Obama and others refuse to use the "G" word in the case of the Armenians

Armenian community is still waiting to hear from CongressBy Haykaram Nahapetyan - 12/27/10
The Hill's Congress Blog

The “lame-ducking” Congress did not vote on H-Res 252 recognizing the period of systematic massacres of the Armenian people during the WW1 as genocide. On March 4th, it passed House Foreign Affairs Committee with 23 to 22 votes but speaker Nancy Pelosi did not bring the Armenian Genocide Resolution to the floor agenda, despite her initial pledge. There was a certain pressure from State Department as well as from the Turkish lobby in order to prevent it from happening....

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It’s noteworthy that President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actively supported the Armenian Genocide Resolution, when they were candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency in 2008. Read more...

Holocaust video games - a way to learn or trivializing?

What do you think? Should Holocaust video games be allowed?


Holocaust video game pulled
Protest from Jewish organizations causes Maxim Genis to withdraw SonderKommando Revolt whose aim is to escape camp, kill Nazi soldiersGoel Beno, Ynetnews.com
Published: 12.26.10

Programmer Maxim Genis has decided to withdraw his Shoah-based video game following widespread protest against the use of the Holocaust as a backdrop to this kind of activity.
The video game, titled Sonderkommando Revolt and set during a violent prisoner uprising at the Auschwitz death camp, was created by the Israeli video game developer using the real-world uprising at Auschwitz in October 1944 as the backdrop for the game...Read more...

From the news

US urged to extradite ex-Nazi suspect to SerbiaDec. 22 - Associated Press. Forbes.com.
Former Nazi in Seattle area. He and his unit are accused of murdering over 17,000 Jews in Serbia.

Yad Vashem has compiled list of over 4 million names of Holocaust victimsDec. 22 - By Nir Hasson. Haaretz.com.
Authority in Jerusalem says more than 1.5 million names were added to the archives in the last decade.

Controversial genocide resolution may hit floor of House in final daysDec. 19 - By Bridget Johnson. The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
Schools across the country recognize the Armenian genocide and teach about it as such - when will Congress finally address it appropriately?

Center will tell Cambodian story
Dec. 17 - Greg Mellan, Press-Telegram
New Khmer Genocide Study and Resource Center in California

From A Student

Hi, I am a student at Hoquiam Middle School and Peter [a Holocaust survivor] came to my school and spoke about the Holocaust. I thought that was just awesome. His story made me think about how lucky I am that I was not in the Holocaust and that I got a family to give me a home and food. So I know if that ever happend to me I would just die. So thank you Peter.

Pictures of Resistance - Exhibit & Teacher Workshop

PICTURES OF RESISTANCE:
The Wartime Photographs of Jewish Partisan Faye Schulman

Opening Reception - January 13
Teacher Workshop - January 14
Exhibit - January 13 -February 17, 2011Programs and display at Hillel, University of Washington, Seattle
Sponsored by the Holocaust Center in partnership with Hillel.

Special Guest - Sharon Rennert, granddaughter of Jewish partisan commander Tuvia Bielski. January 13 & 14.
OPENING RECEPTION - January 13, 2011. 6:30pm - 8:30pm.
Keynote speakers: Sharon Rennert, granddaughter of Tuvia Bielski, the commander of the Bielski Partisan group (made famous by the recent movie, "Defiance"), and a documentary filmmaker shares her family's compelling story of courage and resistance; and Mitch Braff, Executive Director and Founder, Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation.
RSVP - admin@wsherc.org

TEACHER WORKSHOP - January 14, 2011. 8:30am - 3:00pm.Presentations by Mitch Braff, "Women in the Partisans," and Sharon Rennert, "In Our Hands: A Personal Story of the Bielski Partisans." Clock hours available. $10 registration fee. Space is limited - register now!

Special thanks to the Shemanksi Foundation, Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, King Country 4Culture, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, for supporting this exhibit and programming. Exhibit is produced by the Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation.

How many Jewish partisans were there?

What is a Jewish partisan and how many were there?

A partisan is a member of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an enemy, especially within occupied territory; a guerrilla.

Approximately 20,000 to 30,000 Jews, many of whom were teenagers, managed to escape to form or join organized resistance groups. They are known as the Jewish partisans, who, along with hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish partisans, fought against their common enemy across much of Europe.

Faye with her CameraPhotographer: Moishe Lazebnik, Toronto, Canada, 1999

“I want people to know that there was resistance. Jewish people didn’t go like sheep to the slaughter. If they had the slightest opportunity to fight back, they did and took revenge. Many lost their lives heroically.

“I was a photographer. I have pictures. I have proof.”

See Faye Schulman's photos in the exhibit "Pictures of Resistance" coming to Hillel in January. For information on the exhibit and programming, click here.

Questions on Genocide

A college student writing a paper on genocide and governmental policies for prevention and response emailed us with a few questions.

We turned to Marie Berry, a PhD candidate in Sociology with a focus on genocide in UCLA's prestigious program. Marie, a graduate of the University of Washington, spent several years working at the Holocaust Center.


Do you think any changes should be made to the UN structure to try and help responses to genocides?
Most debates about the UN’s treatment genocide are concerned with altering the definition of genocide, rather than changing the mandated responses to genocide. In general, this is because the UN’s responses to genocide have yet to successfully materialize. Thus, scholars and policy makers debate the definition in an attempt to pressure the signatories of the convention to refine the definition and thus make it more feasible for action to stop genocides that are underway.

The process of drafting the 1948 Genocide Convention was extremely political; in particular, the involvement of the Soviet Union complicated the process, given that they (and affiliated countries like Belarus) wouldn’t sign a document that criminalized something Stalin had been doing for years. What resulted was a definition that includes “national, ethnic, racial, or religious” groups, but excludes political or economic ones. And, as a result, the historical episodes of violence that are commonly accepted as genocides exclude mass murders in Ethiopia, and often Guatemala. The problem with this is that in most analyses of genocide, the real causes are obscured—instead, it is easier to explain away genocide in terms of ethnic, racial, or religious groups that “hate” each other. Of course, in every case of genocide in history, the “ethnic” or “racial” groups that end up being targeted for extermination have been integrated in the societies that they live in for centuries (or more). Jews in Europe, Tutsis in Rwanda, and Bosniaks in Bosnia weren’t simply targeted one day because of their ethno-religious identify, but rather because of a series of political power struggles that escalated and were ultimately framed as ethno-religious.

The UN’s definition of genocide, therefore, is problematic in several ways. First, it serves to reify the ethno/racial/religious aspects of a brewing conflict while obscuring the political and economic ones. In the case of Rwanda, this allowed the international media and foreign governments to dismiss the violence as “tribal” and neglect acknowledging the power struggle at play in Kigali that was in part facilitated by the international community’s attempts to negotiate a peace process between the current Hutu regime and the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front invading from Uganda. Moreover, it obscured the significance of the colonial era, recent crop shortages and resulting famines, and intra-ethnic conflicts between a powerful family from the North and other powerful families from the South.

Second, the definition revolves around the idea of “intent”; a group must have the intent to destroy a group for mass violence to be considered genocide. This eliminates some of the most massive deaths in human history, such as Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” where it is difficult to argue that Mao intended to kill 20 million+ of his countrymen (but easy to argue that his policies had that effect). The very concept of “intent” is almost always subjectively determined; barring the leak of some sort of internal government memo explicitly stating the goal of eliminating a group within its population, intent is usually agreed upon after amassing mounds of evidence that point that direction. This is much easier in retrospect, after genocide is over, when the true intent of a perpetrating group is revealed. Intent is much more difficult to determine during the actual genocide itself—especially in cases like Rwanda, where the genocide happened rapidly over merely 100 days.

Last, the narrowness of this definition and the exclusion of political or economic (i.e. class) groups, is conducive to disagreement and debate over whether violence counts as a genocide or not. This leads, ultimately, to inaction, as we’ve seen in basically every case that ultimately resulted in genocide (with the possible exception of East Timor: See Geoffrey Robinson’s book If You Leave Us Here We Will Die, 2009). For the UN’s definition of genocide to be more effective at invoking action from the international community, I believe it needs to be centered on the degree of devastation being caused to civilians, rather than on the subject concept of intent and restrictive classifications like race and religion.


How much does politics complicate responses to genocide?
I think that politics complicates responses to genocide a lot, but self-interest complicates responses even more. Military interventions generally carry tremendous costs in terms of human lives and financial resources. If a given country has little strategic or economic relevance to an intervening state, the risks of intervening are high while the potential gains are low. Politics also factors in, particularly when strategic alliances are strained over an ally engaging in genocide. We’ve seen this most recently with US involvement in Darfur, where at the initial stages of the conflict the US was hesitant to shame Sudanese President Bashir publicly given his cooperation about eliminating al-Qaeda training cells in his country. The US-led 1995 Dayton Accords after the wars in the Balkans were also influenced by politics, and as a result we watched as the Serbian aggressors (and perpetrators of egregious crimes against humanity) were given control over 49% of Bosnian territory – a higher percentage than before the war. So we see that politics can not only influence decisions to intervene in genocides, but also the peace-process afterward.


What are some of the best tactics in stopping/preventing genocide? What is your feeling on military interference versus peaceful interventions?

The best tactics for stopping and preventing genocide are unique in each situation and at each stage in the conflict. In my opinion, however, the first and most important things to consider are the real roots of the conflict. Dismissing violence in Rwanda as merely tribal warfare between Hutus and Tutsis gives policy makers little leverage to negotiate a cessation of violence or to design a plan to physically intervene. Instead, understanding the historical processes that led to the evening of April 6, 1994, when the genocide began, are absolutely essential if we are going to be able to conceive of bringing the violence to a halt. Furthermore, understanding the “repertoires of violence” that people in a given region draw from based on historical experiences of violence can give us a better knowledge of where the violence might be heading and thus how we could potentially confront it. The brutal treatment of Serbs in Ustaša concentration campus in former Yugoslavia during WWII provided a historical memory that was adopted by Serbs several decades later against Bosniaks—had the “west” understood many of the historical roots of the types of violence being used in the war in the Balkans, intervention might have been more carefully designed and carried out. Once the history of a conflict is understood from all perspectives, the best tactics of intervention can be more successfully determined. And, in my opinion, sometimes peaceful interventions are the best option, while at other times the situation has gotten so out of control that the only possible options are military. In the case of Rwanda, for example, a military intervention really was the only option. However, I tend to believe in the cyclical nature of violence, and thus would only endorse an armed intervention as a very last resort.

Free book for our Facebook friends!

The Holocaust Chronicle - a hardcover copy could be yours!

To enter: Become a friend of the Holocaust Center's Facebook page and make a comment under the book-give-away announcement!

Nazis Given 'Safe Haven' in US, Report Says

Nazis Given 'Safe Haven' in US, Report Says

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: November 13, 2010
New York Times

WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible. Read article...

Veterans' Day - Holocaust Survivor & US Soldier on KIRO

Holocaust survivor and US soldier remember liberation

To commemorate Veteran's Day, KIRO radio interviewed Holocaust survivor and speaker Magda Schaloum and WWII Veteran and liberator Ralph Dicecco:

"It's Veteran's Day, a day we remember what members of our armed services have done to make us free. Two Seattle area residents can never forget..."

Click here to listen to or read this short, moving interview, which aired this morning.

72 Years After Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht -- literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938 throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.

Instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA (Sturmabteilungen: literally Assault Detachments, but commonly known as Storm Troopers) and Hitler Youth, Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom-broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. (USHMM - read more)

Personal stories, maps, and more...

How did religious leaders in the US respond?

The events of November 9, 1938 pogrom sparked a wave of outrage among U.S. religious leaders. In the weeks following November 9, 1938, there were numerous editorials, radio broadcasts, and sermons. In a few cases – like the historic Church of the Pilgrimage in Plymouth, Massachusetts – local Christian clergy invited their Jewish colleagues to address their congregations for the first time. (USHMM - read more)

Photos:

Top: Photographer unknown. Synagogue Burning in Siegen, Germany. 1938. Photograph. The Pictorial History of the Holocaust, New York.

Middle: Photographer unknown. Bystanders view the smashed windows of a Jewish shop. 1938. Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, Germany. Kristallnacht. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Bottom: Photographer unknown. Destruction of the Synagogue in Memel . 1938. Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, Memel. Kristallnacht. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Working in a Trap: Drawings from the Theresienstadt Ghetto 1941-1942

Paraphrased from a discussion with Susie S., local Holocaust survivor and member of the Holocaust Center's Speaker's Bureau:




My cousin, Ruth Perry, is about my age and lives in Ramat Gan, Israel. Other than my sister and I, she is the only remaining direct relative of our generation. Ruth comes to visit us now and then ... recently she spoke of some very special pictures that her family and others in Israel were trying to put together for a limited printing. She said that these paintings were to honor an important Jewish "Elder" of Terezin. My own dear family, on my mother and father's side, was dragged to Terezin in 1942. I thought that I knew the names of the "Elders of the Jews" in Terezin, but the name she used was not familiar to me and I became curious. As it turns out, I did not understand the Hebrew version of Jacob Edelstein's name. Edelstein was an influential leader chosen and used by the Germans to aid in carrying out their horrible plans.
There has been much written about the "Jewish Elders," those people who had to pass down the edicts of the Germans. The Nazis tried to turn the inmates against the Elders and were successful in some instances. While many writings are critical of some of the elders, this album shows that Edelstein had a good, courageous heart and did the best he could.

My cousin, Ruth, was a friend of "Dittle." As it turns out, "Dittle" was Dr. Edith Ornstein, one of the creators and signatories of the album. Ruth told me of a time when Dittle had to sit on the paintings when Adolf Eichmann came into her living area. The paintings, by Leo Haas, were presented to Jacob Edelstein on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Nazi-established ghetto.

The timetable of Theresienstadt and the Final Solution is so organized and easy to read that one can get a clear understanding of the timetable behind the horrific main events from 1933 to 1945. The pictures and writings in the album record the efforts of the labor center and serve as an empowering and sensitive text, giving a new and deeper understanding of the Holocaust. In particular, it gives me a newer understanding and feeling of the horror that was Terezin. The album also gives information on the German use of propaganda using the "Jewish Town."


This album shows the positive relationship that Edelstein had with his staff, who recognized his efforts as leader towards helping those inmates of Terezin as much as he could. I am honored on behalf of my family to loan this very special and poignant album to the Center for one year.

Reflections from a teacher on "Flight from the Reich"

Reflections on the October 13 program - "Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946"
(See our original posting with reflections and information on the program here.)

By Cory C., Teacher at Mt. Rainier High School

Robert Jan van Pelt spoke on the topic of his new book Flight From The Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946 this evening at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle. He began his talk by pointing out that the common definition of a victim of the Holocaust typically does not include Jewish refugees. His book is in part an argument for expanding our definition. Jews were affected in myriad ways by the Holocaust, and not only those Jews who went to concentration camps.

This was an unfamiliar topic for me, although I had very recently attended a teacher workshop in which a Jewish refugee shared his story, so I had some minimal background knowledge. What struck me most was van Pelt’s understanding of the concept of the passport. He asked the audience to state the purpose of a passport. Many people gave the most obvious answers: to allow you to leave your country, to be accepted into a country, to have a record of who comes in and who leaves. None of these are wrong per se, but van Pelt sees the passport in a different way. When a country issues a passport to a citizen, that country is saying it will take that person back. If I travel to China, and China decides later that it does not want me, I can be sent back home. This was a crucial issue for Jewish refugees as they were fleeing Germany.

Van Pelt’s discussion this evening was fascinating, and even prompted some discussion among the audience members, including one elderly woman whose relatives were all affected in various ways by the Holocaust. I look forward to reading the book, and incorporating these stories into my unit on the Holocaust.

An American's Diary of the Concentration Camp Experience

350 American soldiers were captured by the Nazis and sent to the concentration camp Berga in Feb. 1945. They endured terrible conditions, starvation, abuse and finally a death march in April 1945. One of the survivors donated his diary to the USHMM this past month.


'You don't forget': Medic's Holocaust diary tells story of hellBy Wayne Drash, CNN
October 28, 2010

Washington (CNN) -- The tattered journal, its pages yellow with age, contains the painful memories of a U.S. medic, a man who recorded the deaths of soldiers who survived one of World War II's bloodiest battles yet met their end as slaves in Nazi Germany.

32. Hamilton 4-5-45
33. Young 4-5-45
34. Smith 4-9-45
35. Vogel 4-9-45
36. Wagner 4-9-45

"Some were dying," said its author, Tony Acevedo, now 86. "Some died, and I made a notation of that."

Flipping through the pages, you encounter a horrific part of world history through the eyes of a 20-year-old inside a slave labor camp. Amid the horror, the journal captures extraordinary human moments of war. Acevedo sketched beautiful women in the back pages, pinups whose eyes provided comfort amid hell.

Acevedo kept the diary hidden in his pants. He feared death if the commanders saw it. Yet he believed it was his duty as an Army medic to catalog the deaths and the atrocities against the 350 U.S. soldiers at the camp known as Berga, a subcamp of the notorious Buchenwald compound. Read full article...

"Flight from the Reich"

On Wednesday, October 13, Robert Jan van Pelt spoke to a room full of educators, students, and members of the community interested in the topics of the Holocaust, genocide, and refugees.

Van Pelt is a world renowned Holocaust scholar and author. He is a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Robert Jan van Pelt spoke on this evening about his most recent book, Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946.

We asked those educators wanting clock hours to write up something from the evening's presentation that stood out to them. Below are a few of these reflections. We will continue to add to this post as we receive submissions.

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By Helena B.

Robert Jan van Pelt’s talk revealed the way Holocaust studies has broadened its parameters to encompass the plight of refugees and weave the stories of those who “escaped” into the broader narrative of suffering and endurance. Using passports, visas, and documents as a unifying trope, van Pelt examines the plight of over one million Jews who fled the Reich, were deported from nation to nation, or rebuilt their lives in places as foreign as Shanghai. I appreciated how van Pelt exposed the contradiction of terms that inevitably emerges in a discussion of statelessness, border crossing, and transnational existence. Take, for example, the case of Anne Frank, who holds place in popular thought as a Dutch citizen, when in reality, her family had fled Nazi Germany and sought temporary refuge in Amsterdam. Or the conundrum that if a passport serves as a kind of legal guarantee—as assurance that the issuing country will unconditionally welcome back the holder into its jurisdiction—then a refugee with a passport, by definition, cannot exist. I found van Pelt’s analysis of contradictory terms and paper documents to be a provocative and useful means of grappling with his central question: “Who belongs to this history?”

I was also particularly struck by van Pelt’s analysis of the demographics of the exodus. French and British sponsored kindertransports, for example, were the result of political negotiation more than an acute and abiding sense of moral obligation. According to van Pelt, “We’ll take the children, if it will appease the public and excuse us from dealing with their parents” was the general consensus in British parliament. Moreover, although the Nazis requested that the Slovaks ship only young and able Jews for slave labor in concentration camps, the Slovak “all or nothing, old and young” response was, at least in part, responsible for the Final Solution in the sense that it prompted the Nazis to conduct their first systematic extermination based on age. Finally, young refugees (and young female refugees in particular) had a higher chance of survival and success post-exodus, for it was much easier for them to both secure proper documentation and rebuild their lives in a new place. Van Pelt’s decision to place lesser-examined topics like demographics and family dynamics in the context of diaspora and flight was a fresh approach to Holocaust scholarship. Refugees did not exist as an isolated group with wholly disparate experiences from those who stayed behind and found themselves trapped inside death camps. Indeed, theirs was a trauma with its own particular horrors, but with the same basic and ineffable suffering—the experience of living out terror, suddenly losing everything one knows and everything one holds dear.

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By Erika M.

The lecture given by Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt on October 13th was engaging and informative on the topic of Jewish refugees in the Holocaust.

I studied the history of the Holocaust at university and found my knowledge of the plight of refugees to be very limited. I was totally unaware of the numbers of Jews who escaped through Shanghai and the ease of attaining visas from the Japanese consulate. It was interesting to hear of the bureaucrats who offered escape to Jews in Europe regardless of the mandates from their government.

I often find myself focusing on the larger facts of the Holocaust and the chronological progression of events instead of the stories behind the story. For example, I have read The Diary of Anne Frank and am familiar with Frank’s story of hiding but wasn’t aware of the reasoning behind Otto Frank’s timely decision to escape to Holland before there was the sense of urgency found after 1939. It was with personal stories that van Pelt reiterated the truth that the refugee experience was different for everyone. This truth was echoed by comments from attendees who were the children of refugees.

I also appreciated the stories van Pelt shared including the tale of the Swiss spinster who copied letters between separated parents and children. To me it revealed the goodness of humanity in a time of such darkness with which parents tried to offer as much support and guidance to their children. I now look forward to increasing my knowledge on the topic as I read Flight from the Reich.

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By Keith M.

Dr. Van Pelt’s presentation allowed me to delve deeper into my own understanding of the mass removal and escape of Jews during the Holocaust. We often hear about the many stories of success in leaving Nazi Germany or Nazi occupation, but, as we discovered from Dr. Van Pelt, the plight of German Jews and Jews in German-occupied lands continued with the lack of interest of many countries, the United States included, in providing safeguard for many because immigration guidelines that limited widespread passage for many Jews, ultimately leading to capture and death within concentration camps. At the heart of Dr. Van Pelt’s stories and experiences is one important fact – we can never let our borders to safety be closed to those in need because of our own fears. Yet, we still see these experiences in the Sudan, in the former Yugoslavia, and in China. These must stop, and Dr. Van Pelt’s book is our own journal into the mistakes that were made by all, even those aiming to help.

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Stephanie N.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend Dr. Robert Jan Van Pelt’s lecture on Flight from The Reich: Refugee Jews 1933-1946. The experience in attending Dr. Van Pelt brought to light the refugee experience for Jews over a 13 year period. I think this was an area I had not really studied or been taught before. It was great to have a chance to hear an expert in the topic share his knowledge as well as having the opportunity to purchase his book on the subject.

Learning how a passport was essential to life and how if you did not have one you were in a very bad place without the possibility for gaining freedom in another country. I enjoyed the resources he shared from his book and that the book had elements I had not been taught before. I appreciate having the opportunity to learn more about the Holocaust by attending Dr. Van Pelt’s book talk.

The Man Who Sneaked Into Auschwitz

An unbelievable story. Pilecki voluntarily went to Auschwitz in order to reveal the truth about the camp. Story is also available in audio on NPR.

Meet The Man Who Sneaked Into Auschwitz

September 18, 2010
NPR Staff

This weekend marks the 70th anniversary of a World War II milestone few people have heard before. It's the story of a Polish army captain named Witold Pilecki.

In September 1940, Pilecki didn't know exactly what was going on in Auschwitz, but he knew someone had to find out. He would spend two and a half years in the prison camp, smuggling out word of the methods of execution and interrogation. He would eventually escape and author the first intelligence report on the camp.... Read more.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Thank to our many sponsors for supporting Holocaust education!

Carrots and....the Holocaust?

Eating carrots will improve your vision. True or false?

False.

Carrots are a great source of vitamin A, and it’s true that severe A deficiency causes night-blindness. But there is no proof that eating extra vitamin A, in carrots or other forms, can help eyesight.

This myth has a great backstory, though: During World War II, the British Air Ministry didn’t want the Germans to know about their new radar system so they spread the rumor that the fighter pilots who shot down Nazi planes ate a lot of carrots. The Germans bought it...as did generations of parents.

Talk about propaganda!

You can read more about the story here:
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/carrots.asp.

Kent Teacher, Debbie Carlson, Puts Emphasis on Social Justice

The Holocaust Center is so proud to be working with teachers like Debbie Carlson.

Spurred by Holocaust studies, Kent teacher puts emphasis on social justice in the classroom: Slide show of Holocaust sites

By LAURA PIERCE
Kent Reporter Editor
Sep 14 2010

It was the shoes on a riverbank that brought Debbie Carlson close to tears.

The Meridian Middle School teacher was on a trip to Eastern Europe this summer, and her tour group passed by a bronze sculpture of shoes, lined up on a riverbank. There were work shoes, children’s shoes, ladies’ shoes: a mixture of jobs, genders and ages.

The significance of the sculpture wasn’t lost on Carlson, who happened by this spot in the soft light of a summer day in Budapest, along the banks of Danube River with her tour group, while visiting sites of the Holocaust.

The shoes were the wordless reminder of the men, women and children whom the Nazis or their Hungarian counterparts lined up and shot along the riverbank. The bodies fell into the river, to be swept away by the current, their identities lost to their families and the world.

“When they were exterminating the Jews, they would line them up, and shoot them into the river,” Carlson says, of what she learned happened on that riverbank.

For Carlson, the sculpture was a consciousness-raising moment – one of many she experienced on the three-week trip... Read full article and see the slide show

George Elbaum - New Member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau

George Elbaum is a new member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau. He lives in San Francisco and travels to Seattle frequently. His memoir, Neither Yesterdays Nor Tomorrows, can be found on Amazon or borrowed from the Holocaust Center. The book can also be read at http://www.scribd.com/.

(See previous blog post "New Books" for information on George Elbaum's memoir.)

'Paper Clips’ helps S.F. man recall his Holocaust ‘Yesterdays’
Thursday, September 16, 2010 by marinell james
JWeekly.com

Warsaw, 1942: A 4-year-old Jewish boy is hiding under a table in a factory where his mother sews uniforms for the Nazi army. Soon, this arrangement becomes unsafe. The mother dyes her hair blonde, obtains the papers of a deceased Polish woman and changes her name. She smuggles her son out of the ghetto into the countryside, where she pays a Polish family to keep him safe in their home.

George ElbaumThe boy’s mother tells him that his name will now be Jerzy Kochanowski. It’s the first of several Polish names he’ll have during the war as he passes from one hiding place to another. For his protection, he will be raised as a Catholic, unaware that he is a Jew. His mother will visit when she can, sometimes not for a month at a time. San Francisco, 2010: The boy is now a 72-year-old man. Long ago, he moved to the United States and reclaimed his original Jewish name, George Elbaum. He has made a successful life for himself in business, been married 36 years, is a father and a grandfather. For six decades, he kept memories of his wartime childhood at a “safe emotional distance.”

But last year something happened that led Elbaum to finally close that chasm of time and memory.

While he and his wife were watching “Paper Clips,” a movie about schoolchildren in Tennessee who created a Holocaust remembrance project, he had “an epiphany.”

“The scenes where the children and the teachers were crying as they listened to the stories of survivors really hit me,” Elbaum said.

His wife sensed it and asked him, as she had in the past, if he’d write down his own memories. “I was surprised to hear myself say, ‘I’ll do it,’ ” he said. Read complete article.

New books to check out!

New resources available to borrow from the Holocaust Center's library. For more information, or to borrow books, please email Janna at admin@wsherc.org.

Would you like to help the Holocaust Center AND purchase a riveting read? If so, please first go to www.wsherc.org and enter the title or key word into the Amazon search box on the homepage. Amazon will donate a small percentage of your purchase to the Holocaust Center.

Bendavid-Val, Avrom. The Heavens Are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod. New York: Pegasus, 2010. Print.

A novel about the town of Trochenbrod, previously known as the setting of "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foers. This time, Trochenbrod is brought into the light by Bendavid-Val, touching upon the memory and history behind a booming town erased by the Nazis yet determined to stay in the hearts and minds of those connected to it forever.

Black, Gerry. Jewish London: An Illustrated History. 2007 ed. Derby, England: Breedon Books Publishing Co Ltd, 2009. Print.

Photos and written history of the long-time contribution that Jews have made to London.

Choko, Isabelle , Frances Irwin, Lotti Kahana-Aufleger, Margit Raab Kalina, and Jane Lipski. Stolen Youth: Five Women's Survival in the Holocaust. New York: Yad Vashem & Holocaust Survivors Memoirs Project, 2005. Print.

The stories of five women who survived the Holocaust.

Curators, The. Treasures of Jewish Heritage: Jewish Museum, London. 1 ed. London: Scala Publishers, 2006. Print.

A published written and pictorial journey through the Jewish Museum in London.

Elbaum, George J.. Neither Yesterdays Nor Tomorrows: Vignettes of a Holocaust Childhood. London, UK: Createspace, 2010. Print.

George J. Elbaum's look back into his childhood and time spent in the Warsaw ghetto, with other families hiding, and his life during and after the Holocaust.

Greenman, Leon. An Englishman in Auschwitz (The Library of Holocaust Testimonies). 2001. Reprint. Portland: Mitchell Vallentine & Company, 2010. Print.

The story of Leon Greenman, an Englishman living with his family in Holland during the early years of the Holocaust, abandoned by the British Consulate once war came, and without money or nationality papers. He and his family were taken to Auschwitz, and his wife and young son were gassed upon arrival. Greenman tells his harrowing tale of survival through Auschwitz, Monowitz, and the Death March to Gleiwitz and Buchenwald, where he was eventually liberated.

Levy, Debbie. The Year of Goodbyes: A true story of friendship, family and farewells. New York: Hyperion Books, 2010. Print.

A collection of writings by Jutta Salzberg and her friends out of her autograph book in Germany during 1938. Debbie Levy, Salzberg's daugher, has created a narrative and has rounded out the story of her mother's last year in Germany.

Mittelberg, David. Between Two Worlds: The Testimony & the Testament. Israel: Devora Publishing, 2004. Print.

David Mittelberg's novel is one in two parts, the first being his father's memoir and recollections of the Holocaust, and the second being his own thoughts as a second generation Holocaust survivor. Mittelberg negotiates his father's story and the found knowledge of the family that his father lost in the Holocaust, influencing him to become a better son in an effort to make up for the son that had been lost. Through this, Mittelberg bridges the gap that many second generation survivors face.

Ozsvath, Zsuzsanna. When the Danube Ran Red (Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust). Beirut: Amer Univ Of Beirut, 2010. Print.

A memoir written by Zsuzsanna Ozsvath, a Hungarian Jew, about her childhood in Budapest during the Holocaust. Ozsvath highlights her experiences living in the ghetto and the trials that her former nanny, Erzsi, faced for helping Ozsvath's family survive.

Stein, Larry. The Really Fun Family Haggadah (Hebrew Edition). Bilingual ed. Highland Park: Ruach Publishing, 2000. Print.

A fun, educational, and family-friendly Haggadah.

Zangwill, Israel. Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People. 1892. Reprint. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998. Print.

A novel that originally gave nineteenth-century British middle class Jews and non-Jews an inside look into the people and culture of the Jewish ghettos in London.

Meet the Shemanski Education Intern - Charlotte Campbell: A little bit about myself

September 15, 2010

Good morning!

Rounding up my morning at the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, I have decided that I should explain a little about myself as the new Education Intern. My name is Charlotte Campbell and I am going into my final year at the University of Washington. I am overwhelmed with feelings of excitement, nervousness, and the unbearable feeling of not being a student at UW anymore. How I will miss the large lecture halls of my general education requirement classes and the small seminars of my upper-division electives filled with interesting ideas and lively debates. And let me tell you, history majors absolutely love to discuss, so there were quite a few fiery conversations. To get to the point, I’m a history major in the Department of History and am also receiving a minor from the Samuel & Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program through the Jackson School of International Studies.

As many of you may be asking yourselves, “What will she do with these fields of study?” Well, I am not wholly sure, but I am certainly looking forward to learning more languages—German is on the forefront as I am taking it this year, but I’m also itching to learn Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and many more—as well as to further my study of the Holocaust and other genocides in a graduate school program. I am not sure which one as of yet, but I suppose I’ll choose that path when I come a little closer to it.

I can, however, touch briefly upon where I have been. I was born and raised in an old mill village that sidles up next to the Blackstone River—one of the most important rivers in early textiles and American Industrialization—and was named for President Abraham Lincoln. Yes, I grew up in the town that almost every state has, Lincoln, except this one happens to exist in Rhode Island. My years were spent going to public school, riding horses, and doing an assortment of other activities, as one might imagine. After eighteen years of living there, however, I decided that it might be time for change and so I applied to schools outside of New England. With an auspicious letter that arrived in Spring of 2007, I became a proud member of Husky Nation and a fortunate human being. My past three years have been filled with great classes, exceptional people, and an increasing ability to write quality papers at mind-blowing speeds.

Once again, I feel that fortune has smiled upon me, being privileged enough to become part of the Holocaust Center’s fabulous team. I look forward to sharing with you my increasing knowledge of the Holocaust and genocide through the resources here, as well as what I’m learning in my classes. I am hoping to spread the word on worthwhile Holocaust films to watch as I am taking Popular Film and the Holocaust taught by Professor Richard Block and to perhaps share some interesting tidbits and information from my Jewish Cultural History class taught by Professor Martin Jaffee. Who knows, maybe some German will get tossed in as well!

Stay tuned for a new list of recommended books and see what else is going on through the Holocaust Center by clicking the Programs and Events tab by the top. And as always, thanks for reading!

Signed,
Charlotte R. Campbell
History Major, Jewish Studies Minor
University of Washington Class of 2011

Teachers in the News

A Summer of Learning
“The whole point is to activate kids,” to get them past the horror and “to understand that they are global citizens and can make a difference.” Jo Cripps is a Seattle Public Schools teacher who was a Memorial Library summer fellow at New York’s Holocaust Education Network in July.

http://www.jtnews.net/index.php?/columnists/item/7860/C7


Teaching the Teachers
Teachers Tammy Grubb and Debbie Carlson describe their experiences and impressions from the Holocaust Center's trip to Budapest and Prague in the JT News.

http://www.jtnews.net/index.php?/news/item/teaching_the_teachers/

Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide - BLOG!

Aida Kouyoumjian, author of Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide, a book describing her mother's experience during and after the Armenian genocide, has a blog!

http://armenianstory.coffeetownpress.com/

Learn about the book, read reviews, and more...

Between the Two Rivers is available to borrow from the Holocaust Center's library or you can find it on the Amazon.com - it is on the best seller list!

Please Note - if you link to Amazon through the Holocaust Center's homepage - use the Amazon search box - Amazon will donate a small percentage of your purchase to the Holocaust Center!

80+ teachers dedicated a summer day to learning about the Holocaust & genocide

Over 80 teachers attended last week's intensive one-day teacher seminar at Seattle University: Perspectives on the Holocaust, sponsored by the Holocaust Center and the USHMM, in partnership with Seattle University.

Sessions included "Nazi Ideology," "Propaganda," "Guidelines for teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide," and a special presentations by Carl Wilkens, a witness to the Rwandan Genocide and Henry Friedman, a Holocaust survivor.

"I came today because I want to teach this very hard subject better. This day was powerful - I know my unit will be better because of it."

(image below: Carl Wilkens)

"I liked the connection with other genocides."
"The entire workshop was outstanding!"

"I am amazed by the wealth of resources available to me...for free!"

"This was one of the most amazing professional development workshops I have ever attended!"

School Regulations - studying genocide in Massachusetts and Texas

School Can Exclude Materials Disputing Armenian GenocideBy ANNIE YOUDERIAN
Courthouse News Service

(CN) - Massachusetts public schools can exclude material disputing the Armenian genocide in guidelines for teaching human rights, the 1st Circuit ruled in a closely watched case.

A Turkish cultural group had objected to a draft of the guidelines, which referred to "the Armenian genocide" and stated that the "Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire destroyed large portions of its Christian Armenian minority population" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Turkish government has denied that the mass killings in 1915 constituted genocide, instead linking the tragedy to deportations during a brutal civil war. Most Armenians insist that the killings were part of a planned, systematic extinction of between 1 million and 1.5 million Armenian Christians. Read more...


New standards for Holocaust, genocide studies in TX high schools
By LESLIE CONTRERAS SCHWARTZ
Jewish Herald Voice

The Texas Education Agency has set new state standards for Texas social studies and history classes that include the teaching of the Holocaust and other genocides in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills criterion.

The new standards, which are now mandatory for the first time, were proposed and created by the effort of the recently formed Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission, with help from Holocaust Museum Houston and the Houston Independent School District. The standards went into effect in June. Read more...

A life-long learner's education continues in Budapest and Prague

By Larry Kolano

Larry Kolano is a retired middle school social studies/U.S. History teacher from Longview's Cascade Middle School. For over 40 years he has read and studied books and viewed films covering different aspects of the Holocaust. His formal Holocaust education training includes classes and seminars sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, B'nai Brith, Facing History, and the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. In 2005 JFR awarded him an Alfred Lerner Fellowship. In addition to attending presentations in classroom settings, he participated in the JFR's summer Holocaust trip to Germany and Poland in 2008. For three years he served on the Holocaust Center's education advisory committee. Even in retirement, he conducts Holocaust presentations to civic groups and elementary/secondary classes. Larry currently resides in California.

[Photo by Larry Kolano: Memorial on the Danube. Cast iron shoes.]

For most of my 30 year teaching career I taught my students the basics of the Holocaust. Both teenaged and adult students were amazed by the inhumanity displayed by Nazi Germany and its allies between 1933 and 1945. As a life-long learner, I continue to explore different aspects of the Holocaust.

In 2008 I journeyed to Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz with other Holocaust scholars. In 2010 I travelled to Budapest and Prague to learn about the treatment of Jews in Hungary and the Czech Republic. Experiences of the Jewish people differed from those who lived in the German Reich, Poland, the Ukraine, and other occupied territories. Until 1944 Hungary's leaders allied themselves with Germany and successfully refused to comply with Nazi requests for Jewish "special actions" and "relocation." When faced with Hungary's defection, after the Red Army crossed its border, German troops invaded and Nazi racial laws implemented. With the assistance of Hungary's anti-semitic Arrow Cross, hundreds of thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent off to Auschwitz or they were simply killed where they were housed awaiting transport. Others were herded to the banks of the Danube, shot, and their bodies thrown into the river. A memorial comprised of bronzed shoes now exists at one of the execution spots along the Danube.

The Holocaust in Hungary was new to me. I had heard of Raoul Wallenberg's efforts to save Jewish lives, but I had never read about or heard about the collection of horrors inflicted on the Jewish population living in and around Budapest. After preparing for the trip by reading The Siege of Budapest, Kasztner's Train, and Hunting Eichmann and experiencing the European tour associated with the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center and Museum Without Walls, I have a much greater understanding of the Holocaust as it developed in another occupied country.

Rafle du Vel d'Hiv

Buses waiting at the entrance to the Velodrome d'Hiver, where almost 13,000 Jews were assembled before being transported to Drancy and other French transit camps. Paris, France, July 16 and 17, 1942.
— Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris. Photo from USHMM.

July 16th and 17th mark the anniversary of the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv - the massive roundup of Jews in Paris, France in 1942.

Yad Vashem describes:

On July 16-17, 1942, in one of the most brutal and overt deportation operations, thousands of French police gathered up 12,884 Parisian Jews-including families with children, and irrespective of sex, age, and physical condition-and placed them in the Velodrome d’Hiver stadium without any provisions whatsoever. In several locations, children were separated from their parents. The victims were loaded aboard cattle cars and sent to Drancy en route to Auschwitz.

This deportation evoked the first substantial manifestations of opposition to the Vichy regime among several segments of the French population. It was impossible to keep the arrests of the Jews secret, and the brutality invoked in separating families was fiercely protested. The fact that most of the arrests were made by French police prompted charges against the force concerning collaboration with the Nazi regime on the part of France and its institutions, particularly with respect to the murder of Jews in this country.

During 1942, nearly 30,000 Jews were deported from Paris. (USHMM)

Susan Redd, a long-time French Teacher, scholar of the Holocaust in France, and member of the Holocaust Center's Education Advisory Committee comments:
"Thank you for posting this sad anniversary of the round-up of Jews by the French 'milice,' who gave more than demanded. The Nazis only requested 12,000 male Jews, but the enthusiastic antisemitic militia gave families of Jews, besides confiscating things of value from them."

Roundup of Jews. Paris, France, ca. 1942.
— YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York. Photo from USHMM.

A recent novel, Sarah's Key, has highlighted this experience and has become a popular read among book groups.

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 4

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 4

By Rachel Nathanson

From June 24 - July 4, 2010 the Holocaust Center, in partnership with Museum Without Walls, organized a Holocaust study trip to Budapest and Prague. Frieda S., a survivor from Terezin, and her daughter Dee (also the Co-Executive Director of the Holocaust Center) participated in the trip and shared the group invaluable first hand experiences. Eva, a survivor of Terezin who had been in the barracks with Frieda, met up with us. Below Rachel Nathanson, one of the Holocaust Center's board members and a participant on the trip, describes some of sites and shares her thoughts on the experience of visiting Terezin.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Although much has been recorded of the Terezin history, the flood of 2002 that ravaged much of Central Europe, gave rise to new discoveries. Due to the flood, a storage room within a private home’s yard was damaged by the almost five-foot high waters. All of the stored goods were then removed, leading to the discovery of what was clearly a hidden synagogue. This small room (about 15’ by 15’), with no windows, lost the inscriptions along the walls due to the floodwaters, but the ceiling painting remains. The prayers, written high along the walls, beg God to return from his anger. The remaining words of one damaged prayer now say, “If I forget thee…”

The Red Cross Visit
The Red Cross was allowed to visit Terezin to see what Hitler called “a city for the Jews”, a city he created to supposedly protect them from the horrors of war. The village area was spruced up and an illusion that this was a working, lovely town was made complete. Stores were filled with goods, bakeries overflowed with food, and the inmates carefully instructed on how to “play act” for these visiting outsiders. Children were given candy to hold but told not to eat it and upon a successful ruse for the Red Cross, the candy was cruelly stripped from their fingers by the guards.

A film, made by Jewish filmmakers within Terezin, shows the theatrically happy lives being lived by all the inmates. Playacting included a soccer game with cheering crowds, young women sharing their knitting projects, and other manufactured scenes. With the film complete, the filmmakers and many of those participating in the film were promptly sent to Auschwitz to eliminate their knowing complicity.

Survival
Frieda and Eva were blessed to have lived. Their survival was helped by so many small factors: the fact that as “mischlings” they were transported later and treated slightly better; that they were given the job of working the fields for the officers which allowed them to sneak a little food while in the fields and bring a few items back to the other girls; that they were strong and young – and determined.

Frieda tells the chilling story of so many girls getting shipped out on the trains and she wanted desperately to get out of Terezin. She managed to trade some things to get one of the “transport cards” for a train, not realizing she would be sealing her fate to leave for Auschwitz. The guard at the train saw her and noted that she reminded him of his own daughter. She begged to get on the train and he told her he would “break her legs” if she ever tried to get on the train again, and sent her back. What amount of guilt did this man have that he could choose just one girl, save just one soul?

Three months before the war was over, Frieda’s father, who was Jewish, and brother were also transported to Terezin. As the Soviet fighting came closer to Terezin in 1945, the Germans fled, destroying bridges and roads behind them. Frieda’s father did not hesitate. He stole a horse and cart and filled it with as many children as could fit and took them out of Terezin to Prague. What would normally take 12 hours, took 5 days.

When the Soviets reached Terezin, they had to quarantine the area due to the rampant outbreak of Typhus. Adding to the tragedy of this chapter of history, many of the remaining inmates died of typhoid fever, even though “liberated” from the camp.

I started this long account by saying I have a 15-year old daughter. I could not help but think of my own daughter when learning about Frieda and Eva’s experience (as only 2 of so many). How could I have handled her being taken from me at such a young age for several years? We learned that Frieda’s mother travelled many days to stand outside the fortress walls in hopes of catching a glimpse of her daughter, just to know that she was still alive. I stood with chills, thinking about her mother. I could be her mother.

In the end, the only thing I can do is bear witness to the story. Let this horrendous time in our history never be forgotten. I am ever so grateful for what I have.

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 3

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 3
By Rachel Nathanson


From June 24 - July 4, 2010 the Holocaust Center, in partnership with Museum Without Walls, organized a Holocaust study trip to Budapest and Prague. Frieda S., a survivor from Terezin, and her daughter Dee (also the Co-Executive Director of the Holocaust Center) participated in the trip and shared the group invaluable first hand experiences. Eva, a survivor of Terezin who had been in the barracks with Frieda, met up with us. Below Rachel Nathanson, one of the Holocaust Center's board members and a participant on the trip, describes some of sites and shares her thoughts on the experience of visiting Terezin.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4


We stood before the building where Frieda and Eva’s teenage years were stolen, and their lives forever marked by this horrendous historical time. They pointed to the window of their once jail-like home, where they shared their small room with 30 or so others. Most of those “roommates” were shipped out over time, continually replaced with new faces, only to be shipped out again and again. So many of the teens they lived with were tragically transported to a place even darker in history: Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This photo (above) shows Frieda and Eva in front of their “barracks” during their internment.

A recreated room in the women’s living quarters:


Terezin is now freshly painted and beautifully planted with flowers. The newly spruced up town sadly belies its tragic history, from a visual perspective. Approximately 1,000 people returned to live in Terezin, but one wonders how they can bear to do so. Our guide, a young man trained in the vocation of being a Terezin tour guide admitted he could not imagine living within the walls of a town where such history took place.

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 2

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 2
By Rachel Nathanson



From June 24 - July 4, 2010 the Holocaust Center, in partnership with Museum Without Walls, organized a Holocaust study trip to Budapest and Prague. Frieda S., a survivor from Terezin, and her daughter Dee (also the Co-Executive Director of the Holocaust Center) participated in the trip and shared the group invaluable first hand experiences. Eva, a survivor of Terezin who had been in the barracks with Frieda, met up with us. Below Rachel Nathanson, one of the Holocaust Center's board members and a participant on the trip, describes some of sites and shares her thoughts on the experience of visiting Terezin.

Chapter 1
Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The Ghetto
While Terezin was not a death camp, it was not without its own atrocities and death. The numbers vary throughout accounts, but around 140,000 people were deported to Terezin between 1941 and 1945, with an additional 15,000 arriving in the last days of the war. Of these, about 35,000 died in the ghetto itself, and about 88,000 were sent to Auschwitz and other extermination camps.

The town’s original inhabitants of about 5,000 people were forced to relocate by the Nazi party and were replaced over time by about 55,000 Jews. These overcrowding conditions lead to many deaths and unspeakable living conditions for all.

It is one thing to read accounts of the Holocaust, and quite another to stand on the hallowed ground of these historic sites. And to do so with two valiant survivors, two amazingly strong women, was a unique experience for me, one I am truly grateful for. Frieda and Eva, both from mixed-religion families, noted that they grew up in a time when religion was not critical to family structure. Many families of mixed-religion raised one child as a Jew and the next as a Catholic. All holidays were observed and national pride was more important than religion.

As mixed-religion children, “mischlings” as labeled by the Germans, Frieda and Eva were told to be on the transport to Terezin upon or near their 14th birthday. Frieda was the 175th person on her transport of 175, from Prague (Praha) on June 9, 1943 as documented on the wall of the Ghetto Museum today:

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 1. By Rachel Nathanson

Terezin Reflections - Chapter 1

July 2010

By Rachel Nathanson

From June 24 - July 4, 2010 the Holocaust Center, in partnership with Museum Without Walls, organized a Holocaust study trip to Budapest and Prague. Frieda S., a survivor from Terezin, and her daughter Dee (also the Co-Executive Director of the Holocaust Center) participated in the trip and shared the group invaluable first hand experiences. Eva, a survivor of Terezin who had been in the barracks with Frieda, met up with us. Below Rachel Nathanson, one of the Holocaust Center's board members and a participant on the trip, describes some of sites and shares her thoughts on the experience of visiting Terezin.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

I have a 15-year old daughter. She is the age that Frieda and Eva were after spending the first of two years in a concentration work camp in Terezin, Czech Republic. But for a mere 50 years or so (a blink of an eye in the annals of historic time) and the serendipity of being born in America, this could have been my daughter’s experience.

Having been home now for a week, I am still processing all that I saw and learned while participating in a Holocaust educational trip to Hungary and the Czech Republic. It was a transformative experience, and an honor, to learn more about this tragic history from these two women who survived it. Here, I want to share what we saw in Terezin, on an all-too-brief visit on July 2, 2010.

The Fortress
Originally built by the Hapsburg Monarchy (in 1780) as a fortress to protect Prague from invaders, it is a walled city surrounded by a moat. Broken into 2 sections, the “small fortress” was used by the Prague Gestapo as a prison in WWII. The larger “town” portion was used as a ghetto to “concentrate” the Jews, hence the term “concentration camp”.

The entry yard to the small fortress still has the German labels above the doors for the various offices, where the initial processing of prisoners took place. How eerie to stand on the same worn down, wooden floors where efficient Nazi command sent nearly 32,000 prisoners through the gates to hell. On through the archway with the insidious Nazi mockery, “Work Makes One Free”.

Most prisoners were Czech and most were part of the resistance. Many were jailed for having made a joke in the streets about Nazis, for being gay, with the harshest treatment meted out to the Jews.

The largest barracks were first on our tour, used to house the upper level of prisoners. Here there were about 90 men per room, with large bunk beds to be shared, one sink, one latrine, windows, but no heat. From here the rooms got smaller, the crowding greater and the conditions heartbreakingly worse.

The cells holding Jews were smaller. In a room of about 144 square feet, there typically were 55 prisoners. Can you imagine being in a cell with only 2 feet of space to stand in, taking turns to sit or lie down? These cells had one small window high in the wall, no beds, no toilet, no heat, and most importantly, no ventilation. Without adequate oxygen, many perished of suffocation. The solitary cells further along were yet smaller. These cells held only 3-5 prisoners at a time, but the space was frightening. Only about 10 square feet, they had no windows, no light whatsoever, and those held herein would have been plunged into a world of total darkness once the hefty wooden door slammed shut on them. How many lost their sanity in these conditions?

We moved on to the adjacent building where the showers were shown to us. Chilling to us as we all contemplated the more deathly use of showers at the Nazi death camps, but these showers were innocent enough. Prisoners were given a delousing shower once per week. Since they were done in groups of 100 or so, it was an important gathering place for prisoners to see friends and learn who was still alive.

Leaving the walls of the small fortress, we viewed the home of the camp commander and ranking guard housing. The swimming pool dug by hand by prisoners (without the benefit of any tools!), was the sense that housing conditions had improved for someone. Gestapo families raised their children here, showed them the atrocities taking place inside the walls, and were able to sleep at night. It was more than I could mentally grasp. The commander’s home was a huge palace-like structure with a flower-lined drive.

On Holocaust Education - NY Times Op-Ed

On Holocaust Education

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
By ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI
Published: June 28, 2010

In an article on June 18, Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, wrote that the teaching of the Holocaust should focus more on preventing ethnic conflict and genocide.

Before questioning the value of Holocaust education,one should first address its goals:

What, exactly, are we trying to achieve in teaching about the Holocaust? Is it realistic to expect that the study of the Holocaust will diminish human rights abuses and racism, and instead nurture democracy and tolerance? Will mixing the narrative of the Holocaust with other types of atrocities really encourage better human behavior?

Accumulated experience from the field has proven that there are no short cuts. A trip to Auschwitz does not suddenly turn visitors into noble humanitarians. An hour’s lesson on the Holocaust will certainly not prevent the next Rwanda or Darfur.

Some of Kofi Annan’s thoughts, along with those of others, were discussed and debated at a recent Holocaust educators’ conference in which I also participated. Hundreds of educators and decision makers from around the world gathered at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to grapple with these very questions and challenges.

The younger generations commonly view the Holocaust with indifference. Born in the early 1990s, they tend to view World War II as irrelevant to their everyday lives. Our job is to demonstrate how historical events, including the Holocaust, are unique opportunities to understand the world today. We must show that Holocaust education is a vital tool to glean from the past messages for today.

Superficial Holocaust education leaves no lasting impact. It will not overcome forces of racism and intolerance, or solve enduring social problems. Effective Holocaust education, focusing on the human story within the facts of history, does, however, foster greater understanding of the social processes that can lead to genocide.

Genuine, deep, long-term study of the Holocaust has the power to sensitize people, raise awareness of the other, help identify the preliminary warning signs of genocide, and put the brakes in place.

The Holocaust was the most extreme case of genocide. Indeed, because all the elements are present in the Holocaust — including, but not only: a murderous ideology, technological and bureaucratic means, deligitimization, classification, dispossession and mass murder — it illustrates processes that help us identify the potential for genocide.

Yet we must not delude ourselves: Holocaust education is a relatively recent phenomenon, and the number of primary and secondary school students around the world actually engaged in it is still relatively limited.

In Poland, as in much of Europe, the Holocaust is, and must be, part of our curriculum, present in the public discourse, and at the heart of 20th century European history.

It is the starting point from which Europeans need to address the breakdown of universal values that allowed such a cataclysmic event to occur, and from which we must seek the answers as to how to ensure that such a breakdown can never again happen.

Without being anchored in the defining context of the Holocaust, haphazard exposure to a mélange of disparate conflicts, ethnic cleansings and other atrocities serves only to blur understanding and learning.

While the Holocaust was a unique event, targeting the Jews in particular, its nature lends it universal meaning. Taking place in the heart of civilized Europe in the 20th century, the Holocaust shook the very foundations of our shared existence. Paradoxically, its study contains and provides the very tools for rebuilding that foundation.

Mr. Annan urges us to rethink “traditional” Holocaust education, and indeed, experts at Yad Vashem and other institutions are constantly exploring different avenues in this field. Dedicated educators use all the tools at their disposal to create multidisciplinary, country-specific and age-appropriate Holocaust studies for the long term. They are honing an educational model that adds layers of understanding to our ability to cultivate human rights and tolerance in society and adds depth to our ability to shape a brighter future.


Aleksander Kwasniewski was the president of Poland from 1995 to 2005.