About
The Unerasure Projekt is focused on reclaiming hidden legacies in ourselves, communities, and world. We build community across cultures and generations to transcend the history we’ve inherited by choosing to make our own. We facilitate dialogue and learning in schools, communities, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and business and advocate for hands-on engagement in Germany and beyond, and tap the inspiration of the arts to expand our audiences’ avenues of expression.
We envision a world free of hatred, war, and genocide, no longer leaving legacies of suffering for all those harmed by physical, structural, or emotional violence, whether directly, ancestrally, or both.
While The Unerasure Projekt has universal resonance and applicability, our initial programs relate to the devastating erasure the Nazis perpetrated and the acts of unerasure that are emerging and possible through survivors, refugees, and their descendants, as well as allies on all sides of this horror, wherever they now call home. As opportunities arise and our capacity grows, we hope to partner with initiatives that similarly seek to reclaim hidden truths. These include reparations for enslavement and other racial atrocities in the US, cultural genocide in Canada and beyond, rematriation of unceded native land in the US, healing for descendants of the Pinochet regime, the Tibetan diaspora, and too many others to name.
History
In July 2021, The Unerasure Projekt’s founder, Terry Mandel, received an email through ancestry.com from Anna Eith, a 16-yo student at Königin-Luise-Schule (Queen Luise School) in Köln (Cologne), Germany, researching the life of a girl who’d attended her school until April 1938. Unbeknownst to Anna, her subject, Ingelore Silberbach, was Terry’s mother. Through their intergenerational, intercultural collaboration, Terry learned as much about her mother’s early life in Germany as Anna did about what happened in the 57 years after Ingelore and her family fled immediately after 9 November 1938, what many call ‘Kristallnacht’ and Germans refer to as ‘Reichpogromsnacht’. Anna’s subsequent essay about Terry’s mother and aunt was published in a 2023 book, Jüdische Schülerinnen und Schüler and Kölner Gymnasien, for which Terry was invited to write the Foreword to give voice to the many descendants of Jewish students from the Nazi era whose lives were researched by students learning research science and history from KLS Professor Dirk Erkelenz. The school also laid a Stolperstein (“stumbling stone”) honoring Terry’s mother in their courtyard, along with stones for other Jewish girls who’d studied there before the Third Reich forced Jewish students out of the public schools. KLS was the last high school in Köln to expel their Jewish girls.
Stolpersteine in KLS courtyard for former students, including the founder’s mother
In October 2022, Terry traveled from her home in California to Germany to lay Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”) for her family, and was welcomed by the current owners of the family’s home, met with students keen to find ways to work with their ancestral inheritances and remembrance culture, and encountered ongoing erasure, both blatant and unconscious. This brief but profound trip inspired her to launch an organization dedicated to reclaiming hidden legacies in ourselves, communities, and world.
Gunter Demnig & Terry Mandel in Köln-Marienberg, 19 October 2022
The Unerasure Projekt‘s mission is to build community across cultures and generations to transcend the history we’ve inherited by choosing to make our own. We tap the inspiration of the arts, facilitate dialogue and learning, and advocate for hands-on engagement in Germany and beyond. Our vision is a world free of hatred, war, and genocide, no longer leaving legacies of suffering for all those harmed by physical, emotional, or structural violence, whether directly, ancestrally, or systemically.
Founder
Terry Mandel has spent her career helping diverse clients in healthcare, technology, nonprofit, and other sectors build bridges between their aspirations, operations, and communications.
Terry is a first-generation descendant of German Jews who fled Köln in November 1938 and a second-generation descendant of Belarussian Jews who fled Minsk and Pinsk at the turn of the 20th century. During a brief trip to Germany to lay Stolpersteine for her mother and immediate family in October 2022, she had several profound experiences that laid the groundwork for The Unerasure Projekt, launched in California and Germany in 2023.
Advisors & Key Supporters
Sandro Kenda
Rita von Schwartzenberg
Beate & Ansgar Neuenhofer
Dirk Erkelenz
Ambassador Menahem Kanafi
Klaus Lassleben
Bryan Fellbusch
Jürgen Hollstein
Dr. Joachim Oepen
Johannes Finkelstein
Dr. Ursula Reuter
Andreas Schmid
Gwyn Kirk
Amma Thanasanti
Stephen Mendel
Michael Levin
Cece Hugo
Michael Gelbart
Esther Shaw
Cindy Bell
Cathy Kessler
Aaron Boris Rothe
Anita Goldstein
Susan Werner
Lisa Brooks
Charles Vollmar
Tia Paquin