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'We don't want this to happen again': Three generations reflect on Holocaust museum visit

The women took the trip together after the death of their husband, father and grandfather, who survived the Holocaust.

DUNWOODY, Ga. — Sifting through the past, Helen Hersch, her daughter Nica Hersch Tallman, and granddaughter Shelley Hersch are deeply connected to their history.

The three generations of Hersch women took a special trip with personal meaning, traveling to Washington, D.C. To visit the U.S. National Holocaust Museum.

"It brought back so many memories," Helen said.

It follows the death of Harold Hersch, their father, husband, and grandfather, who survived the holocaust.

“Due to my husband, these things were very real to me,” she said.

Harold Hersch, affectionately called "Poppie" was more than a beloved family member, he was also a Holocaust survivor.

"Love of people, and wanting to help," said Helen, of her husband.

The two were married for nearly 60 years.

"My dad didn't have any hate," said Nica.

That's the legacy he left behind despite the years of mass killings and persecution suffered by Jewish people - a history on display for the nation to see and remember at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

"The pictures were so real to me, you could almost reach out and feel the faces," said Helen.

The three women traveled to it see for themselves, together, as a family.

"Everything is being preserved, so people can come and say ‘yes’ is true, it was not made up," said Nica.

An increase in those hoping to discount history and anti-Semitic actions has many concerned.

The Anti-Defamation League found 1,879 attacks against Jewish people and institutions in 2018 alone. It’s the third-highest year since the group started tracking the data in the 1970s.

That includes the deadly mass shooting at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue that killed eleven people, and a recent increase in Holocaust denial groups.

The Southern Poverty Law Center tracked no such groups in 2000 but identified eight across the country in 2018.

"We don't want this to happen again,” said Nica. "We don't want it to happen to anybody, not just Jews, to anybody."

"I'm going to be the last generation to ever witness a Holocaust survivor speak. To ever meet someone who went through those atrocities, someone who survived it and it was able to tell the stories, and I think that experience makes it so real and hits home," said Shelley.

That's why remembering the lives and stories of those like their Poppie and other survivors is so important - especially for those who will carry the past forward to avoid repeating it in the future.

"I hope that it changes the way Americans see the world and see other humans, as humans and not as others," said Shelley.

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