KARMELA WALDMAN is a psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor and the co-host, with her son Joel Z. Waldman, of the podcast Surviving the Survivor. She was born August 7, 1939, in Subotica, Yugoslavia, which was occupied by Hungary just two years later. On June 18, 1944, Nazis appeared at her front door and whisked away her father. She escaped through a hole in the fence in her backyard, led by her mother. The two later separated and Karmela remained hidden for six months in a Catholic school in her hometown. After the Russians liberated Belgrade, she was reunited with her mother, only to find that her father and other members of her family were killed in Auschwitz. She completed high school in her hometown and then attended the University of Geneva, where she met her beloved husband, Roy, a medical student; the two were married for 63 years, until his passing in 2024. In 1969, she earned a master’s degree in social work, practicing as a licensed marriage therapist for close to 40 years. She has two children and eight grandchildren. She and her son launched their podcast in 2021 during the fog of the pandemic to try to give clarity to others just trying to survive in a rough world.
