Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center Blog

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

2012-01-27T12:54:00.001-08:00

Not to be confused with Yom HaShoah (April 19, 2012), the United States’ Holocaust Remembrance Day, today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this day in 1945, the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, and in 2005 this day was adopted as the United Nations’ day of Holocaust Remembrance—a day in which every nation state in the United Nations is obligated to honor the over 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. This year, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day is dedicated to the children who died in the Holocaust. Today, the Secretary-General of the United Nations gave this statement:

“One and a half million Jewish children perished in the Holocaust – victims

of persecution by the Nazis and their supporters.

Tens of thousands of other children were also murdered.

They included people with disabilities… as well as Roma and Sinti.

All were victims of a hate-filled ideology that labelled them “inferior”.

This year’s International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust is dedicated to the children – girls and boys who faced sheer terror and evil.

Many were orphaned by the war, or ripped away from their families.

Many died of starvation, disease or at the hands of their abusers.

We will never know what these children might have contributed to our world.

And among the survivors, many were too shattered to tell their stories.

Today, we seek to give voice to those accounts.

That is why the United Nations continues to teach the universal lessons of the Holocaust.

It is why we strive to promote children’s rights and aspirations – every day and everywhere.

And it is why we will continue to be inspired by the shining example of great humanitarians such as Raoul Wallenberg, in this, the centennial year of his birth.

Today, as we remember all those lost during the Holocaust – young and old alike -- I call on all nations to protect the most vulnerable, regardless of race, colour, gender or religious beliefs.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to the worst of humankind.

We must show them the best this world has to offer.

Thank you.”

H.E. Mr. Ban Ki Moon

The Secretary-General of United Nations

For more information about International Holocaust Remembrance Day and how to attend a memorial in your area, click here.

An email we received from a teacher

2012-01-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

An email we received other day from a teacher. We have posted it with her permission.

Dear Holocaust Center,

I would like to order your DVD With My Own Eyes. I have taught the Holocaust through both my World and U.S. History classes for twenty years, and I will be retiring from teaching in June, 2013. I would like to leave not only all of my Holocaust teaching materials gathered from so many workshops over the years, but also your DVD that focuses on many of the speakers my students have listened to spellbound in person. As these wonderful people pass on, we need to have their voices still heard by this new generation of high school students.

Please tell Klaus Stern that his voice has resonated with my students from the 1990’s at Shorewood High School to the students of Northgate Middle College High School. I keep in touch with many former students, and one of the most lasting experiences of my classes has been Klaus’ talk. Just yesterday I was visiting a former student from MCHS who now has a new baby. As we were talking, she said she’d love to have me meet her husband who is also a huge history buff, especially zeroing in on WWII. She then mentioned listening to Klaus Stern and related almost every part of his talk to those kids. She mentioned how it touched her so deeply and she will never forget his story and what happened in the Holocaust. MCHS works with at risk kids, drop outs, etc., and all of them were forever changed by listening to the hardships and stories of Mr. Stern.

I am finishing my teaching career as the only high school Social Studies teacher at Seattle Public Schools’ parent partner program. I teach regular high school classes as we are bound by all of the state and national standards just as any regular or alternative high school program. Over half of my students are Muslim, mostly girls in long flowing dresses, and this message needs to be heard by them too. This spring I am hoping to put in a speaker’s request one more time for Klaus Stern if he is still able to withstand the rigors of classroom visits. If not, the new DVD will be there to tell the story of Klaus and all the other survivors.

Karen Hansen
Seattle

2012-01-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

"Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing"
Dr. James Waller
January 19, 2012. 6:30pm - 8:30pm.
Microsoft, Building 99, Redmond
Free and open to the public
RSVP - ilanak@wsherc.org

The past century, dubbed the "Age of Genocide," saw more than 60 million people murdered to meet the needs of the state. One unassailable fact is that political, social, or religious groups wanting to commit mass murder are never hindered by a lack of willing executioners. How is it that ordinary people commit such extraordinary evil?

Dr. James Waller is the Holocaust Studies Chair at Keene State College, an Affiliated Scholar with the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, and author of
Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2007).

Also offered - Teacher Training: Friday, January 20, 2012. 8:30am - 3:30pm. At Bellevue College. Keynote: Dr. James Waller, "Genocide: Ever Again."

EVA TANNENBAUM CUMMINS: MY HERO

2011-12-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

When asked by her teacher, Jo Cripps, to write an essay on her hero, Maya didn't choose a media figure, or a relative, or even a person out of history. She chose Eva Tannenbaum Cummins, a Holocaust survivor who spoke to her class earlier in the year. Eva is a member of the Holocaust Center's speakers bureau.

EVA TANNENBAUM CUMMINS: MY HERO
By Maya P., student at Pinehurst School, Seattle

"Can any of this happen here? That’s something that’s up to each and every one of us."
--Eva

Eva Tannenbaum Cummins was born in Berlin, Germany, in1922. She had a life like all the other children at that time. She had everything a little girl could dream of. She had a loving family and a good education.

And then everything changed. Events forced her to flee from Berlin, days before Hitler started World War II. Eva left her friends, her home, and everything she knew.

In January of 1933, Hitler took power in Germany. Eva's remarkable, intelligent father came home early one day and told his family his shocking news. He’d gotten fired from his newspaper job because he was Jewish.

When Eva was in fifth grade, the school principal brought together all the Jewish students in school. The principal explained to Eva and her friends that even though they were wonderful students, Nazi laws now required all Jews to leave public schools.

Eva and her mother escaped from Germany August of 1939, two weeks before Hitler attacked Poland. They arrived in Seattle with $20. They stayed with Eva’s mother's cousin. Eva went to Broadway High School, and her mother cleaned houses. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and started World War II.

Now, Eva is telling her story to children all around Seattle and beyond. She is dramatizing her life with a play she wrote. She is devoted to her work, and she is one of the few lucky people who actually love their job. Eva is fully committed to her work with us students, and she is very brave.

Eva has been brave all her life, even during deep hardship. Today, at age 89, Eva is going strong.

With so much negativity in the world, I think it’s time that some of the nice people here got some attention instead. Eva definitely grabbed our attention with her play. But most of all, she was kind. To me and all the others. She loves us, and we learn from her and love her back. That is why she is my hero.

Photo: Eva with students at Highline Community College in 2009.

Making the world a better place

2011-12-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

Holocaust Survivors Argue Against Donation

2011-12-15T13:11:00.000-08:00

Holocaust survivors in Florida have successfully lobbied against the acceptance of a donation from the American subsidiary of the French National Railroad (SNCF). The donation of $80,000 was to be used to teach Florida students about the role of France in the Holocaust. Regional survivors urged the state's educational commissioner to reject the donation on the grounds that the railroad has not taken full responsibility for it's role in the deaths of 76,000 French Jews. For its part, the SNCF has issued an apology, however it also maintains the the trains had been commandeered by the Nazis.

Link:

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/15/3090768/holocaust-survivors-force-nazi-collaborator-french-railroad-to-back-down

Tensions Rise Between France and Turkey Over Genocide Issue

2011-12-13T13:02:00.001-08:00

Tensions between Turkey and France are growing as the French parliament prepares to vote on a resolution that would penalize the denial of the Armenian genocide. If passed, the resolution would prompt France to block Turkey's membership bid to the European Union unless Turkey formally recognizes its role in the deaths of some 1.5 million Armenians. Turkey has denied any role in the deaths.

Link:

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-265644-turkish-reaction-piles-up-against-sarkozy-ahead-of-genocide-denial-vote.html

Here is a link to some information on the Armenian genocide:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/armenian_genocide/index.html

German Right-wing Group Under Increased Public Scrutiny

2011-12-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

German politicians are attempting to ban the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) after finding possible links between former NPD leader Ralf Wohlleben with the neo-Nazi terror cell known as the Zwickau cell. The allegations connect the NPD and Wohlleben with the murders of nine people of foreign origin and a police officer.

While past attempts to ban the NPD have failed, many believe the arrest of Wohlleben is the opportunity German officials have been waiting for to finally ban the party.

Link:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,801312,00.html

The discovery of the Zwickau cell and the arrest of Wohlleben have put a microscope on Germany’s far-right movement, and it appears that the groups are better armed than originally thought. According to Der Spiegel authorities confiscated 811 weapons from right-wing groups from 2008-2010.

Link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,800815,00.html

With My Own Eyes - DVD

2011-12-07T08:21:00.001-08:00

300 classrooms around the state of Washington will use the Holocaust Center's new short documentary this year.

Want a free copy? Email us! (Please include your mailing address.)

Using the film in the classroom - We have two teacher trainings coming up at which we will be offering a session on how to use the film with your students.

Bellevue on January 20

Bellingham on February 17

More information can be found on our website at www.wsherc.org/news.

David Duke Held in Germany

2011-12-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

Former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana politician David Duke was arrested in Cologne, Germany last week prior to a speaking engagement with a right-wing extremist group. Duke’s detention appears to be linked to a 2009 incident in the Czech Republic where he was detained and subsequently expelled from the country on suspicion of Holocaust denial.

Duke is not new to Holocaust denial. The Huffington Post points to “a 2006 appearance at a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, Iran. The conference featured numerous speeches denouncing the Holocaust as a "myth." At the conference, Duke voiced support for discredited, fringe scholars imprisoned in Europe for denying the use of gas chambers against Jews during the Holocaust.”

Links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/david-duke-arrested-in-germany_n_1119010.html

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/04/3090552/david-duke-arrested-at-german-neo-nazi-event

Survivor speaks to homeless youth in Seattle

2011-12-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

Speakers Bureau member Josh G. spoke to a group of individuals at Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, an organization that provides support and services to homeless youth in the Seattle area. They aim to help youth transition from life on the streets to leading productive lives in the community.

Josh's story of survival during the Holocaust seemed to resonate with the audience, who could relate to some of his experiences. Among the important messages Josh story offered was the fact that he was able to remain resilient in the face of incredible adversity. After struggling to survive for years, Josh arrived in the United States after the war at age 16, with no possessions and no formal education to his name. Yet somehow he was able to graduate from high school, acquire a degree in psychology, and graduate from a Masters program in social work and administration.

Josh was born in Poland, where he experienced first-hand the fury of the Nazi regime. At the age of three, his grandfather, the village’s chief rabbi, was hung in the middle of town. Josh’s family decided to go into hiding to protect themselves from the Nazi regime. Josh’s father worked in his family's long-established lumber business and had many connections, which they used to go into hiding.

Posing as Christian Poles, they evaded capture and made their way to Siberia. Here, they came under the protection of the Soviet Army. Though they escaped immediate danger, life in Siberia was harsh. They faced the bitter cold and the threat of starvation. Eventually, they moved onward to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, where they spent the remainder of the war.

After the war, they returned to Poland, only to have the government officials reject them. Instead, they were sent to a displaced persons camp in Berlin. Throughout their time in Siberia, Uzbekistan, and Berlin, Josh’s family suffered under primitive conditions. Finally, the immigrated to the United States.

Gortler told the group that he was so used to having to scrounge for dirty water or melted snow, that he was overcome when he saw a full, clean basin of flowing water in the United States. He put his whole face in it and drank deeply, only afterward discovering it was a urinal.

Josh said he kept his story to himself for many years. It was only a decade ago, when he read about people who deny the Holocaust ever happened, that he knew he must tell his story and keep the memory and lessons of the Holocaust alive. He has been a dedicated member of the Center's Speakers Bureau for many years.

Voices for Humanity 2011 - Thank you!

2011-11-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

VOICES FOR HUMANITY LUNCHEON 2011

Together we raised $264,500 in support of Holocaust education!

Thank you to all 575 of you who attended the Voices for Humanity Luncheon on November 8, 2011 at the Westin in Seattle. And, thank you to the many others who contributed to this annual fundraiser.

Your donation supports our mission of teaching and learning for humanity.

As a small non-profit, each of our donors is important to us. Donors like you who believe in the mission of our Center and the critical importance of Holocaust, tolerance and genocide education, have sustained our efforts and allowed us to continue our outreach to students, teachers and community members.

See photos of the event!

Using comics to teach about video testimony

2011-11-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

New teaching materials to accompany online video testimonies!

http://www.wsherc.org/teaching/testimonies/

Created by three of the Holocaust Center's master teachers:
Lindsey Mutschler, Lake Washington Girls Middle School, Seattle, WA
Suzanne Bottelli, The Northwest School, Seattle, WA
Carrie McCallum, St. Helens High School, St. Helens, OR

Lessons include:

Using Survivor Testimony - to create comics: a story in drawings
Using Survivor Testimony - to teach about the Holocaust and to connect these lessons to today
Using Survivor Testimony - to understand resistance during the Holocaust

Project was made possible thanks to a grant from 4Culture and Humanities Washington.

TDHS students & parents visit the Holocaust Center

2011-11-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, November 13, the 6th grade Sunday school class from Temple De Hirsch Sinai, along with their parents, visited the Holocaust Center.

While here, they had the opportunity to ask questions of survivor Peter M., view the Center's artifacts, and check out items from the Center's library.

It was a fantastic group - insightful, inquisitive, and attentive. The Holocaust Center thanks the entire group and the TDHS staff for making the visit possible!

2011-10-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

New Online Exhibit! Video Testimonies from 3 Washington State Survivors

2011-10-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

New Online Exhibit! Excerpts of video testimonies from 3 Washington State Holocaust survivors. Exhibit includes maps, photo galleries, and timelines.

Katie Welch, a student at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma, spent the summer as an intern for the Holocaust Center and helped to design the project. Katie's dedication, combined with her incredible research and technological skills helped to make these online video testimonies a user-friendly resource.

A corresponding teacher guide will be available in December.

This project was made possible thanks to funding from Humanities Washington and 4Culture.

Preparing her students to hear a survivor

2011-10-11T06:46:00.001-07:00

Thousands of students will hear survivors this year through our speakers bureau. How do you prepare students for this experience? Here is one example of a teacher doing an outstanding job.

What do you do in your classroom to prepare your students? We want to know! Email us!

Anna Roberts, Olympic View Middle School, Mukilteo, WA

Will the students be reading any Holocaust-related books? Which ones?:
All students will have finished up reading Elie Wiesel's Night.

What will you be doing to prepare your students:
We prepare our students by sending a letter home, explaining to their parents the rare and special opportunity of having a Holocaust guest speaker come to visit and tell their life stories. In addition, we have them read up on our guest speaker, prior to that day, so they can anticipate what will be spoken about that day. Most importantly, we prepare our kids by going over behavior expectations during our time with the speaker and we have them prepare appropriate questions to ask our speaker, if given an opportunity for questions. All our students have learned the background of the Holocaust and have read Elie Wiesel's Night.

Group goals and goals for the speaker presentation: Our goal is to have our students make a personal connection through having the opportunity to hear from someone who witnessed first hand the atrocities of the Holocaust. having a speaker that was there and has their personal story to tell makes this part of history they have learned about much more real and in the process, deepens their understanding about this time. In addition, our goal is for kids to build empathy for those victims of the Holocaust.

Special Needs:
If possible, we would like a question and answer session that opens it up for kids to ask the guest speaker questions.

Additional Info:
We have had a guest speaker come to OV for the past 5 years when we began teaching Night commonly in our Language Arts blocks. Ann Freemon, now a teacher at Mariner HS, had seen Henry Friedman speak at another school and had encouraged us to book him as a guest speaker. Since then, we have invited a speaker every year. We value your efforts and time given to teach our kids life long lessons about the Holocaust.

7 years later...

2011-10-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

Melissa Tatum, Sylvia O'Brian and Pat Gallagher - teachers in Kent - have worked together and taught the Holocaust for many years.

The other day, Ms. Tatum received the following email from a former student:

Mrs. Tatum,
Seven years ago, I was in 8th grade honors English with you, being co-taught by Mrs. O'Brian. We did a whole unit on the Holocaust and spent a significant period of time talking about it. Mrs. O'Brian posed the question "Was Hitler a great leader?" which nobody was able to answer at the time. I spent this past summer studying abroad in Africa, and have done extensive research and study on the current and past struggles of Africa recently. During colonization, King Leopold II of Belgium successfully manipulated his country, and the rest of the world into supporting him in the slaughtering of 10 million native peoples of the Congo. I have not thought about your class in a long time, but the question about Hitler lingered in the back of my mind as I learned about the colonization of Africa, and I think I finally have an answer. 13-year-old me was unwilling to call Hitler "great" for any reason. But, in all honesty, Hitler was a great leader. He successfully got and entire continent, if not an entire world, to believe what he believed, and manipulated people into helping him complete the genocide of millions of people. He was a terrible person, but he was a great leader. He was able to entrance a whole population into following him and his beliefs, and accomplished what he set out to do. So, seven years after the fact, I wanted to answer that question for you.
Monika

L'Shanah Tovah!

2011-09-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Books | A horrifying history of the Reich's violent end | Seattle Times Newspaper

2011-09-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

New book review in the Seattle Times: Ian Kershaw's horrifying history of the Reich's violent end.

New Additions to the Holocaust Trunks - Artifacts

2011-09-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Creating a replica of an artifact from the Holocaust took serious consideration. However, the requests from teachers for tangible objects to help share the stories and history of the Holocaust encouraged us to pilot the use of replica artifacts in the Holocaust teaching trunks. We added one replica passport (from Heinz Schwartz) and one replica star to each of the trunks along with corresponding teaching materials that include more information about each of these objects and how to analyze artifacts.

Reserve your trunk now!

The Attic Theatre Presents "The Diary of Anne Frank"

2011-09-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Attic Theatre, based in Seattle and offering "theatre with a message to our community"since 1996, is presenting Wendy Kesselman's adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank this weekend. Premiers Friday the 23rd through Sunday, October 2nd, in the Chapel Theatre at Woodinville Alliance Church - 13940 NE 166th Street - Woodinville, WA, 98072. Friday and Saturday shows begin at 7:30, Saturday matinees at 2:30, and Sunday matinees at 1:30.

From the Managing and Producing Director of the production, Mark Lewis, "We have brought together a very strong cast to present what we feel is a very strong message that is as pertinent today as it was in the 1940's. A message of a time in history that needs to always be remembered as a horrific intolerance of man's inhumanity to man. A message to be remembered so as to never be repeated." He has so kindly offered a special rate of $10 to anyone who identifies themselves as being referred from the WSHERC, or to anyone who identifies themselves as a holocaust survivor, he offers a complimentary ticket. Don't miss out!

For more information on the production or The Attic Theatre, visit their website here.

Between the Two Rivers, Second Edition

2011-09-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

Aida Kouyoumjian is a local speaker who tells her parent's story of survival in the Armenian Genocide. She recently released the second edition of her book, "Between the Two Rivers," via Coffeetown Press.

The first edition, available at the Holocaust Center's library, won first place (Washington State) in the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) At-Large Communications Contest in the nonfiction: history category.

Aida is a member of the Holocaust Center's speakers bureau and speaks frequently to students in the Pacific Northwest region.

Find out more about Aida's story by visiting her blog.

For more information on book purchase and/or to watch a trailer about the book, click here. The new edition will be available soon in the WSHERC library, definitely worth reading!

New to the Center!

2011-09-07T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hi all! My name is Brenna, and this is my 3rd official day interning at the WSHERC. I'm a senior at the University of Washington, born and raised in Montana, studying social sciences, and will graduate this March with an undergraduate degree in 'law, societies, and justice'. To be honest, I'm not sure where this degree will take me, but I'm interested in working with the community towards the awareness of the greater good! I continually work in staying open to what comes my way, with as broad of an outlook I can manage. ;)

Berlin's Holocaust Memorial

2011-08-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews
By Debbie Carlson, Teacher at Meridian Middle School, Kent

Debbie Carlson just recently returned from a Holocaust study trip to Amsterdam and Berlin, offered by Museum Without Walls and supported by the Holocaust Center. Debbie is one of the Holocaust Center's Master Teachers and a recent alumni of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous Summer Institute.

I walked around a corner or across a street and there it was, I recognized it immediately. We were a group of fifteen, but were given seven minutes to wander alone. So I dove in, literally. The memorial was made as a maze of rectangular cement blocks all the same width and length, but different heights. I think I learned later that there were 2,711 different blocks. I walked through them as you would walk through a maze. No identification. No words. No labels. Just acres of these concrete blocks. In some ways they reminded me of coffins.

I wanted to just sit lost among the blocks, but there was no time. I had to process my feelings quickly and rejoin the group. It was very difficult to consider the murder of 6,000,000 Jews being represented by acres of concrete tomb- looking blocks in such a short time. I kept noticing how the ground was uneven, there were places where it was so slanted one felt off balance, the passage ways were dark and narrow - only enough room for one person at a time, and the surfaces of the blocks created an undulating effect as I looked across the sea of concrete blocks. Suddenly I imagined what it must have felt like for the Jews to have their own lives thrown into such chaos. They had no solid ground anymore. They were constantly being squeezed into smaller, tighter, scarier spaces. They had no straight path to follow; they never knew what was around the next corner. The memorial began to make perfect sense.

As I rejoined our group I asked the guide if there was an official entrance or a sign or something to tell the public what the place was all about. No such sign and no such designated entrance. No wonder there were people climbing all over the blocks, sunning themselves, jumping from box to box enjoying a summer afternoon. I was horrified. But didn't the world do that while 6,000,000 Jews were being murdered?

Help us welcome these NEW BOOKS to our collection!

2011-07-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

The following books can be borrowed from our library or by emailing info@wsherc.org

Storming the Tulips

Ronald Sanders

Taken from Stonebrook Publishing:

“The stories in this book make us realize how important it is to teach compassion, understanding and tolerance for people who may appear to be different than us. These life-lessons are even more important in today’s society. We must learn about history to understand our current world situations.”

Diana Schumacher, 8th grade Middle School Teacher, St. Louis, MO

Is It Night or Day? A Novel of Immigration and Survival, 1938-1942

Fern Schumer Chapman

Taken from Authors and Illustrators Book Review:

"...This book is an exceptional story of survival and devotion to homeland. The author's note and afterword contain inspiring information about the background and reasoning behind this book. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl and this book would be great companions for showing how children's lives were affected by the Holocaust. This is a wonderful study of the Holocaust in a way that young readers will understand. Highly Recommended."

Jo Drudge, Library Media Connection, Starred Review

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin

Erik Larson

Excerpt from the Seattle Times :

“A nonfiction chronicle, based on the lives of an American family who spent a year in Berlin as Hitler rose to absolute power, Larson's book raises the question the world still struggles with: How do we know implacable evil when we see it? When is enough enough? ...As a suspense narrative, "Beast" achieves mixed results: It's hard to warm up to the well-meaning but outmanned Dodd and his feckless, flirtatious daughter. But as a work of popular history, "Beasts" is gripping, a nightmare narrative of a terrible time. It raises again the question never fully answered about the Nazi era — what evil humans are capable of, and what means are necessary to cage the beast.”

Mary Ann Gwinn, Seattle Times Book Editor

Benno and the Night of Broken Glass

Meg Wiviott

Illustrator: Josée Bisaillon

From School Library Journal:

“The straightforward text describes events without sentimentality, as if Benno were simply reporting what he sees and hears…But what truly distinguishes this book is the striking multimedia artwork composed of paper, fabric, and drawn images in hues of olive, brown, and red. Interesting angles, textures, and patterns add to the visual effect throughout. The spreads depict a normal city neighborhood from a cat's-eye view, which is eventually upended by dark shadowy figures with big black boots. Thus the message of terror and sadness that marks the beginning of the Holocaust is transmitted in a way that is both meaningful and comprehensible. An afterword provides historical context for the story, although it presupposes knowledge of the term ‘Holocaust.’”

Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Library

Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto

Susan Goldman Rubin

Illustrator: Bill Farnsworth

From the JTNews:

“[An] illustrated work marked as being for 6 to 10 year olds. Because of its focus on the rescue of children in jeopardy and because of the separation and abandonment issues involved, I’d call it more suited for 8 years and up. The paintings are exceptional and the story of this tiny Polish social worker is inspiring as it shows how she quietly and ingeniously helped smuggle nearly 400 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, while keeping careful records of their identities so they could be reunited with their families should any survive the war.”

Rita Berman Frischer, JTNews, Seattle, WA

The Druggist of Auschwitz: A Documentary Novel

Dieter Schlesak

Taken from the Seattle Times:

“There are no heroes here, no saints — and even Adam's wistful hope that ‘their suffering was not in vain, that death is merely a transition, a being-set-free for a world of light’ is but the flicker of a match in a hurricane. This is not an easy narrative to read, and the truths it reveals and embodies are not easy to face. It will fill you with despair and rage and terrible shame at the infinite ingenuity of human cruelty. By steeling himself not to flinch before the hideous reality of the Holocaust, Schlesak has created a beautiful book.”

David Laskin, Special to the Seattle Times

Before the Holocaust: Three German-Jewish Lives 1870-1939

Editor and Translator: Thomas Dunlap

From the PR Web:

“Author Thomas Dunlap guides readers of Before the Holocaust through the lives of three German Jews spanning the years from 1870 to 1939: Käte Frankenthal, Max Moses Polke, and Joseph Benjamin Levy. …These autobiographies reveal what sort of lives were possible for Jews in the years after the establishment of the Reich in 1871, when German Jews were finally granted full political and civic right. They provide insight into German society, into the turbulent history and politics of the Weimar period, and into the circumstances that led to the rise of the National Socialists. Finally, they chronicle the assault on the Jewish community in the years 1933 to 1939, before the onset of systematic genocide.”

Xlibris Publishing Company

Days of Aloes

Helena Edwards and Virginia Lown

The true story of a young Polish woman’s struggle to survive in one of Stalin’s notorious slave labour camps.

Identifying Mass Graves in Eastern Poland & Ukraine

2011-07-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

Information on Nazi-Era Mass Graves To Be Made Available to the Public

Father Debois Has Devoted Seven Years To Documenting the S.S. Killing Fields in Eastern Europe

By Nathan Guttman
The Jewish Daily Forward
Published May 25, 2011, issue of June 03, 2011.

Washington — For seven years, the Rev. Patrick Debois has devoted his life to locating and marking the mass graves of Jews murdered by the Nazis. Now, the work of the Catholic priest is going online — thanks to a joint initiative between his Paris-based organization and Washington’s United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Yahad — In Unum, founded and directed by Debois, has documented mass graves in some 600 Eastern European villages. Information about those gravesites, as well as videotaped accounts from villagers who witnessed the Nazi roundups and killings, will be available this summer at the U.S. Holocaust museum. Yahad — In Unum has also joined forces with the American Jewish Committee to help ensure that the newly discovered gravesites are protected.

“I have the conviction we cannot build a modern Europe with thousands of mass graves of Jews killed like animals,” Debois said at a May 12 State Department gathering held in his honor. “We cannot build a new world if we keep on being silent.”

...

Hannah Rosenthal, a State Department special envoy and head of the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, suggested Jewish communities consider supporting/adopting villages to help maintain mass graves and/or create memorials. There is no formal local effort yet to do this, but we are looking to see if there is interest. If you are interested, please email Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education, at ilanak@wsherc.org.

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/138121/#ixzz1RGVCE1is

Accordions - New Artifacts

2011-06-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

The donation of two accordions bring musical instruments to our collection. Both instruments were found on the ground at Dachau/Kaufering by General P. when he went in with the 101st Division. They were played by prisoners to entertain the guards, thereby keeping them alive. The General brought them home to Seattle to be played by his musical family.

The small accordion is a 25 key 32 button Sibylla made in Germany in the late 1930's. The celluloid grill is a lovely cutout design. Its light weight would have made it easy for a prisoner with little strength to play.

The larger accordion (pictured above) is a German Hohner with 80 buttons and 34 keys. It is a bit heavier in weight, and is the kind of instrument used to play "folk music".

Both instruments need work before they can be used, but it was a special thrill to hear the sounds that came from these 70 year old accordions that had so many stories they could tell.

An Open Letter from a Teacher in Reardan

2011-06-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

Schools today are financially limited in what types of outside materials they bring into their classrooms for their students. Our school in Reardan is no exception.

I wanted to do something with the Holocaust in my English classroom and the Holocaust Center provided the perfect opportunity for me to propose the unit to my school principal. The Writing contest and various articles and series found in the Seattle Times were enough to convince the principal that this program would benefit students in academic content and personal growth and development.

Over the past 4 years, I have utilized Ms. Kennedy and the Holocaust Center to help fill the holes in my Holocaust curriculum and to find ways to stimulate students. From the trunks, the Everyday Objects collections and lesson plans and the speakers bureau students are going beyond learning. So many of my students ask "how" and "why". When they have a chance to make use of the support from the Holocaust Center they gain a larger picture of the world in which they live.

We owe a thank you to the many donors who make the teaching trunks possible. That first year I reserved the teaching trunks and watched my students' interest magnify substantially as they were able to find history beyond the text book.

My students are influenced beyond measure when the speakers and Holocaust survivors have come into our school. Watching them connect and realize that they have a responsibility to share what they know both verbally and through action is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a teacher.

I have had the privilege to take a group of students to Washington DC these last 3 years and because of the Holocaust Center a must stop for my students is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This year, I had 6 girls, hold hands and pray in the Hall of Remembrance for those taken unjustly, for those who fought to free them, and for those left remembering. They lit a candle under the Auschwitz camp and when I asked them why there...they replied that one of our Speakers, Noemi Ban had loved ones who were taken from her at Auschwitz and they thought about them and Noemi as they progressed through the museum.

Upon leaving the museum, one student from another school said the Holocaust was too depressing to think about. My student replied that it was important to learn from the past and that the museum's purpose was not to make us feel bad but rather remind us that our actions, from little to large can impact the future significantly.

For students looking into the eyes of strong individuals who share their stories, the horror of the Holocaust is not only an event happening across the globe before their lifetime, these atrocities become real and the students a vessel for change. Students become our future and with the help and support of the Holocaust Center they will speak out, they will have a chance to make the right choice and they will never forget. Thank you.

Kristy Koch, Teacher, Reardan Middle School, Reardan

The Jewish Day School, Bellevue

2011-06-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

4th grade students in Nance Adler's class at the Jewish Day School studied and researched Jewish partisans during the Holocaust. For their individual projects on Jewish heroes, five of the students chose partisans.

"The kids love learning about the Partisans and it has added a wonderful new aspect to their study of Jewish Heroes," writes Nance Adler.

Nance has attended several professional development programs through the Holocaust Center, including one in January 2011 that focused on Jewish partisans. This particular seminar was offered in conjunction with the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation and Nance encouraged her students to use materials and biographies of partisans from their website.

The culmination of the Jewish Heroes unit was a Heroes Museum.

One student made a mailbox and had letters to and from Partisan Sonia Orbuch with questions to her about her life and then her answers back.

"The classes that came through our museum, as well as parents and other teachers, were really impressed with what the partisans did and for many of them this was the first time that they had heard of them."

The Speakers Bureau is now using Skype!

2011-06-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Holocaust Center is turning to technology to expand the reach of the Speakers Bureau! This includes using programs like Skype, a software application that allows users to make voice/video calls over the internet. Skype is a great way for speakers to share stories with a broader audience, without having to confront the difficulties of travel. This will be an important resource as time goes on and fewer speakers are able to travel beyond the borders of their home towns.

Armed with a laptop and speakers, Center staff conducted the first Skype engagement in WSHERC history with speaker Magda Schaloum. Typically, Magda's engagements do not venture outside the greater Seattle area. Therefore, when a school in Moses Lake, Washington requested Magda as a speaker, the Center saw a perfect opportunity to test Skype and evaluate its viability as part of the Speakers Bureau.

Jessica Merritt's 11th/12th graders at Columbia Basin Secondary School in Moses Lake were eager participants. Overall, both participants and speaker called the engagement a success. "It was wonderful to hear Magda's story...and great that we were able to use Skype," said Ms. Merritt. "I really think this is something the center should continue to utilize so schools on the eastern side of the state can benefit from the survivors' presentations."

The Center hopes that Skype will provide more opportunities for schools across Washington State and the Pacific Northwest to utilize the Speakers Bureau. We will continue to fine tune this process and hope to see more willing participants use Skype in the 2011-2012 school year.

To learn more about the Speakers Bureau, click here.

East Valley Middle School, Spokane

2011-06-13T09:28:00.001-07:00

East Valley Middle School in Spokane hosted Holocaust survivor Noemi Ban this past month.

Each year, teacher Julie Scott invites and makes arrangements for Ms. Ban to visit her students and share her story of hope and inspiration.

From the students:
"I was honored to meet her."

"Inspiring."

"She looked just like an ordinary senior citizen on the outside, but it was like opening up a really extraordinary book that has just an ordinary cover."

"She has a softer, grandma like exterior, but seemed really tough on the inside to handle what she went through."

"Extraordinary."

"There should be a movie made about her story because it would get five stars (out of five)."

East Valley Middle School, Spokane

2011-06-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

Peter M., Holocaust survivor and member of the Holocaust Center's speakers bureau, spoke to students yesterday at East Valley Middle School in Spokane.

Their teacher, Julie Scott, has long contributed to the Holocaust Center's programs with her knowledge and teaching experience. Julie is an Alfred Lerner Fellow from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, a Museum fellow from the USHMM, a member of the Holocaust Center's Education Advisory Committee, and a frequent presenter at the Holocaust Center's programs.

Kamiak High School

2011-05-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

Following their unit on the Holocaust, the Human Rights Club at Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, WA planned a "teach-in" on partisans during the Holocaust. Not only did they want to build on their own knowledge, they generously organized the event to support the work of the Holocaust Center. The Human Rights Club arranged a showing of the film "Defiance" and moderated a discussion afterward.

Thank you to teacher and Human Rights Club director Shan Oglesby for sharing these photos and for her great work.

Transcription of Nuremberg Medical Trial - Artifact

2011-05-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

The Holocaust Center recently acquired an 81-page transcription of the prosecution’s opening statement in the infamous Nuremberg medical case—U.S.A. v. Karl Brandt et al.

The artifact was donated by Elsie Miller, the niece of Eleanor Still, who worked as a stenographer and legal assistant in the Nuremberg Trial. She told her niece that she had taken these legal documents, in order to prove that she was there, that she had heard the atrocities from the men themselves.

U.S.A. v. Karl Brand et al., also known as the "Doctors’ Trial," led to the U.S.-led indictment of 23 doctors and health administrators on four counts:
1. conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,
2. war crimes,
3. crimes against humanity, and
4. membership in a criminal organization (the SS).

The 22 convictions in this case and the particular charges raised had never before been seen. This case set a precedent for modern day bioethics and medical accountability.

The title page of the document is dated December 9, 1946. The content of the 81 pages range from the professional activities of each defendant to the detailed horrors of Nazi experimentation on thousands of Jews, Gypsies, tubercular Poles, and Russian prisoners of war. Considering its age, the documents are in good condition; the pages are yellowing but there is minimal wear.

We gratefully accept artifacts to our growing collection. We especially value and record the stories told to us by the donors. Please contact Dee Simon, the Holocaust Center's Co-Executive Director at delilas@wsherc.org if you have any items that you think would be a good addition to our collection. On view to visitors and used by the Speakers Bureau, these items are used in educational presentations.

Special thanks to Kelly Miller for researching this artifact and writing up this article.

2011-05-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

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 http://www.wsherc.org/ and enter the title or key word into the Amazon search box on the homepage. Amazon will donate a percentage of your purchase to the Holocaust Center.

Be sure to check out some of our new and recommended books for the lazy days of summer!

From Paris to Bergen-Belsen, 1944-1945: Memories of a Deported Child
By Jacques Saurel

The Memoirs of Jacques Saurel, a young boy during the Holocaust, follow his involuntary journey from Paris, to Bergen-Belsen, to the infamous “Ghost Train”, on which half of the 2,000 Jews evacuated from Bergen-Belsen died. From this confrontation with horror at such a young age, Jacques conceived one great passion: life itself.

The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt
By Hannelore Brenner

Brenner, a Berlin-based journalist, focuses on 10 former child survivors, women in their late 70s, who went through the Theresienstadt concentration camp during the Holocaust. The insights of the survivors and stories of the camp's victims are unforgettable and full of poignant humanity, conveyed through letters, photos, diaries and remembrances.

Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler's Germany
By Peter Wyden

What happened in Nazi Germany to turn a fondly remembered childhood Jewish classmate into a serial murderess and tool of the Gestapo? Seeking answers, Peter Wyden traveled back into his own past. Wyden tells the story of Stella Goldschlag, whom he knew as a child, and her journey to noteriety as a "catcher" in wartime Berlin who hunted down hundreds of hidden Jews for the Nazis. The result is this deeply personal work, a true-life Sophie's Choice, unique in Holocaust literature.

The Entertainer and the Dybbuk
By Sid Fleischman

Motivated to create a personal remembrance of the 1.5 million Jewish children killed in the Holocaust, Fleischman pairs Freddie, a struggling, ex-GI ventriloquist, with Avron, the ghost of one such victim, in a short, provocative tale that leavens the tears with laughter. Avron's wisecracking will counterbalance matter-of-fact accounts of Nazi cruelty for young readers, but it's likely to be older ones who will best appreciate the novel's eloquent "inner voice" of conscience, which takes on a definite symbolic cast and the way in which Freddie's public and private identities shift as the story progresses.

Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust
Edited By Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel

These essays, describing experiences of forced sex, "sex for survival," prostitution, sterilization, abortion, and general sexual humiliation, add greatly to what is known about the lives of Jewish women during WWII. Much of the content here is a philosophical extension of first-person accounts of sexual torture. The fact that this exhaustive volume represents the first set of essays on the subject written in English underpins a fundamental truth held by the editors: while English-speaking countries are comfortable discussing these horrors, the fates specific to the murdered women and survivors of sexual assault are considered by many to be too shameful for discourse.

A Partisan's Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust
By Faye Schulman

Faye Schulman was a happy teenager learning to become a photgrapher when the Nazis invaded her small town on the Russian-Polish border. She had a loving family, good friends and neighbours, most of whom where soon lost in the horrors of the Holocaust. But Faye survived, and the photographs she took testify to her experiences and teh persecution she witnessed. Decorated for heroism by several governments, Schulman, now in her eighties, tells an extraordinary story not just of survival but of struggle and resistance against oppression.

Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp
By Christopher R. Browning

Employing the rich testimony of almost three hundred survivors of the slave-labor camps of Starachowice, Poland, Christopher R. Browning draws the experience of the Jewish Prisoners, the Nazi authorities, and the neighboring Poles together into a chilling history of a little-known dimension of the Holocaust. Combining harrowing detail and insightful analysis on the Starachowice camps and their role in the Holocaust, Browning’s History is indispensable scholarship and an unforgettable story of survival.

Against Forgetting - Concert by Choral Arts

2011-05-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Against Forgetting: A Concert of Remembrance for Victims of the Holocaust

Do not miss this moving concert of remembrance, featuring works by Gyorgy Sviridov, Herbert Howells and Leonard Bernstein. The program will also include premieres of commissioned works by Giselle Wyers and Eric Barnum and a performance of John Muehleisen's moving "When All is Done" for chorus and trumpet. Composers will be present for these performances.

Friday, May 20 at 7:00pm
St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle

Saturday, May 21 at 7:00pm
Bastyr Chapel at Bastyr University, Kenmore

www.choral-arts.org for tickets and more information

Secrets of the Dead: Escape from Auschwitz - tonight on PBS

2011-04-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Secrets of the Dead
Escape from Auschwitz #702

Air: Wednesday, April 27, 8:00 pm on KCTS 9 HDSeattle/Yakima

The Secrets of the Dead website (linked from the KCTS site) always streams the show online.

Broadcast In: English

The truth about the Auschwitz death camp was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Third Reich. Prisoners who tried to escape were executed in public as an example to other inmates, and very few ever made it out alive. "Escape From Auschwitz" tells the story of two young Slovak Jews, Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who managed to escape by hiding in a woodpile for three days, then fleeing across enemy territory, determined to tell the world about the atrocities being committed by the Nazis at the camp. Hoping to stop the deportations and put an end to the constant stream of victims transported to their deaths, Vrba and Wetzler wrote a detailed account of their experiences in the camp. The report was sent to Allies around the world, but to Vrba's horror, some took ages to arrive in the right hands and the most urgent copy was suppressed by the head of the Hungarian Jewish underground, who worried it would destroy a deal he himself was trying to make with Adolph Eichmann. Ultimately, the delays cost thousands of lives and caused a controversy that raged long after the Holocaust was over. Even so, Vrba's and Wetzler's heroic efforts saved many thousands from the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz.

Run Time: 00:56:46

Rating: TVPG DVS

Visit the Website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/

Everett Herald - Holocaust Survivors at Everett Community College

2011-04-27T14:27:00.001-07:00

Holocaust survivors talk at EvCC

By Muatasim Qazi, Herald Writer

EVERETT -- Some in Amsterdam watched helplessly as Nazis arrested their neighbors and hauled them away to concentration camps. Others were indifferent, peeping from doors of their homes.

Klaas and Roefina Post lived on a small farm in a northern Dutch village called Makkinga. They knew all was not right. Dutch Jews were being killed mercilessly. They couldn't save everyone, but they knew they had to try.

The year was 1940, and spring had already started to give in to summer at a time when most of Europe was under Nazi aggression. Dutch forces had capitulated to the Nazis who prowled the streets of Amsterdam dressed in green uniforms and rounding up the country's Jews. ...Read full article.

Irena Sendler - WWII Warsaw Women Outfox the Nazis SUNDAY on PBS

2011-04-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

IRENA SENDLER

In the Name of Their Mothers

In the bombed debris of WWII Warsaw, young Polish Catholic women fight to save the most vulnerable of Poland's Jews -- the children.

Don't miss the moving story of Irena Sendler and a group of young Polish Catholic social workers who smuggled thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto and kept them safe until the end of the war. Seven years in the making, this film features the last long interviews Irena Sendler gave before she died in 2008 at the age of 98 in Warsaw.

WINNER
2010 UK Jewish Film Festival Audience Award
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Cinequest International Film Festival 2011

..it is the profoundly committed artistry of filmmaker Mary Skinner that brings the horror, sadness and magnitude of Sendler's story so overwhelmingly to light...appealing not just to the mind, but to the soul..

- Charlie Cockey, Programmer

New speaker Marie-Anne H. in action

2011-04-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

New Speakers Bureau member Marie-Anne H. gave her first presentation this past Friday to a group of students at Alternative School No. 1. The presentation was with teacher and Center affiliate Jo Cripps, whose middle school class jumped at the opportunity to hear Marie-Anne's unique presentation.

Marie-Anne tells the story of her grandmother and mother - both part of the French resistance during the Holocaust:

When I was a little girl, I heard stories around the dinner table from family members about what happened during the Nazi German occupation of Paris, home of my mother’s family. My Grandmother has always been my hero, as she helped to save 300 Jewish refugees escape to Free France.

If you would like to learn more about Marie-Anne H. and/or the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau, click here.

Holocaust Survivor Forum at Everett Community College

2011-04-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Holocaust Survivor Forum Starts April 13 at Everett Community College

Forum Schedule and Details

With Everett Community College's 12th Holocaust Survivors forums scheduled to start April 13, founder and EvCC humanities instructor Joyce Walker shared why she started the forums and what she hopes students will learn.

In Spring 2000, Walker started the Humanities 150D class, Surviving the Holocaust, and she's taught it every year since. As director of EvCC's Humanities Center, she started the Holocaust forums at the same time as part of the class and has opened the forums to the campus and local community each year.

Walker has long been interested, both professionally and personally, in the history of the Holocaust.

"Stays in Germany in both high school and college caused me to wonder how such a great culture could fall so low in the Holocaust - from the apex to nadir of human civilization," said Walker, who said her Ph.D. in comparative literature includes a major focus on German language and literature.

Walker's class attempts to answer questions like "Why did the Nazis kill?" and "How did people survive such dehumanization?"

"My hope is that by studying the Holocaust, students will resolve to stand up for others in the face of hate speech and hateful acts," she said.

The Holocaust forums start April 13 with Survivor Fred H. Taucher's story. His father was seized during Kristallnacht, and his family was hidden by a high-ranking Nazi Party member until he was arrested and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Taucher will speak from 12:20-1:50 p.m. in Baker Hall 120.

The Holocaust Center is proud to have worked with Joyce Walker and Everett Community College for many years, providing speakers and professional development opportunities.

About the photo above:
Instructor Joyce Walker, founder of EvCC's Holocaust Forums, examines notes taken Jan. 20, 1942 at the Wannsee Conference, when top German Nazi officials formally announced the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," the decision to deport and murder the Jews of Europe. The minutes of that meeting, known as the Wannsee Protocol, are preserved in the room where the meeting took place near Berlin, now a Holocaust museum. Walker travelled to Berlin March 17-26 with study abroad students from Fullerton College, a community college in California, at the invitation of her brother, Western Civilization and German professor John Walker. Joyce Walker lectured the Fullerton students on the Holocaust during the trip.

German Hagaddah from 1926 - Artifact

2011-04-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

"Hagaddah Shel Pesach"

This Hagaddah shel Pesach, with commentary by Dr. M. Lehmann, was published and printed by Oscar Lehmann in Frankfurt am Main in 1926. It is printed in old German typeface and Hebrew.

The 12 illustrations are black and white reproductions of hand-painted manuscript pages from Hagaddot [the plural form of "Hagaddah"] from the 13th and 15th Century now housed in museums. The service and commentary fill 211 pages.

The signature of the owner and the date of 1926 are handwritten on the flyleaf. It is a timely reminder of life before World War II.

We gratefully accept artifacts to our growing collection. We especially value and record the stories told to us by the donors. Please contact Dee Simon, the Holocaust Center's Co-Executive Director at delilas@wsherc.org if you have any items that you think would be a good addition to our collection. On view to visitors and used by the Speakers Bureau, these items are used in educational presentations.

Review - Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust

2011-04-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust
by Ruth Thomson
Candlewick Press 2011
Rating: Recommend* grades 5 and up

Review by Marie-Anne Harkness

Middle School and high school students studying the Holocaust will find this book enlightening to understand daily life in the Nazi’s showcase transit camp using diary entries, photographs, drawings and paintings throughout. Terezin was a fortified city in northern Czech Republic, transformed into the Theresienstadt Transit Camp in Oct. 1941 by the Nazis during World War II..

The privileged Jews deported from all over Europe were told they were going to a spa-like Ghetto for artists, intellectuals and the wealthy. It was to be a holding camp where none would be harmed. Allowed to pack only 2 suitcases, they were forced to sign away their homes and furniture to be redistributed to Germans. They packed their suitcases with their nicest clothes, and belongings only to have them confiscated immediately upon arrival.

The reality was that the people were on their way on regular transports to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, if they had not died from starvation and disease at Theresienstadt.
Through documentation secretly recorded by artists, writers and diaries of children and adults, the reader experiences the true heartbreak of the camp.

When Jews from Denmark were deported to the “Spa” at Terezin in April 1943, the King of Denmark sent a delegation from the Danish Red Cross to inspect the living conditions of the Danish Jews. A sham “family camp” was erected on a carefully laid out route just before the delegation arrived. They did not see the real camp for what it was, only café’s, schools, theatre, neatly planted gardens and freshly painted houses as they were escorted by SS officers. The deception worked because the delegation reported back to the King that the Danish Jews were being well treated.

The layout of the book is attractive, including sidebars that expand on the text, index, glossary and a very interesting timeline. The material is well documented with source notes. A useful primary source website is listed: http://www.azrielifoundation.org/memoirs/.

Seattle Times: Traveling Exhibit Detailed Nazi Persecution of Gays

2011-04-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

Nazi persecution of homosexuals

By Melissa Allison

Seattle Times staff reporter

Anyone who missed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling exhibit at McCaw Hall can access an online exhibit at http://bit.ly/eRHSyb.

It is well-known that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, but the plight of 5 million other victims — including people with disabilities, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and gays — are rarely detailed.

A traveling exhibit by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum sheds light on the Nazi persecution of gay Germans. Though the Nazis never intended to murder all gays, as they intended to eliminate all Jews, they nevertheless sent thousands of them to concentration camps and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands others.

The free exhibit, which ended a five-day run Sunday at McCaw Hall in Seattle, attracted roughly 2,000 people, said Dee Simon, co-executive director of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.

With help from sponsors, the center presented the exhibit as a complement to the Seattle Men's Chorus' "Falling in Love Again" concerts over the weekend. The concerts also shed light on the Nazi persecution of gays.

Some attendees had no idea before hearing about the exhibit that Nazis targeted gays, Simon said. "With what's happening today, especially with the bullying of homosexuals in schools, people said they wanted to have a perspective of what it looked like during the Nazi era."

Within a month of taking power in 1933, the Nazis closed gay and lesbian publications and gathering places. Their aim was to terrorize gays into sexual and social conformity, according to the exhibit and a lecture Simon gave Sunday.

Nazis targeted gays partly because of Germany's declining birthrate; 2 million German men had died in World War I. They thought gays endangered public morality and they considered homosexuality an infection that could become an epidemic, particularly among youth.

In forwarding their hateful agenda, the Nazis often cited "traditional family values," Simon said.

Germany "can only maintain its masculinity if it exercises discipline, especially in love," the Nazi party wrote in 1928. It was responding to activists' efforts to eliminate or at least change a law from the 1800s that outlawed "indecency" between men.

The law did not include lesbians, even after the Nazis expanded it to include "simply looking" or "simply touching" as grounds for arrest and conviction. All women were considered vessels for childbirth; mothers who bore at least eight children were given gold crosses to wear in public.

Under Nazi rule, more than 100,000 gay men were arrested; 50,000 were imprisoned. Thousands went to concentration camps.

To avoid that fate, many gay men married, killed themselves or even castrated themselves, believing it would help them avoid prison, Simon said.

When the war ended, the law was not revoked, and some gay men who had suffered in concentration camps were rearrested. When Germany began reparations to Nazi victims in 1956, it did not include people sent to concentration camps because they were gay.

Only in 1990 did Germany fully abolish the law that made it possible to arrest gays, and in 2002 it pardoned men who had been convicted under that law during the Nazi regime.

Simon said 76 countries today criminalize sexual acts between people of the same sex; in seven countries, it is punishable by death.

Read article online

Anyone who missed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling exhibit at McCaw Hall can access an online exhibit at http://bit.ly/eRHSyb.

NY Times - Why Palestinians should learn about the Holocaust

2011-03-30T10:21:00.001-07:00

Why Palestinians Should Learn About the Holocaust

By MOHAMMED DAJANI DAOUDI and ROBERT SATLOFF

Published: March 29, 2011

Should Palestinian and other Arab schools teach their students about the Holocaust?

This is not an academic question. Many Palestinian and Arab political organizations recently pounced on reports that a new human rights curriculum being prepared for use in Gaza schools operated by Unrwa, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, might include historical references to the Holocaust. Their reaction underscores the urgency of answering this fundamental question: Should Palestinians (and other Arabs) learn about the Holocaust? Should this historical tragedy be included in the Arab curriculum?

We — a Muslim-Palestinian social scientist, and a Jewish-American historian — believe the answer is yes. Indeed, there are many reasons why it’s important, even essential, that Arabs learn about the Holocaust. And much of this has nothing to do with Jews at all.

One of the sad realities of many modern Arab societies is that Arab students have been denied history, their own and the world’s. For decades, millions of Arabs have lived under autocrats resentful of the legacy of the leader they replaced and fearful of the leader-to-come. Although Arabs revere the study, writing and teaching of history, and have produced many famous historians, their rulers often tend to view history as a threat. The result is that many historians in Arab countries are more like the court chroniclers of long-dead dynasties, and entire chapters of history have been expunged from the curricula that Arab governments teach their students.

Read full article in the New York Times

Welcome newest Speakers Bureau members!

2011-03-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Ron F.

Ron is a second generation speaker who tells his father's story. His father Herbert, now 85, escaped from Vienna at age 14 aboard the Kindertransport. This event, and the ensuing years before his emigration to America, were the defining moments of his life.

"It is important to remember an event such as the Holocaust. It is a reminder to us all of the evils of bigotry and humiliation of others. Unfortunately, there are many holocausts in the world—both big and small—which have occurred since, and continue to occur. And it is left to ensuing generations to resonate the lessons of history. "

Marie-Anne H.

Marie-Anne is a second generation speaker who tells the story of her grandmother and mother - both part of the French resistance during the Holocaust. They helped refugees escape from Eastern Europe to free France via Paris.

"All my adult life my goal has been to inspire children to expand their view of their world through books and reading. Why? Because the few who resisted the Nazis and hid Jews at the risk of their lives and the lives of their loved ones had that elusive quality--empathy. And empathy is partially acquired through understanding and respect."

George E.

George's story begins in 1941, when he was 3 years old and living in the Warsaw ghetto with his mother, who worked in a factory making German uniforms. After escaping the ghetto with his mother, George survived by living with a series of Polish Catholic families till the war's end. He and his mother left Poland for France, and then to the U.S. in 1949.

"I kept a safe emotional distance from the Holocaust until October 2009, when I saw a scene in the film "Paper Clips." In the scene, teachers and school children in a small Tennessee town were crying after hearing the stories of Holocaust survivors visiting their school. It made me realize how important it is for those who lived through the Holocaust to speak and convey its personal meaning to today's children."

George recently visited Spanaway Lake High School and wrote about the experience (with photos) on his blog. George's memoir, Neither Yesterdays Nor Tomorrows is available for purchase through the Holocaust Center's store.

Learn more about the Speakers Bureau here.

Swastika Pin Worn by Jewish Couple - New Artifact

2011-03-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

This tiny silver pin is a new addition to our display in the Holocaust Center's artifact collection. Approximately 3/4" square, its history is compelling.

The donor writes:

"This little swastika pin was made by a Jewish couple in Berlin after Kristallnacht. It allowed them for a while to blend in and not wear the yellow stars that the law required. They filed down a base metal brooch until they got the shape - however they got the direction of the bent arms reversed, but no one noticed for a long time. They were able to live in the spare rooms of a German Christian couple and survive long enough that they could still have strength to come through the camps after the War ended."

The Holocaust Center has a collection of artifacts donated by survivors and friends.

Currently on display in our four showcases are a broad range of items, including a bowl and spoon used in a camp, armbands worn by a nurse in Terezin, bread cards from the Lodz ghetto, "Signal" a Nazi propaganda magazine written in French, and the typewriter used by a member of the Leica Freedom train. Our collection includes photographs, letters, documents, passports, musical instruments, flags, armbands, cloth yellow stars, books, albums and many other items.

We gratefully accept artifacts to our growing collection. We especially value and record the stories told to us by the donors. Please contact Dee Simon, the Holocaust Center's Co-Executive Director at delilas@wsherc.org if you have any items that you think would be a good addition to our collection. On view to visitors and used by the Speakers Bureau, these items are used in educational presentations.

50 teachers attend Holocaust seminar in Tacoma

2011-03-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

From the participants:

"I had just taught a unit on Holocaust and genocides for the first time and was looking for more information to supplement my knowledge. This was the perfect event for me."

"I have never been so moved. Thank you for being committed to telling and teaching these stories."

"The excellent speakers greatly inspired me and increased my interest in the subject!"

Over 50 teachers attended the Holocaust Center's "Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust"seminar at Pacific Lutheran University on Friday, March 18th. The seminar was part of PLU's annual Powell and Heller Holocaust Conference.

Speakers for the day included: Carl Wilkens, the only American to stay in Rwanda during the genocide; Nick Coddington and several of his outstanding students from Charles Wright Academy, Tacoma; Holocaust survivor Noemi Ban; scholar Patrick Henry; and Nelli Trocme Hewitt, the daughter of rescuers in Le Chambon France.

Information on upcoming programs can be found at www.wsherc.org/programs.

Mr. Leo Hymas Is Keynote Speaker in Texas

2011-03-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

Leo Hymas, local liberator and member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau was invited to Texas to be the key note speaker at Wharton County College's Spring 2011 President's Lecture Series.

Mr. Hymas, a U.S. liberator of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, told his personal story of being a young soldier in World War II.

"I want students to cherish what we have in this country and to stand up against the bully for what is right," Mr. Hymas shared with his audience.

See photos

NH GOP State Congressman Says Disabled & Mentally Ill Should Be Shipped to Siberia

2011-03-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: Hmmm....I swear we have heard this before...in Nazi Germany in 1939.

NH GOP State Congressman Says Disabled and Mentally Ill Are "Defective People" and Should Be Shipped to Siberia

By Matthew Desmond
www.addictinginfo.org

A community health program mangager got a surprise when she emailed her NH State Congressman recently to ask him about why he had voted to cut money from mental health programs. The Senator told her that society would be better without disabled people, and he wishes he could ship disabled people to Siberia... read more.

Student Project on the Bosnian Genocide

2011-03-10T09:03:00.000-08:00

Emily B, an 8th grade student, created an extensive project related to the Bosnian war for the Manatee County History fair.

"One of the major tings I learned was that even though tragic events happen and pass, they are never fogotten. Someone will always be affected by it, no matter how far in the past it occurred."

Emily contacted the Holocaust Center, and we were able to connect her with Selena, a survivor of the Bosnian war, living in the Seattle area. (Selena also contributed to the Holocaust Center's "Stories Among Us: Personal Accounts of Genocide" series published in the Seattle Times.)

"I chose my topic, the Bosnian genocide, for many reasons. My mom introduced the topic to me at first. As I researched more in depth, I learned how recent this event had occurred. Also, not a lot of people knew about it and I wanted to raise awareness. My last reason was it affected thousands of people only a few years before I was born."

Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals Exhibit

2011-03-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

The Holocaust Center, Seattle Men’s Chorus, The Pride Foundation, and The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle are bringing a unique opportunity to Seattle at the end of March: an exhibit that tells the little known story of the persecution of the gay community during the Nazi Era.

The exhibit, Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945, will be on display at Seattle’s McCaw Hall from Wednesday, March 30 to Sunday, April 3.

Denounced as "antisocial parasites" and "enemies of the state," more than 100,000 men were arrested under a broadly interpreted law against homosexuality. This exhibit highlights the campaign against this particular group, and recognizes the unique adversity they faced under the Nazi regime.

This exhibit was produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. It will be shown in conjunction with the Seattle Men’s Chorus performance, Falling in Love Again, a love story between two men during the Nazi Era, Saturday, April 2 and Sunday, April 3.

Exhibit on display:
March 30 - April 3, 2011 | Noon - 10:00pm
Sunday, April 3 | Noon-5:00pm McCaw Hall at Seattle Center
321 Mercer St., Seattle
Free and open to the public

Guided tours:
Saturday, April 2nd at 1:15 and 6:30 pm; Sunday, April 3rd at 12:30pm. Docent tours available by appointment.

Pre-concert discussions:
Saturday, April 2nd at 7:15pm; Sunday, April 3rd at 1:15pm.

More information about display dates/times:

www.wsherc.org/programs

More information about the exhibit:

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/

More information about Seattle Men’s Chorus concert and discussions:
http://www.flyinghouse.org/smc/2010-11/fallinginloveagain.asp

Voices of Migration: digital stories from refugee youth

2011-03-02T10:54:00.001-08:00

As the Holocaust Center works in partnership with schools to combat bullying, a community screening of the Seattle Refugee Youth Project offers a new perspective of intolerance through the eyes of young refugees in Foster and Kent Meridian High School. On Saturday March 5 in Kane 120 at 1pm, 12 self-made stories will be screened for the public, followed by a dance performance by some of the Bhutanese students and a Q&A with all young refugees, moderated by UW mentors.

Among the audience at the community screening will be many of the teachers of the refugee storytellers, whom each student took the time to personally invite. Family members, case workers with the International Rescue Committee, churches, and community advocates in every capacity for the rights of forced migrants within the Sea-Tac area will also be in attendance. All 20 refugee youth will be present on stage at the screening, introducing their stories and the regions from which they come. The storytellers have been planning this event since October with the help of University of Washington mentors and are thrilled to be able to interact with residents of the Seattle area, who are interested enough to listen.

According to one of the Karen refugees from Burma, "We just want everyone to know how hard it is to be refugee in school. There are bullies and you can't talk to anyone about it. We try very hard. Our parents try very hard, but we just want them to know our feelings." The event promises to be an outlet both for the storytellers themselves and their families, by airing a new voice in the Seattle community. Having as many teachers present as possible would fulfill one of the primary goals of the event, as specified by the storytellers, "to make people in schools know about what it's like to have to leave your home, language, culture, your family...know how it feel." The storytellers come from Eritrea, Burma, Russia, and Bhutan and have spent only 1-3 years in the United States. Diverse as their stories may be, they are united in the common purpose of sharing and the common experience of forced migration. Seattle educators, students, and case workers stand to learn much about the present-day manifestations of intolerance through the eyes of some of its newest and most vulnerable residents, who are resilient and excited to embark on the new opportunities available to them in the United States.

For more information, check out the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=189715497715842. There will be a link to a January KCTS9 program, which features the Seattle Refugee Youth Project. The event is sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Center for Global Studies at the University of Washington and the Center for Digital Storytelling. The Holocaust Center is an in-kind donor. Contact Kelly Miller at kellym32@u.washington.edu with questions.

Seattle Times calls Nuremberg film a "must-see"

2011-03-01T07:58:00.000-08:00

NUREMBERG - THE FILM

Show dates extended dut to popular demand.

Seattle Times calls it a must-see!

Varsity Theater, 4329 University Way NE, Seattle. Running Time - 78 minutes. Showing until March 10.

One of the greatest courtroom dramas in history, Nurmeberg shows how the international prosecutors built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the Nazis' own films and records. presented by the Holocaust Center in conjunction with Schulberg Productions and Metropolis Productions. For more info about the film, visit http://www.nurembergfilm.org/. For show times and location, call the Varsity Theater at 206-781-5755.

Holocaust Survivor Stresses Tolerance at North Mason High

2011-02-28T08:07:00.000-08:00

Belfair - More than a dozen community members as well as a packed room of students at North Mason High listened quietly recently as Peter Metzelaar told his story of being hidden in The Netherlands, where he grew up, during World War II. Metzelaar was a Jewish boy who, as one of "the hidden," was protected by non-Jews and avoided being sent to a concentration camp.

Seattle Channel features the Holocaust Center

2011-02-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

A Channel 21 reporter interviewed some of our speakers/survivors and highlighted our Center as a Seattle resource. The interview was featured on City Stream, a program on the Seattle Channel.

check out the episode with survivors and members of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau, Pete, Frieda, Henry, and Steve. Teacher Debbie and footage of the August teacher seminar also included. The Holocaust Center's story is at the beginning of the show, and again towards the end of the show.

Watch City Stream Segment

Tweeting away!

2011-02-22T15:22:00.001-08:00

The Holocaust Center is now on Twitter! Follow us @HolocaustCtr for the latest news, events, and updates!

Trial Continues for Demjanjuk, Accused Sobibor Guard

2011-02-22T15:18:00.001-08:00

Accused Sobibor guard still on trial. Thomas Blatt, long-time Seattle resident and one of only 53 survivors of Sobibor, testified earlier in the trial against Demjanjuk.

Demjanjuk threatens hunger strike in Holocaust trial

Eva Lassman, Holocuast Survivor and Speakers Bureau Member, dies

2011-02-16T06:01:00.000-08:00

We are very sorry to share that Eva Lassman, Holocaust survivor and member of the Holocaust Center's speakers bureau, died on February 9. Eva was the only survivor living in the Spokane area who frequently shared her incredible story with students. Eva inspired so many - she will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Article in the Spokesman Review

Holocaust Survivor Meets with Kent Students

2011-02-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

Holocaust survivor Magda Schaloum meets with Kent students, shares her experiences

By LAURA PIERCE
Kent Reporter Editor
Feb 02 2011

To those who have ever doubted there was a Holocaust, Magda Schaloum has news for them.

It happened.

Every terror, every faded photograph, every recollection whispered in a tear-roughened voice.
“Unfortunately, even today there are people who say the Holocaust never happened,” said Schaloum, now in her 80s, but buoyant with life.

To describe those years of dehumanizing treatment and fear is her way to countering the lies that the Holocaust never was.

“I think it is my obligation,” she told the gymnasium of students and staff at Meridian Middle School.

Schaloum, who survived the Nazis and went on to marry and raise a family with a fellow death-camp survivor, is a speaker with the Washington State Holocaust Resource Center, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to assisting educators in teaching about the holocaust, and in connecting local survivors to speak publicly about their experiences.

Schaloum was present at the request of Meridian teacher Debbie Carlson. She spoke Jan. 27, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Her presentation that day also was a key part of studies for Meridian’s eighth-graders, who are learning about the Holocaust in class. Read full article.

Accused Nazi Living in Bellevue Dies

2011-02-07T07:15:00.000-08:00

Peter Egner, accused Nazi living in Bellevue, dies before his trial which was scheduled for February 22, 2011.

Egner, 88, was accused of assisting in the murder of thousands of Jews in Serbia in 1940 - 1943. The government was considering deporting Egner, who lied about his involvement when he immigrated to the United States in 1960 and applied for citizenship.

Egner had denied all claims of involvement.

Read full story

Magda S., Holocaust Survivor, at Meridian Middle School

2011-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

Meridian Middle School Honors International Holocaust Remembrance Day

In education, studying primary source documents is often a valuable tool. Meridian’s eighth-graders had an opportunity to hear from the ultimate primary source, a living witness to the Holocaust, as part of their language arts literature study. Mrs. Magda Schaloum, an eighty-eight year old Hungarian survivor of the Holocaust spoke to students sharing her story of deportation from her Hungarian village, life in Auschwitz and the Plaszow work camp in Poland, a weapons factory in Germany, and finally liberation from Muhldorf, another concentration camp in Germany at the end of World War II.

January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, in 1945. Listening to Mrs. Schaloum share her survival story was a powerful way for the students to honor the memories of the more than 6,000,000 Jewish people, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the mentally and physically handicapped, and homosexuals who lost their lives under the Nazi regime from 1933-1945.

Students honored Mrs. Schaloum with flowers and their undivided attention as she told of her moving experiences losing her father, mother, and brother. She told of her personal humiliation, brutal beatings, starvation diet, deprivation, and fear under the horrors of the Nazis. On the tender and sweet side, she shared about the meeting of her husband, a Greek Holocaust survivor, in a displaced persons camp shortly after the end of the war. Mrs. Schaloum began telling her survival story about twenty years ago when many were denying the Holocaust altogether. She knew she had to speak out and make sure the world never forgets.

At the closing of her visit to Meridian Middle School, Mrs. Schaloum was in tears as she said good-bye to the students and shared how much she had been blessed by them as an audience with their gifts of flowers and honor of her. She told the students she had never been treated so well and felt so loved in all of her years of visiting schools. She closed telling them she loved them all and challenged them to never let anyone put them down or allow them to believe they were not valuable and important.

Meridian eighth-graders in Miss Do’s and Mrs. Carlson’s classes have been doing a literature study of the Holocaust in preparation for reading The Diary of Anne Frank, a piece of literature commonly read by eighth-graders nationally. They have been reading about the survivors, rescuers, and resistors involved in life in the Jewish ghettos, concentration camps, and how many were hidden and protected from the Nazi atrocities. Both teachers share a passion for encouraging students to become contributing citizens of the world, honoring and valuing all human life. Studying the Holocaust is a way to learn from the past, honor those whose lives were stolen from them, and look to the future with eyes of tolerance and acceptance. Students are challenged to consider and make personal commitments to change patterns of bullying, harassment, and hatred of other human beings.

The Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center provides teaching trunks, with many primary source materials, literature units, posters, and other resources for teaching the Holocaust and making the link to the present with anti-bullying campaigns and the prevention of future genocides. Meridian Middle School has adopted their theme of “Change Begins with Me” with a huge, beautiful new wall hanging in the eighth grade pod, created by Mr. Bogle. The WSHERC also maintains a list of local Holocaust survivors who are willing to visit schools and other groups to share their own personal stories. Magda Schaloum is part of this local speakers bureau.

January 27 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day

2011-01-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

Help us to collect 2600 signatures to represent the family members of local Holocaust survivors who were murdered in the Holocaust.

SIGN NOW!

Click the link above to add your name in remembrance.

Please consider sharing this link with others. Thank you!

More about International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Taking the Holocaust Center's Message to Heart

2011-01-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

Meridian Middle School's new banner - inspired by the Holocaust Center!

Special thanks to teacher Debbie Carlson for initiating the project!

Letter to the Holocaust Center from a teacher

2011-01-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Holocaust Center,

I just have to take a few minutes to tell you how thankful I am for the work you all do and for how much you have done for me. This week I began teaching my most favorite teaching unit – the Holocaust and The Diary of Anne Frank. The first year I taught the diary was only about five years ago. I’d read the story myself, knew it was a good one and jumped in with my classes not really knowing what I was doing because deep in my heart I knew studying the book / play was far more/bigger than reading and writing. I didn’t know where to begin, but being someone with a deep faith, I knew God could use whatever I would do!

(Photo - Debbie Carlson, center, in Prague this past summer studying the Holocaust on a program sponsored by the Holocaust Center and Museum Without Walls.)

Fortunately, someone put me in touch with the WSHERC. I began taking every class I could and started soaking up all of the information and passion for the subject. It didn’t take long before I realized that Holocaust education and ALL that it encompasses was why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. The very first paper I wrote when I started my Masters in Teaching program was about my desire to change lives and lead students to be responsible, caring citizens of the world. I’m sure most teachers feel the same way when they start out! When I started taking the classes and workshops you offered and used your resources, it all came together. You provided me the platform I needed to fulfill what I really care about as a teacher.

This week, as I stood among my students hoping I wouldn’t cry when I tried to tell them how important this unit is to me and what I hope they will get from it – I realized you all as individuals and all of the work done by the center have become my backbone!

I had my students do a little exercise where they listed some of the things they have “heard” about the Holocaust. As I began to clarify some of their many misconceptions I realized how I was using so much of what I learned through my trip and the workshops I have attended. I feel informed! I’ve been part of bigger discussions that give me a better or different perspective to share with the kids. I am so much more confident this year – yet I still carry on with fear and trepidation because I want to make sure that everything I say and do will be a positive learning experience for these young lives!

So – thank you to each of you as individuals for your commitment to the subject and for your friendship and support. Thank you WSHERC for being my source and my resource! You make what I want to do possible and you make me more of the teacher that I so long to be!

Looking forward to years of a relationship with you all,
Debbie Carlson
Meridian Middle School, Kent

"Every year is a great year" says local survivor

2011-01-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

Every new year is a great year, says Auschwitz survivor, local resident
By Steve Shay West Seattle Herald
2011-01-01

While many this time of year recall personal ups and downs in 2010, and hold renewed hopes for 2011, West Seattle's Hermine Berner, 91, believes her life is a miracle and, in recent history, each of her years has passed with much optimism.

"People ask me, 'What's your secret?' " said Berner, referring to her sharp and active mind and body. "Why do they ask? You think I look young? You think that's a secret?" she said with a sample of her sarcastic wit.

Berner, who lives near Alki, does have secret of another sort, one she speaks about when gently persuaded. She is a Holocaust survivor who was shipped to Auschwitz, the notorious concentration camp in German-occupied Poland, while visiting Budapest, Hungary with her father. Their home was in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Read full article...

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

2010-12-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

Armenian community is still waiting to hear from Congress
By 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....

...

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?

2010-12-27T08:09:00.001-08:00

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 soldiers
Goel 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

2010-12-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

US urged to extradite ex-Nazi suspect to Serbia
Dec. 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 victims
Dec. 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 days
Dec. 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

2010-12-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

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

Opening Reception - January 13
Teacher Workshop - January 14
Exhibit - January 13 -February 17, 2011
Programs 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?

2010-11-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

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 Camera
Photographer: 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

2010-11-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-11T13:42:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

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"

2010-11-01T10:30:00.001-07:00

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

2010-11-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

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 hell
By 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"

2010-10-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

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.

------------------

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.

------

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.

--------------

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.

------

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

2010-10-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

Thank to our many sponsors for supporting Holocaust education!

Carrots and....the Holocaust?

2010-09-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

School Can Exclude Materials Disputing Armenian Genocide
By 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

2010-07-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

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.