'Always Remember Your Name': The background to our documentary about a Sacramento Holocaust survivor
One message started KCRA 3 on a five-year journey.
One message started KCRA 3 on a five-year journey.
One message started KCRA 3 on a five-year journey.
KCRA 3's Deirdre Fitzpatrick had maybe two minutes to sip a cup of coffee and quickly eat a pastry while at a table in the middle of the Jewish Ghetto in Rome. It wasn't a casual moment to enjoy a morning routine.
Deirdre was reporting as part of a five-year journey she and the station had undertaken.
It all started with a Facebook message in November of 2019.
"I am not sure if you read these messages ...giving it a try," started the message from Sonia Edwards.
"I am the daughter of a Holocaust survivor Andra Bucci. You should be able to google her name of the Bucci sisters."
"Google I did, and couldn't believe what I read," Deirdre said.
That search revealed that Andra and Tatiana Bucci were just 4 and 6, respectively, when they were deported from Italy and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. They were two of 50 children under the age of 8 to survive a place where 1.1 million people were killed.
"Theirs is a story of mistaken identity, a mother's instinct, and luck," says Deirdre.
Edwards added in her message that "she now has moved here to Sacramento. Maybe someone might be interested in talking to her."
That interest started the journey to share her story with our audience. It started with a mother and daughter, Andra and Sonia, running the California International Marathon. It went through a global pandemic. Ultimately, this ended up with KCRA's Special Projects crew, along with Deirdre, following the family across the ocean to Italy, then Poland, seeing how the Bucci sisters tell their story over and over again. It's one of more than 40 so-called "memory trips" the sisters have taken.
These two Italian women survived one of humanity's darkest times. They voluntarily revisit their experiences with younger generations in the hope that history will not repeat.
Watch KCRA 3's "Always Remember Your Name" documentary here.