- Upper School
On Friday, May 10, our Upper School community had the unique opportunity to hear from a Holocaust survivor.
Judy Rodan was born in Berehove, Czechoslovakia, and was only six years old when her entire family was transported to Auschwitz with the last deportation of Hungarian Jews. Rodan's grandmother was the manager of a wooden barrel factory and arranged for the wife of the factory's foreman to smuggle Rohan out of Czechoslovakia.
She became a hidden child thanks to a rescuer, a Christian woman who helped her establish a false identity and connected her with the Sacre Coeur convent in Budapest, where she lived until the end of World War II. Rodan shared with our students that she feels deeply connected to our Sacred Heart identity after this experience, and it has shaped her outlook on the war to focus on the importance of family, love, and compassion. Her main message to the community was that there is no room for hatred, indifference, and racism.
We are grateful to Ella Filler '25, who is a Youth Ambassador with the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, for bringing this experience to her school community.