Today and tomorrow, two spots across the city will host “Sip & Listen,” a new pop-up series that turns casual coffee shops into spaces for Holocaust remembrance. Timed to coincide with Yom HaShoah, the Jewish calendar’s official day of Holocaust remembrance, the program invites Holocaust survivors to share their stories in intimate, midday gatherings.
The concept is simple: for an hour or so, survivors will speak about survival, loss and what it all means in 2026. The events unfold across two Upper East and Upper West Side cafes: Caffe Aronne (April 13 at 1pm) and Patis Bakery (April 14 at 4:30pm). Each session will be small by design.
Among the speakers is Adrienne Petrook, who was born in Budapest during World War II and survived in hiding before immigrating to the United States in 1950. Petrook is part of The Blue Card’s speakers bureau, a nonprofit that supports Holocaust survivors living in the U.S. The series opened yesterday with survivor and artist Olga Spiegel.
While New York is home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors in the country—roughly 14,000 to 15,000 people—many are aging and facing financial hardship. Nearly 40% live in poverty, according to organizers, and the global survivor population is shrinking quickly, with an estimated 196,600 survivors still alive as of early 2026.
At the same time, awareness is slipping. A 2020 survey found that 63% of Millennials and Gen Z in the U.S. didn’t know that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and nearly half couldn’t name a single concentration camp. Those gaps—and a documented rise in antisemitic incidents across New York this year—are part of what’s driving the urgency behind events like this.
“Sip & Listen” is a joint initiative between the Yad Vashem USA Foundation and the Blue Card, with plans to expand to other U.S. cities next year. But for now, it’s happening here, in places where people already gather—which is kind of the point. It’s not a museum or a lecture hall. Just a cafe, a cup of coffee and a story that you won’t forget.