The Team

Rachael Cerrotti - Host, Producer, Co-Creator

Rachael Cerrotti is an award-winning writer, producer, educator, and curator. She was the Inaugural Storyteller in Residence for USC Shoah Foundation and is now a fellow with The Witness Institute and New America. In 2019, Rachael released her first podcast — We Share The Same Sky. It was the first-ever narrative podcast based on a Holocaust survivor’s testimony and tells the story of her decade-long journey to retrace her grandmother’s war story; it was listed as one of the best podcasts of the year by HuffPost and is now being taught in high school classrooms around the world. Her critically-acclaimed debut memoir, also titled We Share The Same Sky, was released in August 2021 and she recently curated this project for a traveling museum exhibition that opened in the fall of 2023 at the Florida Holocaust Museum. As a storyteller, Rachael works with various museums and organizations and currently sits on the board of Aegis Trust and Community Plate. She regularly visits communities as a speaker, leads writing workshops and art-based programming for students of all ages, and coaches individuals on their storytelling projects. She lives in Portland, Maine.

Lene Bech Sillesen - Editor

Lene Bech Sillesen is a journalist and researcher focused on audio storytelling. She has a background in impact journalism, investigating how narrative media can affect behaviors, attitudes and societal change. She started down this path initially as a writer for the Columbia Journalism Review and later as a researcher in the nonprofit world, working with clients such as Google Impact in exploring how new storytelling platforms may be used for social change. In the field of audio, Lene works as an independent consultant ideating and conceptualizing new shows, and as an audio producer and editor working on documentaries and podcasts for institutions such as the BBC, Sundance Institute, Guggenheim Museum, Dotdash Meredith, Spotify, KCRW, CBC, and many more. Lene’s audio work has been awarded and shortlisted for several major US and European media awards, including the Prix Italia and Third Coast awards (the latter for her audio documentary for Danish public radio about a Holocaust survivor who discovers old cassette tapes that document his untold family history). Lene is based between Brooklyn and Copenhagen.

Cover Art, Season 1: Zoe Paschkis

Cover Art, Season 2: T.J. Kirkpatrick

Theme Music, Season 1: Chris Child / Kodomo

Theme Music, Season 2: Blue Dot Sessions