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Michele Gillen exposed challenges of forgotten Holocaust survivors

We are grief-stricken over the passing of Michele Gillen. She was an extraordinary human being, whose compassion for people and meticulous reporting has created an enduring legacy of righteousness.

Twenty years ago, Michele’s groundbreaking series about the plight of Holocaust survivors living in poverty, and forgotten by society, forced institutions to address a human tragedy that had long been ignored. Her 2001 series, “The Forgotten Survivors,” ran four consecutive nights on the Miami CBS affiliate, 10 minutes each night, documenting destitute survivors in South Florida, Los Angeles and New York, who could not afford food, healthcare, or even a roof over their heads.

Michele was also in the forefront of exposing the wrongdoing of insurance companies such as Allianz, Generali and others that sold insurance policies to our parents and grandparents before World War II, but defrauded survivors after the war by demanding death certificates and original policy documents and using other horrible tactics to deny us our family legacies, an injustice that also continues to this day.

Most recently, Michele was engaged in projects to ensure that we survivors, and our experiences, would be known and remembered by today’s generation. She spearheaded a documentary called “Return to Auschwitz,” in which she and her colleagues chronicled our personal histories and the excruciating losses that we endured in the Holocaust.

We pray that Michele will rest in peace and that her memory will be for a blessing.

David Schaecter

and David Mermelstein,

Miami