Josh Gad Speaks Out About His Grandfather’s Holocaust Story In Hopes Of Reminding The World To Never Forget

He is arguably one of the most iconic voices today for children and families alike as the rather lovable snowman Olaf in the smash hit Frozen films, but actor Josh Gad is now lending his voice in a different way, in hopes of ensuring that those same generations of young people do not forget about the unfathomable tragedies of yesteryear.

Today, Gad has released a new video with the organization “If You Heard What I Heard” where he shares a detailed account of the experiences his grandfather Joseph Greenblatt had to endure as a young Jewish man in Poland during World War II.

“If You Heard What I Heard” was founded in 2020 by its executive director Carolyn Siegel, who like Gad, is also the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor. Their mission is to find these younger, surviving family members to tell the difficult stories told to them directly by their elders about the Nazi abuse and the inhumane concentration camps like Auschwitz that Jews were forced into now eight decades ago.

When I asked Gad how he initially learned about “If You Heard What I Heard,” he tells me, “Carolyn reached out to me because over the past year, I’ve been forced into a position that I’m not very excited about, which is vocalizing the ongoing threat that arises from those who would forget what happened in the past. With the uptick in antisemitism and with the rise of this romanticizing of far-right extremism and in particular, Nazi sympathizers, I felt given my platform, I didn’t have the luxury to remain silent.”

Siegel adds, “I started this work in response to a rise of antisemitism but I never could have imagined that rise in antisemitism would escalate to what I’ve seen more recently. This project was really born out of wanting to make sure and live up to the promise that I made to my grandfather to make sure that the world will never forget.”

In Gad’s new video, he discusses the unique craftsman skills his grandfather had that kept him useful to Nazi soldiers, along with the many risks he chose to take in order to have a better chance to get to see another day.

“It’s very hard for people to sort of comprehend,” continues Gad. “When you hear these stories, we feel so removed from them in our bubble of seemingly safety and normalization to think about what people who are still alive went through is almost impossible to comprehend. The whole thing is surreal and the urgency of those stories has never felt more important and necessary than it does now, at least in my lifetime.”

Gad’s grandmother, Evelyn, was also a Holocaust survivor with her own story of overcoming the odds. When some may feel that telling a child these very real stories, Gad has gratitude for his grandparents for not seeing his young age at the time as something to shy away from sharing the hard truths of their family’s past.

“I remember being six years old and walking with my grandparents in my backyard and asking them what this blue tattoo of numbers on their arm was,” Gad continues. “That moment became a portal into the unedited stories of the trauma of their lives. I really respect my grandparents for looking at me not as a child, but as somebody that had to carry the torch for the things they didn’t know as children were possible and then became victims as children of the horrific realities of what the impossible looks like. I feel like I’ve carried that with me and I’ve carried their stories with a proximity that I feel the ability to tell them unedited and hopefully wake people up, specifically the youth. There’s a shocking statistic that 63% of today’s youth don’t know the Holocaust happened. That’s inexcusable! That is a failure of education, it’s a failure of communication and it’s a failure of society.”

When I asked Gad what we everyday people can do to help prevent antisemitism and further acts of hatred moving forward, he says, “Speak up, speak out and stand alongside those who are marginalized.”

Also, compared to the limited ways of communication during the World War II era of the late 1930s until the mid-1940s, Gad believes advancements in technology over the years have benefited in allowing more hateful rhetoric to be shared faster.

“I think right now with the spread of social media, bigotry is really easy,” Gad says. “It’s far more easy to weaponize bigotry than it is to weaponize an effort against bigotry and hate. I think, again and again, we see it rise its ugly face and it’s not just people of color, it’s not just the Asian community, it’s not just Jews. Everyday, there’s another group that’s targeted by essentially white supremacists. I feel that is something we have not yet figured out a way to stand up against, in the same targeted way these folks seem to be able to unify their own efforts, and that scares me. That’s a pattern repeating itself that is worthy of alarm bells – that is worthy of these stories being shared.”

When I asked Siegel what it means to have someone like Gad choosing to publicly share his family’s Holocaust story and get involved with the “If You Heard What I Heard” mission, she says, “Having him involved in this project and aligned with our organization is huge on so many levels. It’s imperative that anyone who’s the grandchildren of a Holocaust survivor carries the legacy forward to make sure we won’t forget. If you’re not going to hear it from a survivor, you will absolutely be hearing it from someone like me, but you’re more inclined to listen if it’s somebody like Josh. Especially Josh, who has such a powerful voice in this world and can bring that awareness, and he does so with such passion and such bravery.”

Gad goes on to tell me that he finds it important for our world leaders to continue to speak up against bigotry and antisemitism, as he also calls for his “fellow high-profile colleagues” to stand up with him and use their elevated platforms to promote compassion and inclusion.

The next question I had for Gad was one that really got me thinking – If Gad’s grandparents had not survived their own individual hardships during the Holocaust, they would have never have met after the war, been able to start a family together and Gad himself would simply not exist today.

Gad responds to my shared thoughts with, “I wake up almost everyday thinking about that reality. I think about the reality that my grandparents somehow survived extermination with a .000001% chance of that reality happening. Six million of their own brothers, sisters, parents and friends did not share that same fate. It is not lost on me that it took the universe giving them the most minuscule of chances, but a chance to survive. Without their own will power and their own ingenuity, they would not have survived and I think about that everyday. I am beyond blessed and grateful, and that is frankly why we’re on the phone today because it’s not lost on me what they sacrificed for me to be here and after they both left us, to continue to educate people on.”

On January 6, 2016, Gad’s grandfather, whom he has often referred to as his “superhero,” passed away at the age of 96. With January 27 marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day and as Gad continues to share his family’s stories from yesteryear with anyone willing to listen, I wondered if his grandfather still often comes to mind, as Gad raises his own two children today.

“Oh yeah, I think about him everyday,” Gad says. “In a way, I’m grateful he is not around to see the rise of this extremism again because I think he’d be heartbroken – same with my grandmother Evelyn. I’m very fortunate – my 96-year-old, I call her my aunt – she was my grandmother’s first cousin Fay Bialowas is still with us, and she is the matriarch of our family. She is a Holocaust survivor who survived alongside my grandmother, and I am able to share with her and hear from her those stories that I may have questions about. So through the proximity to her, my grandfather and my grandmother still live on – and so, I feel their presence everyday. That ‘superhero,’ if you will, passes down the torch. I carry his torch, I carry my grandmother’s torch and for as long as I’m here breathing, I plan on lighting that torch and making sure that people see the light and follow it.”