April 28th, 2023 @ 9am is a moment in forever when I was blessed to meet the beautiful giant Trudie Strobel. Her physical stature can deceive one’s eyes to her towering humanity and unparalleled fortitude. Being a Holocaust Survivor, Trudie is referred to as a Qadoshem, meaning holy one, which I discovered not to be just a fashionable descriptor of her Jewish sanctity but a realized divine presence within and about her in spite of the sacrilegious opposition to her life.
It was first by miscommunication then synergy of spirit between Rabbi Shlomoelkan and Grafton Correctional Institution’s Chaplain Ron Smith that Trudie found herself speaking to a room of incarcerated men. Accompanied by her biographer Jody Savin, a luminous force who brilliantly helped relate Trudie’s life as if she had been a sibling escort throughout Trudie’s entire life, Trudie did not come seeking sympathy as a survivor but to bring the triumphant message of kindness and hope that transcends any man-made boundary.
Her stitching (Stitched & Sewn) creations captures her experiences as time capsules of linen that caressed my heart and compels me to do more: Being categorized by a prison number does not define my humanity. Trudie’s MaMa taught her to stitch as a Russian child, skills the Nazis utilized in labor camps to advance their degradation and horrific war campaign against Jews and others, but Trudie and her MaMa’s skills was Resistance to human devaluation and eradication.
Listening to Trudie Strobel broke my heart then transformed it into something new and stronger. It is in our capacity to listen that we find our capacity to care and love. I am committed to forever show my gratitude to her and support the millions muted by hate in preservation of history and protection of future because as she told me “If people see the person next to them as having less value then themselves then persecutions will persist.”
Founder & CEO of the Tranquil Earth Alliance
