Terese Pencak Schwartz

Terese Pencak Schwartz (born May 2, 1947) is a writer, photographer, and publicist most well known as the developer of www.holocaustforgotten.com, [http://www.holocaustforgotten.com] , the website dedicated to the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Early life

Born (Teresa Maria Pencak) in a displaced persons camp in Wildfleken, Germany after World War II to Polish Catholic parents. Her mother, Ewa (Choma) Pencak, was a forced laborer in Germany during the war. In 1950, Terese and her family immigrated to the United States to the Polish American community of Hamtramck, Michigan; moving later to Warren, Michigan. During the summer before her junior year as a journalism major at Michigan State University, Terese went to Los Angeles to visit friends, and decided to make California her home.

Publicist for the "other" Holocaust victims

Soon after converting to Judaism and marrying into a Jewish family, Terese became interested in studying about the Holocaust. To her dismay she found very little information about the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her mother's family included an uncle who was killed in his home by Nazis searching for a Jewish woman they believed he was hiding. Compelled by family pride, Pencak Schwartz wrote and published "Five Million Forgotten", the article that, in February 1997, launched www.holocaustforgotten.com, the website devoted solely to the non-Jewish Holocaust victims. Pencak Schwartz's articles on the "others" have been translated into many languages and published n various periodicals and books.

References

"The Holocaust's Non-Jewish Victims," "Ethnic Violence" Contemporary Issues Companion, Greenhaven Press, Inc. 2000, pp. 56-59.