"Studying the Holocaust changed the way I make decisions." - Student

Monday, July 26, 2010

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.

2 comments:

  1. -
    HELLO,

    Hi, we are 7Grani, an italian rock band who realized the music video of our song "Neve diventeremo", a song dedicated to all those people deported in nazi's camps during the II World War.( specially rom people who are always forgotten !! and still today discriminated)
    Part of the music video has been shot inside Buckenwald nazi's camp close to Weimar in Germany after the Director of the camp Rikola-Gunnar Luettgenau, give us the autorization
    We made a documentary about his life and we wrote a song ( Neve diventeremo ).

    This is probably the first time that a rock band shoot a video inside a nazi's camp.

    Right now the documentary and the videoclip are available for the public at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.
    The music video is also available at this web address:


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7-8ZQN1S2c

    and the documentary on our website: www.7grani.it

    Le Monde 22.5.2009
    Tournage inédit d'un vidéoclip dans le camp de Buchenwald
    It's our wish to do presentations of our project "Neve diventeremo" with the shooting of the music video and our gig to young people, trying to make them undertand how important freedom is and how important is defending it."Forgive but not forget"
    We would like to thank you for your support helping us finding foundation, and people who would like to help us to diffuse our project.


    If send us your address we delevery the DVD



    www.7grani.it
    Thank you.
    Sincerely

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete