A Second-Generation Voice: Carrying the Legacy of Survival, Resilience, and the Power of Kindness
Dina Lichtman Smith was born in a displaced persons camp, placing her, as she describes it, “one and a half” generations from the Holocaust. The daughter of two Polish Jewish survivors, she spent much of her life focused on the future, building a career as an executive coach before turning her attention to fully understanding what her parents had endured.
Her mother survived Bergen-Belsen, losing her sister in the camp and witnessing the deaths of her brothers in the ghetto. Her father, Roman Lickman, survived nine camps, including Auschwitz, where he bore a tattooed number on his arm for the rest of his life. He was liberated from Dachau in 1945 by the 42nd Infantry’s Rainbow Division. In 2020, Dina was reading the Sunday New York Times and found a liberation photograph she had never seen before. Looking back at her from the page was her father.
Today, Dina speaks as a second-generation witness, carrying forward the message her parents instilled in their children: work hard, be kind, and accept others for who they are. Her core belief, shaped by everything her family lived through, is simple. Hate loses. Always.