About Jan

My daughter Katie traveled to Auschwitz when she was a senior in high school, commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland with other students from around the world. She was accompanied on this journey by several Holocaust survivors whose stories are represented in my book – March of the Living ~ Our Stories. Katie heard many of these stories firsthand sometimes retold in the actual location where they took place. Returning home she shared with me snippets of stories, recollected moments, family histories destined to be lost unless they were written down.

As a genealogist, writer, and photographer, I was swept up with the idea of preserving and retelling these stories in a keepsake book for those students who had been so fortunate to hear them directly from the survivors while in Poland. Once embarking on this project however, I have discovered that my audience is far greater than those original students. March of the Living ~ Our Stories has sold out two editions and is no longer in print but I continue to fulfill my obligation to pass on the legacy of these courageous survivors by retelling their stories at public speaking engagements worldwide.

Please view TV interview of Jan Burns on JLTV jewish life j report.