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September 1, 2024 marks what would have been the 104th birthday of Holocaust Survivor, Naomi Kaplan Warren, and the fourth anniversary of the Auschwitz Institute's Warren Educational Policies Program, which celebrates the life of Holocaust Survivor Naomi Kaplan Warren.
Born in Eastern Poland in 1920, Naomi survived three concentration camps - Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen Belsen - during the Holocaust. After fleeing Europe, following the end of the war, she arrived in New York in March 1946 where she reunited with her father, Samuel Kaplan, and met her second husband, Martin Warren. Soon after, the young couple settled in Houston, Texas, with their three children - Helen, Geri, and Benjamin - and established a food imports company that would become a thriving business. Following Martin's tragic premature death in 1960, Naomi took on the responsibility of the family’s business, leading a successful professional career until retiring in 2002. A much adored mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Naomi was the driving force of her immediate and extended family. In the last years of her life, Naomi dedicated an important part of her time to sharing the lessons of the Holocaust, as well as her own story, with hundreds of young teachers, transforming her story of persistence, caring, and hope, into a source of inspiration for future generations. For Naomi, education was central to ensuring that others never endure the hardships she experienced during the Holocaust.
Renamed in September of 2020 to honor the inspiring life of Naomi, the Warren Educational Policies Program has been working since 2016 to develop the Auschwitz Institute’s educational programmatic approach to mass atrocity prevention, conducting several projects in El Salvador, Brazil, and more recently, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.To date, the Auschwitz Institute has engaged more than 5,500 teachers and an estimated 165,000 students through WEPP’s work. During this period, the program has also conducted several research projects at the intersection of education and prevention, while forging partnerships with organizations doing similar work worldwide to jointly advance this urgent agenda.
To celebrate these achievements, and most importantly, to remember Naomi, the Warren Family and the Auschwitz Institute will organize an event on September 15, 2024 at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) to celebrate her life and her commitment to education as fundamental to promoting positive change in the world.
If you would like to support the Warren Educational Policies Program on its fourth anniversary, please click here.
