Nancy Dershaw
Founder/President Nancy Dershaw Leads The Way For This Important Cause
Nancy Dershaw holds a deep connection to NEXT GENERATIONS of Holocaust Survivors. As the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, she heard firsthand accounts of the horrors her parents, Esther and Maurice Mandel, faced during World War II and how it affected their lives.
This knowledge inspired her to pursue a further understanding of the impact of the Holocaust. Dershaw felt compelled to leave her business and begin a new journey. She went on to receive a master’s degree in Holocaust and genocide studies from West Chester University of Pennsylvania in 2002, while being a wife and a mother of three children as well as a grandmother.
“It was clear to me that I had to be the voice for those who survived and those who did not,” she says.
After she moved to Boca Raton, together with other children of Holocaust survivors, she founded NEXT GENERATIONS in 2004 to continue their legacy and to keep their memories alive.
The mission of the organization, of which she is president, is threefold: to teach the lessons of the Holocaust by providing education to schools and academic institutions, to provide financial assistance to Holocaust survivors in need and to raise awareness of the multigenerational effects of trauma.
NEXT GENERATIONS is an established and well-recognized organization, implementing Holocaust education and awareness in educational, civic and religious institutions. The organization encourages people to speak out against bullying, anti-Semitism and hatred so history will not repeat itself.
Being a child of Holocaust survivors is in Dershaw’s DNA.
“It’s part of my moral compass; we can’t allow bullying and anti-Semitism,” she says. “We can’t be a bystander to all of this; we need to be upstanders. We are an organization that has heard the cries of the victims of the Holocaust, vowed never to forget and promised our parents that the world would be a better and safer place for all.”
NEXT GENERATIONS of Holocaust Survivors is located at 4781 N. Congress Ave., Ste. 1122, Boynton Beach. For more information, call 561-444-9135 or visit nextgenerations.org.
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