the many Holocaust programs available nationally, as well as in the DC Metro area.

Steven A. Sherman
Steve is an attorney and CPA, having spent most of his career with the U.S. Department of Justice and as a clerk for a U.S. District Court Judge. He also served in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Clinton Administration and was a past chair of the Federal Bar Association – Tax Section. Steve was a representative of the Justice Department on the Federal Inter-Agency Holocaust Committee that puts on an annual program. His Generations After contributions include acting as the principal architect of the organization’s revised Bylaws passed in 2018. Both of Steve’s parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland.

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