About Juan
Juan Zambrano is a Mexican-American curious soul who lives in Los Angeles. In 2017, he had been driving for Uber for about a year and picked up an older passenger by the name of Morris Price. Juan would soon learn that Morris was a Holocaust survivor and on his way to a museum to tell his story to students. The two men got talking and the stories that Morris shared about his experience during the war captivated Juan. Morris would become Juan’s most memorable passenger out of more than 20,000 people.
Fast forward to 2020, Juan sought out more about Morris’ story after watching a segment on 60 Minutes about USC Shoah Foundation and the more than 50,000 testimonies of Holocaust survivors in their archive. This short narrative piece is all about the power of sharing our stories with strangers and highlights how we never know how our everyday conversations can have a ripple effect in other people’s lives.
Painting of Morris Price, by David Kassan
“It was no life. It was just like existence and hoping that the war is gonna end and things are gonna get better. And you were just telling yourself that it's got to improve. I later on found out that there's no limit to the good and there's no limit to the bad. But at that time, we were always hoping things are going to get better because you always thought this is the worst. This can’t get any worse, can't get any worse, but it got worse. .” - Morris Price / 1995