Tribute to Dr. Helen Fagin - International Holocaust Remembrance Day - January 27, 2022

Helen Fagin was born in Poland. In 1939, World War II interrupted her studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She and her family endured unspeakable conditions in a Polish ghetto, where she ran a clandestine school for Jewish children. Dr. Fagin and her two sisters were eventually able to escape and lived under false identities until liberation by the Russian army, but her parents perished in Treblinka. After arriving in the United States in 1946, she concentrated on learning English and pursuing her education, eventually earning her B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Miami, where she was on the faculty for many years. She earned her Ph.D. while teaching full time.
In 1979, Dr. Fagin was invited to serve as an education advisor to Elie Wiesel and later was appointed chair of the United States Holocaust Council’s Education Committee, in charge of developing an educational track for the future U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. In 1993, President Clinton appointed Dr. Fagin to serve on the Presidential Commission for the building of the World War II Memorial on the mall in the nation’s capital. For her work, she received a Distinguished Service Medal from the American Battle Monuments Commission. She also spearheaded the creation of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach.