‘Be brave and keep lighting up’

I wanted to quickly take you on a little discussion about colors which represent darkness.

When I think about darkness, I think about where I was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to two parents who had fled — my mother from Auschwitz and Dachau, my father from a slave labor camp. And they made it, and I was born. So I represent someone who all my life I knew, I read, I heard about all these stories of terror and execution and deaths. The darkness. And I was born to them.

And when I walked through the museum yesterday, I saw the darkness, the numbers of destruction, and I heard the voices of those who shared their stories from prison, from losing members of their family, their communities, and I saw the light in their eyes.

Everyone had light, but the women who had light in their eyes struck me so clearly. They were so strong. Their lightness just came shining out. Their smiles, their transparency. And it made me say to them, you are very, very special. And part of what we need in this world today is more light. And you have to be aware, and you probably already are, that every time you send light going out from you, it changes the darkness.

You’re going to shed this light out to such an extent that they’re going to have no darkness to hide behind. So be brave and keep lighting up. Thank you.