Nightingale was honored to welcome Holocaust survivor Joseph Gosler as our 27th annual Werner Feig Holocaust Memorial Lecture speaker today. Named in memory of Werner Feig, a Holocaust survivor who taught history at Nightingale from 1991–1997, the lecture honors the legacy he left within the Nightingale community.

Joseph Gosler, born in the Netherlands in 1942, was hidden as an infant by the Dutch resistance and reunited with his parents after the war—an experience that shaped his lifelong search for identity and belonging. His journey took him from Europe to Israel and ultimately to the United States, where he built a career in education and later authored Searching for Home, a memoir reflecting on his experiences as a Hidden Child. Today, he shared his story with the Nightingale community, offering his insights on history, resilience, and what it means to make sense of your past.

When asked what resilience meant to him, he shared, “I have found that the level of energy, clarity, and striving to make a difference, is more a result of this sad chapter in our lives. That people who have gone through war are that much more hopeful that there’s something better...There’s an energy and hopefulness that’s sometimes very surprising.”