Faris Cassell
Award-winning Journalist
Author of Inseparable: The Hess Twins’ Holocaust Journey through Bergen-Belsen to America


Marion Ein Lewin
Survivor of Bergen-Belsen
Former Senior Staff Officer at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science

Discussion following presentations moderated by:
Dr. Marilyn Harran
Director, Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education and Stern Chair in Holocaust Education

In her 2023 book, Inseparable: The Hess Twins’ Holocaust Journey through Bergen-Belsen to America, Faris Cassell tells the extraordinary story of the Hess family, twins Marion and Steven, and their parents, Karl and Ilse. The twins, only six years old when they were deported from Amsterdam, are now the only known surviving twins of the Holocaust. Faris Cassell is a journalist and 2021 National Jewish Book Award winning author of The Unanswered Letter. She has been a feature writer and columnist for newspapers and magazines and was a researcher for The Los Angeles Times. A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and the University of Oregon, she has traveled thousands of miles to research and tell previously untold stories.

Born in the Netherlands, Marion Hess Ein Lewin survived the Holocaust together with her parents and twin brother. Remarkably, the family—thanks to luck and the resolute determination and resourcefulness of the twins’ parents—remained together throughout the Holocaust, one of only a handful of families to do so. They survived the transit camp Westerbork (where the Frank family was also sent), the horrific concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, and a perilous journey on the “lost train” in the last days of the war. The family was liberated by Soviet soldiers on April 23, 1945 near Tröbitz, Germany and came to the United States on January 1, 1947.

The Hess twins were nine years old when they arrived in New York. They had never attended school and were initially placed in kindergarten, moving up a grade every few weeks. Marion went on to attend Barnard College and Columbia University. Her professional life has focused on health policy and health care economics. For 15 years, she was Senior Staff Officer at the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science and headed its Office of Health Policy Programs and Fellowships.

The John and Toby Martz Distinguished Lecture in Holocaust Studies