Every Sunday for almost two months, Bryn Mawr College junior Cavan Helmering and Haverford College student Callie Rabins visited with 94-year-old Betty Sved, a Holocaust survivor, in her Lower Merion home, writes Sasha Rogelberg for Jewish Exponent.

Sved, who was born in Czechoslovakia, was sent to Auschwitz, then a Czechoslovakian factory, which was eventually liberated by United States forces.

The three bonded through The Joseph Gringlas Stories That Live, a Holocaust storytelling fellowship created by the Rohr Center For Jewish Life, the Chabad house for Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore College students.

Students are matched up with Holocaust survivors who share their stories. During the fellowship, the students create projects where they retell those stories.

For their retelling project, Helmering and Rabins created a book telling Sved’s story. On certain pages they included a QR code so readers could scan to hear Sved tell her story firsthand.

Since Stories That Live began in 2015, the program has grown to include more than 60 students across six Jewish college communities nationally.

“They’re timeless, inspirational experiences,” Rabbi Eli Gurevitz, head of the Rohr Center for Jewish Life, said.

“All those moments, they’re not just nice little YouTube moments. They are moments that live with people and really change lives and allow people to connect and be inspired and understand their identity and understand the world.”

Read more about the fellowship at the Jewish Exponent.

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