Olivia Newman honors her mother, Emma Griliches Schneider, who worked as a nurse. In 1941, Emma’s husband was taken away from the family by the Germans because he was Jewish. He was never seen again; it is likely that he was killed at Mauthausen. Emma and her daughter Olivia secretly left Vienna, Austria, for Hamburg, Germany, where they lived as German gentiles. They suffered through air raids during the war, but they survived. In the years that followed, Emma tried to protect her daughter from anti-Semitism, and was quiet about her family’s heritage. She would make special bread on Fridays, cook latkes, light imaginary candles, and sing, but Olivia did not know the true meaning of this religious ritual, Shabbos, until she was much older.
The Nashville Holocaust Memorial