Grandpa, how did you do this for a year and a half?

My grandfather swore that he would never go back to Europe after coming to America.

It was not an easy trip for him, for me, for my family.

Definitely one of the lessons of making it one of the lessons of the film was that this this trip was really not for him.

He understood even before I did that, the purpose of going back on that trip was for the next generation to see it and for us to capture it on camera and for us to be able to tell it going forward.

So I'm considered a third generation Holocaust survivor.

Three of my grandparents survived the Holocaust.

They had a lot of resilience, a lot of courage.

A lot of bravery.

And I like to think about that as traits that me and my family are inheriting from them.

But also being a third generation survivor comes with the responsibility, because we are the generation that is watching our grandparents pass, and we are the generation that is going to see a world where there aren't Holocaust survivors.

That's a very scary thought for me.

Most of the survivors that are alive now were kids during the Holocaust.

So the memories are limited and the stories are maybe shorter I know that fewer and fewer young people today get to learn about the Holocaust.

And there's a lot of denial and distortion out there.

And unfortunately, millennials and Gen Z are learning that the Holocaust never happened On all kinds of social media platforms.

So there's a unique role, I think, for the third generation.

We are the ones that are tasked with saying, "I remember.

I met survivors.

I heard their stories firsthand.

I've been to the camps.

I know what it looks like.

I'm going to share the lessons and what they taught me."

I'm understanding that we have to be meeting kids where they are.

And when I do sessions with schools and with students sometimes the conversations veer away from only the Holocaust.

A lot of the students that I speak with, their grandparents are immigrants or their parents are immigrants.

And what I encourage them to do is just talk to their parents and grandparents, bear witness, allow them to have conversations where they can cry and open up and share their stories.

Right.

That we only have so much time with the people that are older than us.

What I'm trying to do with this project and with other projects is make it personal.

Reading about a time period in a book, reading about a genocide in a history book, or being quizzed on it for your history class is very, very different than really understanding and having a relationship with it, empathizing with it, and really letting yourself be impacted by it.

There's scratch marks on the walls.

Let's go out.

The process of making this film helped me realize and feel empowered in my own responsibility as a storyteller.

And as I grow older every day, I just feel more and more like, this is an incredible part of my personal mission.

Not everyone is going to have the privilege or opportunity to meet a Holocaust survivor.

And not everyone is ever going to have the opportunity to travel to Poland, to see Auschwitz and learn about the history that happened there.

But my hope is that through projects like The Barn or other innovative Holocaust education projects, that people will bear witness, that it will just be in their mind.

And when they hear one day that the Holocaust never happened or that 6 million is an exaggeration, that they will be able to stand up and say, "Actually, I know that this is true."

I often receive letters or notes from students after sessions With fewer and fewer survivors coming to schools in person, with fewer and fewer people being able to meet them, just having that one kid say, "I'm going to remember Grandpa Karl and I'm going to tell it," and if he does to one other person, that's impact.

That's what we can do for survivors' legacy.

how remarkable and how much gratitude do I have to my grandparents and to the people who helped save them.

For me, it feels like the greatest opportunity and responsibility.

And just remember every day not to take this life for granted and to feel empowered that there is meaning and purpose in my being here and to carry that with me in everything I do.