A Family Legacy of Advancing Holocaust Education: The Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Foundation
“We feel that Holocaust education is as relevant and necessary now as it was when the Museum opened and will continue to be relevant for all time.”
— Louis Gonda, Lucy Gonda, and Lorena Gonda Kiralla
As Holocaust survivors, when Susan and Leslie Gonda contemplated what a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust on our National Mall would mean for the country, education was of paramount importance to them. Both Susan and Leslie were members of the Hungarian Jewish community, the last of Europe’s major Jewish communities still intact before deportations began in spring 1944.
Susan was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Leslie to Komarom labor camp in Hungary. After escaping from the camp using false papers, Leslie took the Christian name Gonda in order to avoid further persecution, managing to survive in Budapest.
After the war, he met Susan the day she returned to Budapest after being liberated. They would later marry, immigrate to Venezuela, and then to Los Angeles, where they rebuilt their lives around family, growing an aircraft leasing business, and their charitable foundation.
Susan and Leslie, who passed away in 2009 and 2018, respectively, were passionate about their shared desire “for a world where what humans have in common is more important than what drives them apart.” This belief is embodied in their founding gift to the Museum.
The gift established The Gonda Education Center, a meeting and exhibition space that provides a dynamic environment for students, leaders, professionals, and the general public to delve deeper into the history and its lessons for today.
Today, their children carry on Susan and Leslie’s philanthropic vision through the family foundation. Earlier this year, Louis Gonda, Lucy Gonda, and Lorena Gonda Kiralla honored their parents through a $1 million gift to create the Museum’s Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Foundation Fellowship, an endowment for Holocaust education.
In a statement, Louis, Lucy, and Lorena said their motivation was to honor their parents and “reinforce the Gonda family’s continuing commitment to support the Museum’s ongoing outreach activities using the latest technology tools available.” They added, “We feel that Holocaust education is as relevant and necessary now as it was when the Museum opened and will continue to be relevant for all time.” The siblings hope the new fellowship will engage “younger generations worldwide in creative new ways, using the Museum’s internet-based programs.”
Thanks to the continuing commitment of the next generation, the Gonda legacy is very much alive.
This article was first published in fall 2019.
