From Generation to Generation

Profile from Spring 2018 issue of the Museum’s Planned Giving newsletter Generations

Legacy of Light Guardians Nat and Merryl Shaffir of Silver Spring, Maryland

Nat Shaffir is keenly aware of the challenges of preserving Holocaust memory today and in the future. “I’m 81 years old and I’m one of the youngest survivors,” he said frankly. As he knows all too well, survivors and eyewitnesses of the Holocaust will not always be able to share their first-hand testimony themselves. That’s why Nat tells his story tirelessly to as many people as he can. “If five people in a group of 20 or 30 listen to me, I feel I’ve done a good job.”

As a Museum volunteer since 2010, Nat gives tours to police officers in the Law Enforcement and Society program, which teaches participants about their counterparts’ complicity in the Holocaust. He also speaks to school groups in and outside the Museum, recognizing the importance of educating young people and making the Holocaust relevant for them.

Deeply concerned about increasing Holocaust denial and the persistent threat of genocide, Nat and his wife, Merryl, recently decided to take their support of the Museum to the next level. They set up a charitable gift annuity that benefits the Museum while providing a reliable source of income for life.

“We’re very committed to the Museum and feel that it’s important to support it in any way we can,” said Merryl, who works in the kosher catering industry in the metro DC area.

“We want the Museum to continue being the voice for those who have none,” added Nat, who had no voice as a young boy growing up in Romania in the 1930s and ’40s.

Nat and his immediate family survived the Holocaust in the Iasi ghetto. His father performed forced labor laying new railroad tracks, while his mother cared for Nat and his two sisters. The Russians liberated the ghetto in the spring of 1945, and Nat’s family eventually immigrated to Israel.

Of the 33 family members who during the war had remained in Hungary, where Nat’s parents had grown up, only one survived after being deported to Auschwitz.

Nat is as committed to being an avid runner as he is to Holocaust education—running six miles a day, six days per week—something that gives him the mental fortitude to continue sharing his story. He started running marathons at age 65 and has competed in 12 of them. “Running gives me so much more strength to speak out and make sure things like this don’t happen again.”

Having lost so many loved ones during the Holocaust, Nat is extremely proud of his five children and 12 grandchildren, two of whom currently volunteer at the Museum. Together, he and Merryl are passing on their commitment both to the Museum and to Holocaust memory to the next generation.