Dr. Cynthia Seton-Rogers, academic and outreach events manager at UT Dallas’ Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, has partnered with Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn to establish the first North Texas branch of Living Links – an organization created to empower grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.
Living Links supports nearly 30 3G (third generation) communities across the United States, as well as in Canada and Australia, to foster engagement with Holocaust narratives. The group amplifies the voices of 3G survivors and works to preserve their stories, which might otherwise be forgotten. It partners with the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation, a global leader in Holocaust research and testimony.
“Living Links is an international organization. It was founded a few years ago, and then it partnered with the Shoah Foundation out of USC, which is huge in the field of preserving Holocaust testimonies,” Dr. Seton-Rogers said. “The Shoah Foundation houses thousands of survivor testimonies, so it’s the perfect partnership.”
Rabbi Cohn reached out to Living Links after noticing the group had no presence in North Texas. Around the same time, Dr. Seton-Rogers contacted the organization separately about starting a Dallas-Fort Worth branch. Living Links connected the two advocates. “They put me in touch with Rabbi Cohn, and she and I have been working together, trying to get everything off the ground,” Dr. Seton-Rogers said.
Dr. Seton-Rogers has worked at the Ackerman Center for more than 16 years. She began in 2009 as a research assistant while pursuing her graduate degree at UT Dallas. After earning her MA in history of ideas in 2011, she went on to complete her PhD in history. She received her doctorate this May.
“I come to this from the perspective of a historian and through my work with the Ackerman Center, since I’m not a 3G,” she said. Her personal connection to the Holocaust legacy stems from her husband, whose grandfather was a Holocaust survivor from Lithuania. Her children are fourth-generation descendants. “As the wife and mother of survivor descendants, working to preserve their family history is very important to me,” she said.
The new group, 3G DFW, aims to provide two core resources to the Jewish community in North Texas: a supportive network for descendants of survivors and a speaker training program. The training equips 3Gs to share their grandparents’ stories in classrooms, community centers, and other public settings.
“The survivors are no longer with us. It’s important for their stories to be remembered. The third generation is that voice that will tell their grandparents’ stories,” Rabbi Cohn said.
Rabbi Cohn has served as adjunct rabbi of Congregation Beth El Binah—an LGBTQ+ inclusive synagogue founded in 1989—since 2017. In January 2025, she became the congregation’s spiritual leader. She and Dr. Seton-Rogers are working together to build awareness and momentum for the 3G group. “She’s very creative with ideas of what we can do. I also have different things I can bring to the conversation, and connections with the Jewish community,” Rabbi Cohn said. “We’re working really well as a team.”
Looking ahead, the two leaders plan to let the group grow organically to meet the needs of local members. Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who are interested in joining or learning more can contact Dr. Seton-Rogers at cynthia.rogers@utdallas.edu or Rabbi Cohn at rabbi.holly.cohn@gmail.com.
“The Holocaust was a time when the very meaning and sanctity of the human being came under a radical assault. With the fading of memory over time, the generations borne into this world by the survivors become increasingly crucial to the preservation of that memory and to the testimony for the sake of all humanity. Therefore, our support for 3G Dallas in this hour could not be more needful. For the hours are rapidly passing,” said the Ackerman Center’s Hillel Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies Dr. David Patterson.
“I’m incredibly proud to be a part of the crucially important work Living Links is doing,” Dr. Seton-Rogers said.
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