This Monday, Jan. 27 marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, designated by the United Nations General Assembly as a day of commemoration for the six million Jews who were killed in the atrocities of the Holocaust.
“When you hear about horrible things that are done to your own people, you can close down. You can be full of hatred. You can be full of prejudice. You can decide that you want to have revenge or avenge it,” said Mona Golabek — concert pianist, performer, author, and daughter of Holocaust survivor, Lisa Jura — as she reflected on what led her to establish the Hold On To Your Music Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to telling her mother’s story through books, music, and performance.
“I was very lucky. I had parents that said, ‘go to the light.’”
Among those victims were Golabek’s grandparents, who sent her mother, a talented 14-year-old pianist, from their home in Vienna to take refuge in a London hostel via the Kindertransport as the Nazi regime took hold of Austria.
Through the foundation, established in 2003, Golabek travels the globe, embodying and relaying the spirit of her grandmother’s final words to her mother: “Hold on to your music. It will give you the strength to face an uncertain future, and I’ll be with you always through that.”
Like the Kindertransport itself, which rescued more than 10,000 refugee children through the organization and support of Jews, Quakers, and Christians of many denominations, The Hold On To Your Music Foundation’s efforts illumine and inspire folks of all religious, spiritual, and ethnic backgrounds.
Touching countless lives, from children in South Africa, to Vietnamese refugees in Connecticut, to Muslim students in London, to religious leaders, such as former Archbishop of the Diocese of Boston, Cardinal O’Malley and former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Lisa’s story of resilience has transcended religious difference and exemplified our shared human experience.
“I walk the world, as I often say, a proud Jew and the daughter of refugees,” Golabek shared. “But I think I feel myself more a citizen of the world and I’m very curious about other religions and backgrounds and ethnicities. I just think that each one of these religions must find a way to never spew hatred to another group. And I think too much, through history, we have seen that.”
As each passing year brings the loss of more Holocaust survivors who can speak firsthand of the tragedies they endured, the threat of AI’s distortion of historical narratives, and rising polarization and prejudice against marginalized communities, Hold On To Your Music believes in the profound power of educators to keep Holocaust history — and the values of resilience and shared humanity that stories like Lisa’s make accessible for audiences of all backgrounds — alive.
One way the foundation brings Lisa’s narrative and dream to classrooms across the globe is through the Willesden Project, a partnership with USC Shoah Foundation named for Willesden Lane, the street in London where Lisa Jura lived as a refugee. The project offers interactive Holocaust education resources to students and teachers.
Another initiative, Willesden Reads, has provided millions of K-12 students with one of Golabek’s books and the opportunity to experience her one-woman show — a retelling of Lisa’s story, interwoven with the same powerful piano pieces that she clung to through adversity, now proudly and tactfully performed by her daughter on stage.
The foundation’s Program Director Rebecca Keel, a lifelong educator herself, with a background in anti-bias education and a heart for social justice, works to strengthen and expand these programs. In her role, Keel facilitates collaborations between Hold On To Your Music and institutions like The Institute for Holocaust Education in Omaha, Nebraska and the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. She finds working directly with teachers through professional development (PD) sessions to be the most rewarding and impactful part of her work.
“What I find often, is in those moments when I’m working with teachers in PD, that Mona’s mother’s story resonates so deeply with teachers that they are moved, often to tears,” shared Keel. “Not only [does] it move them — the story itself — and they make their own personal connection, but then at the same time, they’re weighing the stories that their students bring into the classroom, and they feel that responsibility to create a space where their students feel safe to explore: What does it mean to be refugee. What does it mean to be separated from your family? What does it mean to hold on to hope?”
Raised in a Southern Christian household, Keel is now a practicing Buddhist, and acknowledges the synergy between the ideology that inspires her to remain optimistic in trying times and a principle that is so central to the Hold On To Your Music Foundation: “If we want to have a country or an international community that is focused on hope and the central humanity in each of us … then that’s the story we need to tell,” she said. “And that’s the story that we will operate in.”
As the Hold On To Your Music Foundation looks to the future and continues the work of ensuring Lisa’s story endures for generations, its leaders look to the individuals who see their own adversities in Lisa’s hardships and find hope in her triumphs to perpetuate her legacy.
“The one thing that really matters, maybe the most,” Golabek said, “is intelligent, thoughtful, empathetic education, where young people are taught to never regard another human being as less or more, but to realize that we’re on this earth together and we have to find a way.”
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Interfaith America is pleased to announce Mona Golabek will be performing at the 2025 Interfaith Leadership Summit.
