Throughout her life, my Grandmother told me stories about life in Vilna, Lithuania before the Nazis destroyed the Jewish community there in 1941.
A Lifetime of Experience
Teaching, Writing, Editing, & Speaking
With my Grandmother Millie Wineman Ron
Detroit, MI:1952 - - Southfield, MI:1987
Joanne and Žilvinas Beliauskas, Director of the Vilna Jewish Library, Vilnius, Lithuania: 2018
What an emotional moment to stand in a place where generations of my family had stood. I dedicated my presentation to my Grandmother and our precious relatives who perished in Vilna during the Holocaust.
Joanne at the Memorial to the White Rose Pavement Memorial, University of Munich: 2015
So profoundly moving to see and touch the bronze images of the pamphlets produced by the courageous, doomed, young German students who defied the Nazis and were caught and executed because of their actions.
Joanne with Hero of the French Jewish Resistance, Georges Loinger, Paris, France: 2018
Still can’t believe I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the 108th Birthday party of French National Hero, Georges Loinger. The room was filled with other heroes as well as some of the children and grandchildren of people they’d saved.
Joanne with Beate Klarsfeld, Paris, France: 2018
So grateful to have been able to meet one of my life-long heroes: world-renown Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld.
Lieu de Memoir
Le Chambon sur Lignon, France: 2018
Visiting the Lieu de Memoir museum with
Mayor Eliane Wauquiez-Mottein, in Le Chambon sur Lignon, the French village whose “Conspiracy of Kindness” saved 5,000 Jews during the Shoah.
My Grandmother’s sister Rivka and a brother Vilna, Lithuania:1938
In Vilna, Lithuania, my Grandmother’s sister Rivka and a brother tend to their dying father, Abraham Sklar Wineman, who passed away before the Nazis came.
With Faye Schulman
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 2014
What a joy it was to visit again with Partisan
Faye Schulman and give a presentation to the Jewish Genealogy Society of Toronto.
Faye Schulman and give a presentation to the Jewish Genealogy Society of Toronto.
Presenting at Limmud/AZ: 2016
What an honor it was to be a speaker and to be able to attend other outstanding
presentations at Limmud’s Day of Jewish Learning at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ
Joanne with Holocaust Survivor Henry Kronberg, Las Vegas, NV: April 19, 2017
What an honor to be able to give Henry Kronberg a Daffodil in remembrance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto Remembrance Garden at Temple Beth Sholom. Henry organized the building of the garden by arranging for blocks, bricks, and stones from the Ghetto to be shipped to Las Vegas.
Joanne with Partisan Frieda Wattenburg
Paris, France: 2018
Lots of tears when Frieda and I saw each other again after 3 years. So blessed to know this extraordinary Heroine of the Jewish French Resistance, who helped save 100s of Jewish children.
Holding the Love Letters Amsterdam: 2018
Holding the love letters of young Dutch Underground activists Diet Eman and Hein Sietsma that are archived in Amsterdam’s NIOD (National Institute for War Documentation).
Joanne’s Zoom presentation for the
Sousa Mendes Foundation: December 2020
I was so honored and grateful to The Sousa Mendes Foundation for inviting me to share the true story of French-Jewish teenager, Frieda Wattenberg, who as part of the Jewish Resistance risked her
life every day to save 100s of Jewish children
during the German Occupation