In this episode of The Last Generation, Civil Rights, three generations of the Jenkins family, grandfather Crawford Jenkins, his son Jayanta Jenkins, and grandson Phoenix Jenkins, come together to talk about freedom, legacy, and what gets passed down.

Abe reflects on the Civil Rights era, his friendships with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and being drafted into the Vietnam War while still denied full freedom at home. In the midst of that contradiction, music became his refuge, and a way to feel free.

That love of music, and what it made possible, was passed to Jayanta, and now to Phoenix. This conversation captures how freedom isn’t only fought for, it’s felt, heard, and carried forward through family.

This episode marks the beginning of a powerful new chapter of The Last Generation, expanding the project’s mission beyond the Holocaust to explore the lived legacy of the American Civil Rights Movement through intergenerational conversation.

Hosted by Maddy Kramer, the episode introduces collaborators Jimmy Smith and Sequel Smith, whose work and lived experience anchor this chapter with depth, urgency, and humanity. Together, they set the intention for what’s to come: preserving firsthand stories from elders who shaped history, alongside the grandchildren who carry those stories forward.

The episode also introduces Agosto as the project’s new music house partner. Agosto’s original compositions establish the emotional tone of the chapter, underscoring the intimacy, weight, and resonance of these conversations.

This is not a history lesson. It is a living archive.
A space where memory, identity, and legacy meet, across generations, across movements, and across time.

This is the story of Evelyne Appel, a French girl who survived the war thanks to the courage and bravery of her parents and sister.

Evelyne’s family was deeply involved in the resistance, helping Jews escape persecution with clever tools like handbags with false bottoms, filled with forged papers.

Evelyne endured a challenging childhood, including a perilous solo journey across the border to Switzerland to ensure her survival. After the war, Evelyne and her family relocated to New York, where they rebuilt their lives.

The story of Doris and Meir is like many others during the Holocaust. At that time, they were children who lived full and happy lives. They played, they had large families, who spent time with them. Doris lived on a farm in Czech Republic, where she played with her cousins ​​like any child of the same age. She was only 10 years old when the war began and her family had to separate to escape from the Nazis. United States, Israel, different countries in Europe. The family that until then was united, had to separate. This is also the story of her husband, Meir, whose family was dedicated to the textile business, and had to leave everything behind when the Nazis took them to the ghetto, and then, they were separated and taken to concentration camps. Meir had to live 6 years in concentration camps, in Auschwitz and Mauthausen. He was only 13 years old when they took him, his mother, and younger brother to the camps, after taking his older brother and father, whom he never saw again. Today, we will hear their stories.

Mark Schonwetter was a young child in Brzostek, Poland, when Germany invaded, and his family was forced out of their home. After his father was taken by the Gestapo, Mark fled along with his mother and sister. They spent time in a nearby ghetto and then went into hiding in the Polish countryside, where they remained for three years. By the end of the war, Mark was one of only a few surviving Jews from Brzostek.

Hate is an issue that we face today as a society. When it seems like we are moving towards a better, more humane understanding world, we still encounter individuals who are racist, spread messages of hate, and are supported by followers who emulate and cheer them.

We have already witnessed the destructive consequences of these hateful words and leadership, yet it appears that some have not learned from history. Education is the best tool we have to fight hate and teach new generations to build a more just and inclusive society based on memory. Listening to and learning from the stories of those who came before us enables us to comprehend their experiences and avoid repeating historical mistakes.

This live episode is a special collaboration with The Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation. 

Mark and his family join us to tell their story, educate, and set an example of resilience.

Anti-Semitism is not an isolated event on the other side of the world. Today, we see the consequences of hate more clearly. Jews, Muslims, Christians, and atheists, are all affected by hate in different areas around the globe. Anti-Semitism and hatred are not a problem for Jews, nor for Israel, nor for holocaust survivors only. This is everyone's problem.

These days, we are surprised by the amount of anti-Semitic comments we read on social media from people justifying the horror that is happening. Today, we see them, and we pay attention to them because the majority of people condemn war and hate, and we cannot understand how anyone can justify this. But the reality is that they are always among us.

Our contribution today is to deconstruct all those messages and confront people who speak from hatred and ignorance. Spread accurate information, listen to those affected, and understand that racism and anti-Semitism are everyone's problems. Hate begins with ideas and words, with a joke that you may think is innocent, and it turns into prejudice, insult, and explicit discrimination. And the path to the worst consequences we have seen throughout history and are seeing again today is not that long.

Rosalie was born in 1931 in Velka-Kriva, Czechoslovakia. She was the

youngest of six children, five girls, and one boy.

"During Passover of 1944, she and her family were deported to a ghetto. After 2 months in the Ghetto, Rosalie and her family were transferred to a concentration camp." 

Her family was divided into different lines, each line would determine if they would be dead or alive in a matter of seconds. 

Rosalie's love for her siblings and the idea of being all together as a family is what saved her from the gas chambers. Sadly, her mother and brother were killed.

All five sisters, Helen, Charlotte, Lenka, Rajzi, and Rosalie, survived together, and were later reunited with their father. 

Rosalie has dedicated herself to teaching her story to others, believing she

is the voice for all those silenced by the Nazis. She currently lives in New York.

We barely stop and take a moment to feel grateful for our siblings. Rosalie's love for her siblings, it's what saved her life from being killed in the gas chambers. 

On January 6th, 2023, Rosalie got together with his grandkids Jared, Daniel, Erik & Matthew to talk about how surviving the Holocaust changed her life forever. That experience changed the way she raised her children.

She emphasized how important it was for her that her children had a higher education, something the Nazis took away from her growing up. 

Until today, 79 years after Rosalie was put in the cattle car to Auschwitz, she still gets transported back there whenever she hears a train whistle.

“One person at a time”, says Rosalie Simon. It is important that as a community, we can get to tell our story one person at a time, and that those who still don´t know, believe, deny or promote what happened during the Holocaust, learn, know and collaborate with memory. Because knowledge of history and memory are what save us from the horror happening again.

There are many people who still don´t know this part of history, and that is why, each person with a Jewish identity understands and learns from a very young age that they have a duty greater than all the rest, to be proud of that identity, of the strength of their ancestors, and to communicate, so that strength continues to live. Because there is a collective history that precedes our individual history.

We fight ignorance and discrimination with pride, courage, and teaching who we are and what our community has faced. And because of that, each testimony that we hear from our grandparents, who lived it first hand are the most valuable treasure. We will continue transmitting them, because we are the last generation to hear it from their own words.

Kristine and Marian Keren´s stories are two tales of heroism and strength during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Kristine was born on October 28th, 1935. She was just eight when she had to find refuge with her mom, dad, and younger brother. Her story is unlike many, as Kristine and her family, helped by sewer worker Leopold Socha hide under the sewer system for 14 months. Sadly, Socha passed away right after saving the Keren family. 

Marian was born on July 8th,1935; his story is one almost all of us are familiar with: Schindler's List. Marian's parents had no choice but to leave him with theirhousekeeper, knowing it was the only way to save him. Undoubtedly, the hardest decision a parent could ever face. 

Marian's new mom Ianina Nikolaievich started working as Oscar Schindler's housekeeper. One day, the SS came looking for the hidden Jewish boy and they had to prove that Marian was her kid with a made-up story, which saved his life.  

Kristine & Marian met as teenagers after the war had ended. Years later, they met again, this time in Israel, and they got married in the 60s after reconnectingat a party. They moved to the United States in 1968. 

Together they had two sons, Doron and Roger, and the family kept growing; now Kristine and Marian have five grandkids.   

Both stories are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of incredible adversity.

Rachel remembers vividly the day the French police knocked on her door Sunday, July 19th, 1942, in her tiny french village, Compiegne. They were looking to arrest her parents because they were Jewish, and that was the last day Rachel and Leon saw their parents ever again.

When we think of the Holocaust, we think of the tragic stories, the survivors who have been part of deadly concentration camps, and the survivors who escaped that horror. Ruth wouldn’t call herself a survivor, and she felt ashamed to take away from the people that had a worse experience than her. Her grandchildren reminded her that what she lived through is also surviving and that her bravery is one of the things they admire most about her.