The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum doesn’t just preserve history—it gives it a voice. One of those voices belongs to 93-year-old Rachel Miller, whose powerful testimony is creating lasting impressions on a new generation.

For students from Macon Middle School, the three-hour bus ride from rural Missouri was just the beginning of a journey that would take them decades into the past through the memories of a survivor.

“It was important for us to get to like, learn this history and see what people other people went through,” says 14-year-old Gemma Smith, one of dozens of students who made the trip to hear Rachel speak.

Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish immigrants, Rachel’s early childhood was filled with music and laughter before the darkness descended.

“Oh my life was wonderful,” Rachel recalls with warmth in her voice. “I played with my friends. I went to school. And my sister, we were in the same school but she of course was in a higher grade, so she would walk me and take me home.”

But war’s shadow fell across her childhood when German forces entered Paris in 1940. Rachel was sent to live with a Catholic family in the French countryside for what she thought would be a summer away. Her beloved 15-year-old sister Sabine stayed behind in Paris, waiting for a promised birthday handbag from their aunt.

“The day after her birthday was the day she was taken away,” Rachel explains, her voice steady despite the weight of her words. “So she never got the handbag.”

That decision meant the difference between life and death. Sabine was sent to the Auschwitz death camp where she was murdered for simply being Jewish. And though Rachel didn’t know it at the time, not a single member of her immediate family would survive the Nazis.

Before meeting Rachel, the Macon students walked through the museum’s powerful exhibits—where photographs, artifacts, and personal stories bring the enormity of the Holocaust into focus.

Eighth-grader Grace Fry reflected on the experience: “It’s just really interesting to think about like, that really happened and it’s not just something that we’re learning about, but a person that really experienced it.”

In total, Rachel lost 93 relatives in the Holocaust. After the war, at just 13 years old, she made her way to America where she built a new life. And on this day, her resilience left an indelible mark on these young visitors.

“I think she was so strong because she was hiding. She knew life, survival skills and other stuff like that,” observed Leland Wallace-Chatman, another student from Macon Middle School.

As the students filed out, many lingered, wanting just a few more moments with this living link to history.

Perhaps what’s most remarkable about Rachel Miller isn’t just that she survived, but that she transforms her pain into purpose by sharing her story with successive generations of young people.

“Some of them will tell their parents, others will talk among themselves, but they’ll always remember me,” Rachel says with quiet certainty.

One woman reminding us that history isn’t just dates in textbooks, sometimes it walks among us… teaching lessons we cannot afford to forget.