HURLEYVILLE, NY — Conversation matters, said educator Hope Blecher Croney. Talking to each other matters. Listening is critical. 

The stories in question are those of people who have survived traumatic events to their community, their city or nation, or because of their ethnicity; harm inflicted because of who you are, who your ancestors were. And about the pain you carry.

But Blecher Croney’s project, Voices of Survivors, isn’t about pain, really, although suffering comes into it and is part of the stories. The focus is on compassion, community, sanctuary and—perhaps most of all—hope. 

A foundation of compassion

“It happened because of the Daffodil Project,” Blecher Croney said. That project honors the children who died in the Holocaust by planting daffodils. The flowers “become their voice,” she continued. “But how do we have voices for the people who survived and who have inspirational stories to tell?”

At a Daffodil Project event at the Livingston Manor Central School, two Holocaust survivors spoke to students. They were five years old and 11 years old at the time, and were elderly by the time they shared their stories at the school. 

It didn’t matter, said Blecher Croney. Not the age difference, not the nations of their birth. “The students went over to them, leaned down, they knelt down next to the survivors. They were so tremendously compassionate,” she said, her voice shaking a little. “They cared.”

Could this work for adults?

A safe place to share

Hence Voices of Survivors, an exhibit of mementos, art, music, poetry, prose—and speakers sharing their stories. Some are survivors themselves and others are the children or grandchildren of survivors—or the recorders of stories told by still others.

Visitors to the previous exhibit at the Liberty Museum & Arts Center “expected harshness,” she said. “And they came away saying it was not what they expected.” 

Because the stories of survivors and surviving are not always best expressed in the spoken word. Sometimes it takes a painting, or a piece of music. 

What’s important is that they feel safe in this place, safe to share or not share, Blecher Croney said. “When you go, there will be one piece that speaks to you, and one piece that you speak to.” 

You might have created a family tree in school. Usually kids know and talk to their grandparents, aunts and uncles; maybe they can go further back.

Sometimes this is the first clue that the past was not what we thought, Blecher Croney said, especially for Gen X or Millennial kids. The tree was full of blank spaces. “And the kids find out, eventually, that it’s because everyone was killed.”

The story was wrapped in a great, terrible silence. But that doesn’t make it better. The trauma “doesn’t just impact one person,” she said. “It goes down the generations.” Sometimes it takes the children or grandchildren to speak up. Sometimes nobody feels able to say the words. 

“Not all voices are raised in protest,” Blecher Croney said. “This project can be your voice.” 

Survivors and those who hear

“The point [of Voices of Survivors] is to bring people together,” Blecher Croney said. “It’s a community survivorship and a community conversation.”

Just because it grew from the seed of the Daffodil Project, it’s critical to remember that Voices is not just about the Holocaust. 

Speakers and artists planned for the exhibit at the Sullivan County Museum include Myrna Macarian, the daughter of survivors of Palestine (September 21); Tina Hazarian, daughter of survivors of Armenia (September 22); Nadia Rajsz, daughter of survivors of Ukraine (September 26); and Michael Dwyer, a documentarian who will screen his work on Hiroshima (September 28). 

Blecher Croney doesn’t curate the speakers in the sense of reaching out to them. Given the weight of the past, she’s asking survivors to contact her when they feel ready to tell their stories. (See contact information below.) 

The news for a century or more has been full of trauma on a massive scale and those stories bear telling too. By Voices of Survivors, if the tellers live here or have ties here—or on the internet for us to seek out. Consider Srebrenica, Rwanda, Sudan, China, Uganda, Syria. How has slavery affected Black people? What would Indigenous people say? What stories do women and girls from Afghanistan tell?

It’s storytelling as a means of healing.

Forgiveness—and hope

Consider the story of one survivor, who at age five in Austria watched Hitler march into the country. She survived the Holocaust and lived in America, never thinking she’d return. 

But she did, when her husband needed to make a trip there. “She went there and she spoke,” Blecher Croney said. “She brought enlightenment. And said, ‘It’s not the current generation that’s to blame.’”

“All these things, all these stories, bring the past to life,” Blecher Croney continued. “Maybe someone will see it now, and it will open compassion. And for those who survived, or whose ancestors survived—they can come here, tell it if they wish, and be safe.”

Voices of Survivors will be exhibited at the Sullivan County Museum from Thursday, September 12 through Sunday, September 29. 

The museum is located at 265 Main St. 

To see the full schedule and to watch for changes, visit www.hopescompass.org/community-project.