| Volunteer Spotlight: Esther Finder |
| by Larry Garfinkel |
Esther is one of the Museum’s approximately twenty-five “virtual” volunteers; volunteers who do their Museum work from home. Now working with James Gilmore
in Collections Management, Esther is currently involved in the survivor transcript project. James mails Esther transcripts and testimonies of volunteer interviews done by others and Esther reads and edits them and returns them via e-mail to James. Thus, a two-hour commute is saved.Esther began her volunteer work with the Museum in 1989, when she was asked to participate in volunteer interviews. Though she worked with Joan Ringelheim for years in Oral History, Esther cannot remember who contacted her or how the Museum got her name. Even though at first she thought this undertaking sounded “too scary,” she wanted to do something to help the Museum, and agreed. Though the years, she has done hundreds of interviews with survivors for both the Museum and the Shoah Foundation. The daughter of survivors of Auschwitz, Esther’s connection to the survivor community is multi-faceted. She is originally from Chicago, and her father still resides there. Esther moved to the Washington area about twenty-five years ago when her future husband, Charlie (also the child of Holocaust survivors), went to work in this area. She is currently the president of The Generation After, the DC area group of children of Holocaust survivors. This approximately thirty-year old organization does educational and social programs, as well as projects. A recently completed project is the development of a Holocaust, Genocide Studies, Human Rights, Tolerance Center that will be placed in one of the Maryland public universities the next year. Esther has been a member of the task force working with the Maryland Educational System on this project. Esther is also one of the founders and remains very active in Generations of the Shoah International (GSI), an international network that serves as a link between survivor communities around this country and the world and major Holocaust institutions, such as this Museum. GSI was a natural outgrowth of The Generation After. Esther is also a member of the Yom HaShoah Committee for the Jewish Community Relations Council, which each year plans the local commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day The middle child of three, Esther is an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the Germantown Branch of Montgomery College. Esther and Charlie have two daughters: Pamela, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, and Jennifer, who is studying to be a veterinarian. Both Pamela and Jennifer volunteered at the Museum when they were in high school. A “stay at home” volunteer, Esther attends as many special programs at the Museum as possible. When asked what she has gained from being a volunteer, Esther replied that in addition to learning a lot, she has had the opportunity to meet and interact with so many wonderful survivors and Museum staff, been able to use her energy on a project so creative and constructive and to be a part of something that helps bridge the past and the future. |