Our Mission & Philanthropy
The Bernard & Sandra Otterman Foundation is building a brighter future through education and collaboration. We are not currently accepting unsolicited proposals for new funding. Instead, we work behind-the-scenes to find and support NGOs and charities that fit our vision for a more peaceful and prosperous world.
Bernard Otterman - Co-Founder
Bernard Otterman, PhD (1937 - 2017), was born in Lodz, Poland. At the age of three, he and his parents escaped Lodz and fled to Warsaw by moving from ghetto to ghetto, only to be interned in several labor camps. Separated from his father, Otterman and his mother escaped the train line headed for Auschwitz, fled and hid for six months as fugitives in the Polish countryside until Russian troops liberated Poland. His father was first sent by train to Auschwitz, then immediately moved to a work camp in Germany. He also survived, and the family was reunited in Lodz in September 1945 through displaced persons listings posted by the Red Cross. They lived in Germany until coming to the United States in 1951. Bernard earned a PhD in natural sciences and served on the engineering faculties at Northeastern and Hofstra Universities. For more than thirty years, Bernard served as President of Norcor Management, a real estate firm specializing in Condominium and Cooperative housing in New York City. He was also an award-winning author and poet. His collection of Holocaust-inspired short fiction, Inmate 1818 and Other Stories, and the novel, Self-Deliverance: The Death and Life of Arthur Koestler, were published in 2015. For more information about his life and legacy, visit www.bernardotterman.com.
Sandra Otterman - Co-Founder
Sandra Otterman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has taught primary education in public schools in Massachusetts and Long Island. A lifelong educator, and mother of three, Sandra also has volunteered for a number of nonprofit and parent-teacher organizations, including New York's Head Start Program
Michael Otterman - US Programs Coordinator
Michael Otterman is an author and analyst in training at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. Prior to administering the foundation with Sandra and his siblings, Michelle and Sharon, Michael worked for the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and Catalyst. He’s the author of two books — American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (2007) and Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage (2010). In 2017, he contributed a chapter to The Trump Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Living Through What You Hoped Would Never Happen. He can be reached here.
Michelle Otterman Emmett - Global Programs Coordinator
Michelle is a program design and impact specialist based in Perth, Australia. With a career spanning over 20 years across the international aid and higher education sectors, she has extensive strategic grant making, grant writing, and grant management experience with public, private, and not-for-profit organisations. She can be reached here.