U.S. Backs Implementing U.N. Doctrine Against Genocide

The Wall Street Journal
July 30, 2009. By JOE LAURIA

UNITED NATIONS -- The Obama administration is supporting moves to implement a U.N. doctrine calling for collective military action to halt genocide.

The next step is to see if the countries in favor of implementing the policy will act when a new genocide is brewing if all other diplomatic actions fail. The doctrine is political, not legal: Although these countries have expressed the political will to act, they aren't legally bound to. Read article...

World is Witness

World is Witness - A geoblog that shares stories, photos, and maps from the field to document genocide and related crimes against humanity.

Photo: A Bangladeshi UN transport helicopter takes off from Duru village in Northeastern Congo while a Moroccan soldier secures the field. Michael Graham/USHMM. April, 2009.

Empty Desks in Duru
Duru, Democratic Republic of the Congo
June 24, 2009
Our MI-17 transport helicopter rumbles to life and lifts up from the UN base outside of Dungu, above American-made Humvees parked next to piles of supplies and prefabricated offices squatting alongside the dirt runway. UN staff in blue Kevlar and helmets buckled in next to me put on a jovial air, but there is an undercurrent of tension. We are flying into the heart of Lord’s Resistance Army ’s territory, just a few miles from their former base in Garamba National Park. Read more...


World is Witness, a project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, bears witness to genocide and related crimes against humanity around the world. Our staff and guest contributors bring you updates from the field, eyewitness testimony, photographs, interactive maps and more. Includes interactive maps with Google Earth.


If you haven't seen this yet, you need to check it out. These stories and entries clearly remind us how important this education is and how much work needs to be done.

Broadening Awareness about Darfur

A critical part of studying the Holocaust is making the connection to current issues such as prejudice, hatred, and contemporary genocide. We received an email last week from an organization in Maine created by survivors from Darfur. From their website:

The Fur Cultural Revival is a non-government, non-profit organization committed to broadening the public’s awareness of genocide in Darfur; serving the needs of the Darfur community residing in the greater Portland area and preserving the Fur tribal culture.

To learn more about the crisis in Darfur and the important work of The Fur Cultural Revival, visit http://sites.google.com/site/furculturalrevivalme/ .

On hate groups: 'You never, never decrease the problem by ignoring it'

KOMO News

SEATTLE -- An organization that tracks hate groups says records show there are more such groups now than ever before.

In an effort to help determine why, KOMO News got an exclusive interview with a member of the Aryan Nations and with those determined to stop the hate....

Hate groups up 50 percent
The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks racial hatred. In the last eight years, the center reports the number of hate groups has gone up 50 percent. They count 962 -- the most ever on record.

Read article

Note - the comments that follow the article are equally interesting...

Al-Bashir prosecutor pushes for genocide charge

(CNN) -- The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court says he has evidence to prove Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is guilty of genocide, even though he is not charged with the crime.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo spoke to CNN on Wednesday, two days after he appealed to the court to add genocide to the existing arrest warrant for al-Bashir.

The court issued the warrant in March on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to his five-year campaign of violence in western Sudan's Darfur region.

"The evidence shows it is genocide," Moreno-Ocampo said.

The warrant was the first one ever issued for a sitting head of state by the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, based at The Hague in the Netherlands.... read article.

Confronting Violence with Knowledge

Holocaust Museum shooting shows need for continued education about the Holocaust

JT News
By Dee Simon and Laurie Warshal Cohen, Co-Executive Directors, Holocaust Center

The recent fatal shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. is a stark reminder that each of us has the responsibility to stand up to prejudice and hate whenever and wherever we encounter it.

Sara J. Bloomfield, Director of the USHMM in Washington, sent out the following statement: “This incident underscores why the Museum is so important. The Holocaust did not begin with mass murder. It began with hate. The Holocaust reminds us of the dangers of indifference and unchecked hate — and that each of us has a responsibility to stand up to it.”

As individuals and as a community, we search again for answers and solutions to this kind of needless violence.

The Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center is working in our region to reach students, teachers and communities with educational programs that focus on the tragic consequences of bigotry, prejudice and hatreds. The center’s mission of teaching and learning for humanity puts it on the front lines of educating our young people. With a multi-pronged approach to Holocaust education, students who study the Holocaust in the context of human rights and genocide learn that hatred and prejudice have tragic consequences. They tell their teachers they will no longer accept bullying in their classes, and that they know the difference one person can make:

“After studying the Holocaust and hearing a speaker, I feel it is my job to help others to be tolerant towards different races and cultures. I can’t just let things happen anymore,” says one Lynnwood High School student.

As a small non-profit, the center dedicates its resources to programs that include: Holocaust teaching trunks, survivor presentations to classes, teacher training, traveling exhibits, classroom book sets, community programs, and an extensive multi-media library of artifacts, testimonies and other Holocaust materials. With these programs, we reached 40,000 students, teachers and community members this year.

These acts of violence, especially toward Jewish institutions, are a challenge to all of us. We grieve Stephen Tyrone Johns, who lost his life in Washington D.C. At the Holocaust Center, we confront this challenge through education. This is what the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has stood for since it opened its doors, and this is the mission of our local center in Seattle.

Holocaust Center Struts Its Stuff at the AWSP/WASA Conference in Spokane

The Holocaust Center's booth was a busy one at the AWSP/WASA Conference this past Sunday and Monday at the Spokane Convention Center. The conference attracted 600 superintendents, principals, and administrators from all over the state.

Lauren (the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau Coordinator and Office Manager) and I packed the car full of an impressive collection of the Center's displays, resources, and program information. We then drove out to Spokane for a whirlwind two days of meeting new people and re-connecting with others.

Thank you to everyone who visited our booth. We look forward to working with you.

-Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education

Saint George’s Students Finish Study of Holocaust with Visit to U.S. Holocaust Museum on Same Day as Shooting

SPOKANE, WA – Thirty Saint George’s middle schoolers who studied the Holocaust in class have just returned from a five-day tour of Washington DC landmarks that included the disconcerting experience of visiting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum the same day it was attacked by a neo-Nazi gunman.

The students and two Saint George’s teachers toured the museum from 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10, and were on the opposite side of the museum building just over an hour later when the shooting occurred at 12:50 p.m. They were not in any immediate danger and didn’t learn what happened until later that day.

“It was a lesson we weren’t counting on, but it certainly reinforced what they had learned about hate crimes,” says Ruth Ann Johnson, SGS Middle School English teacher who was on the tour. Her 7th grade class reads Anne Frank’s diary, leading to student research projects on topics such as the Kristallnacht persecutions of the Jews and Nazi concentration camps.

The 7th and 8th grade students on the tour took both their visit to the museum and the news of the shooting very seriously. “We had an excellent discussion about the reality of violence that specifically targets certain people,” says Johnson. “This is why I teach the Holocaust, because this still happens today.”

The students’ tours that day had a broader theme of remembering acts of violence. They had begun with a tour of Ford’s Theater where President Lincoln was shot, before viewing the Holocaust Museum and ending their day at the Pentagon memorial to the victims of the September 11th attack. Now they have something else to remember from that day that will keep the lessons they learned in class very real for a long time to come.

Johnson serves on the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center’s advisory board. The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous has named her an Alfred Lerner Fellow at its Summer Institute for Teachers, and she has toured Holocaust sites in Amsterdam and Berlin on educational trip sponsored by the Holocaust Center and Museum Without Walls.

To arrange an interview with Ruth Ann Johnson about the school’s Holocaust curriculum and the students’ experiences in Washington DC, contact John Carter at 466-1636 x397 or at john.carter@sgs.org.

Shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)

All of us at the Holocaust Center send our colleagues at the USHMM and the family of Officer Johns our condolences, thoughts, and prayers for safety and healing in this difficult time.

Such acts of violence and hatred reiterate the need for the work we are doing.

Holocaust museum closed in tribute to slain guard (CNN)

The President and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar offer condolences.
From the White House Briefing Room Blog:

President Obama:
I am shocked and saddened by today’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world.

Today, we have lost a courageous security guard who stood watch at this place of solemn remembrance. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends in this painful time.

Secretary Salazar:
Today, we witnessed an act of violence and hatred in one of our world's most sacred sites of remembrance. This horrible crime took the life of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, whose courage in the line of duty saved lives and protected the hallowed halls of the Holocaust Museum. Americans' thoughts and prayers tonight are with Officer Johns’ family.

We are also reminded of the great sacrifices our law enforcement officials, including security guards and the Park Police who protect the National Mall, make every day on our behalf. This tragic act of violence only reaffirms the lessons of peace and human dignity that the Holocaust Museum teaches.

President Obama visits Buchenwald

At a Holocaust Site, Obama Calls Denial ‘Hateful’

New York Times. Published: June 5, 2009
By Jeff Zeleney and Nicholas Kulish

DRESDEN, Germany — President Obama on Friday intensified his pledge to unlock the Middle East stalemate, sending an envoy next week to pursue his call for a two-state solution, as he toured a former concentration camp that he said served as a lesson to “be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time.”
Read article.

Students Create Birthday Cards in Honor of Anne Frank's Birthday

On June 12, 2009 Anne Frank would have been 80 years old. Jollie Evan's class at Tonasket Elementary School in Tonasket, wanted to make birthday cards for Anne as a special remembrance of her life.

http://mail.tonasket.wednet.edu/~jevans/?OpenItemURL=S005B6E9C

Thank you Ms. Evans for sending us this link and for letting us know about your class project!

Teachers Travel to Berlin

On March 26, 15 teachers left for one week to travel to Berlin to learn about the history of the city and to study the Holocaust. The trip was sponsored and organized by Museum Without Walls and the Holocaust Center.

Kim Spradlin, a teacher from Eastmont High School in East Wenatchee, traveled on the trip and shared her experiences.

Ghosts of Berlin
By Kim Spradlin
Teacher, Eastmont High School, East Wenatchee
May 2009

From the moment I decided to travel to Berlin with the Museum Without Walls & the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, the anticipation of seeing this particular city overwhelmed me. I could barely control my curiosity as I contemplated what it would mean to travel to a place that held such a long and proud, yet tragically bitter history. I honestly didn’t know what to expect; I had no preconceived notions of what the city would feel like or look like, but I knew that visiting Berlin would affect me in an indescribable way.

It wasn’t long after arriving on March 26, 2009 before I took the first glance back over my shoulder. I don’t know why I chose just then to look back, but I did. I was not near Checkpoint Charlie or the cobble stone demarcation line of The Wall or the old Gestapo headquarters or anywhere remotely connected to Berlin’s history. I was just on a street near the hotel, thinking about where to go for dinner. This was the first of countless furtive glances that I caught myself making. It was as if I could just catch, out of the corner of my eye, ghosts of all I’d been taught.
While I was growing up, Berlin, East Germany was the symbol of the Cold War, a deadly no-man’s land divided by The Berlin Wall; and later, as I learned about WWII, it came to represent the epicenter of Hitler’s odious Nazi policies. But now I was walking there, in the place that had always represented evil and inspired fear in me. The Berlin I found myself wandering through and learning about was obviously more than the events of WWII and the Cold War, but nonetheless I caught myself often, suddenly looking around, wondering who was there, who might be watching or listening, and as I toured the city, seeing sights and meeting courageous individuals, I felt those echoes and ghosts all around me.

One such echo was the Geisterbahnhofs. Roughly, this translates to Ghost Stations. After the Berlin Wall was erected, some U-bahn (subway) stops were closed. Trains would pass through them, but because they were in East Berlin, the West Berlin trains couldn’t stop. The trains would slow and passengers could see armed guards on the platforms, but during the Cold War there was no stopping. The stations at Potzdamer Platz, Oranienburgstrasse, Nord Bahnhof, & Unter Den Linden were there, but not there. Ghosts. After reunification, the Geisterbahnhof stations were opened again and now they are perfect time capsules of design from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. While waiting at the Nord Bahnhof station, a lingering coldness to the air made me pause and look around, as if that, too, is a reminder of what once defined this city. The beautiful tile work, station name signs, and obsolete ticketing areas are all from that other time, all echoing remnants of the past.

Another poignant reminder for me was the collection of Stolpersteine or ‘stumbling blocks’ located around Berlin. Over 13,000 of these small stones have been placed all around Europe and mark the last known residence of Jews who were deported and killed by the Nazis. The small brass stones are engraved with the name, year of birth and the fate: mostly the date of deportation and of death. In Berlin, there are over 1,400 to stumble upon and there was always a clutch in my heart as I read the names and saw the dates and destinations for deportation. Auschwitz. Plaszow. Dachau. Sachsenhausen. It wasn’t until the last day of our trip that I noticed two such stones outside our hotel door, right under my feet everyday. Stopped in my tracks, my heart sank for these unexpected ghosts, these terrible and somber reminders of a tragic Berlin and I quickly looked around to be sure I was still there and it was still 2009.
Our group visited many powerful sights of historic Berlin, all of which touched me in different ways. Wannsee, where the meeting to orchestrate the Final Solution was held in a beautiful villa overlooking a glassy lake. The Resistance Memorial at the Bendler Block where the leaders of an unsuccesful assassination attempt on Hitler’s life were executed. A walking tour of the old Jewish neighborhood where we saw the remnants of a once active and purposeful community. The Berlin Wall Documentation Center where we were lucky enough to listen to Mr. Neumann narrate his experience of fleeing East Berlin and then helping to rescue over 80 more people.

The New Synagogue, Checkpoint Charlie, the concentration camps of Ravensbruck and Sachenhausen, the Topography of Terror, the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden; all of these sights, as well as many others, caused me to catch my breath. Some made me seethe with anger, others caused my heart to ache with sadness, while still others caused tears to run down my face as I took in their beauty. But no matter what my personal reaction was, all the sights caused me to re-examine everything I’d previously learned, to look at these historical places with new eyes.

Although there were many moments where I felt myself looking back to the ghosts of Berlin’s past, what I also remember seeing is a city full of life and hope for the future. Numerous green parks dot the metropolis as children from all different races play in the grass. Artists have decorated the remaining segments of the Berlin Wall as a way to show that creativity and individual expression can never be completely oppressed. My fellow teachers and I walked safely through lively, multi-cultural neighborhoods every night on our way back to our hotel. And every day as we traveled to numerous sights and museums we saw different phases of major construction efforts across the skyline. Berlin is a city that is growing, and changing; a city struggling to come to grips with its past as it moves bravely forward into the bright future of the 21st century. I can’t say that I fell in love with Berlin, but it sparked my interest and garnered my respect. It’s a city that is moving forward, creating a unique tapestry out of the rubble of its past.

Nooksack Valley High School hosts Holocaust Survivor

On Wednesday, June 3, over 300 students at Nooksack Valley High School had the opportunity to listen to Noemi B., a Holocaust survivor, share her story.

Teacher Kirsten Jensen has done extensive Holocaust studies with her students. Kirsten has used the Holocaust Center's teaching trunks for the past two years and organized this program for her school. The Holocaust Center has selected Kirsten as one of two teachers to attend the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR) Summer Insitute in New York at the end of June.

A special thank you to Kirsten for showing me her classroom (and letting me take a photo of her) and telling me more about how and what she teaches.

-Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education

Bellevue Sunrise Rotary

In 2006, the Bellevue Sunrise Rotary Club underwrote a Holocaust Teaching Trunk. Since that time, their trunk, a middle school trunk, has been used by over 2000 students!

Today, I had the opporutunity to tell the Bellevue Sunrise Rotarians about the difference their contribution has made.

Thank you Bellevue Sunrise Rotary for your support!

-Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education

Picture: Bellevue Sunrise Rotarians (and Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education) with a Holocaust Teaching Trunk.

A Student's Poem Dedicated to Those Who Survived the Camps and Those Who Did Not

This is the worker's of the camps song.

The sky is blue
This is new
"Work will make you free" is a lie
Nazis here
Nazis there
Gunshots ring our ears, horrid screams
We work for our lives
The sky is gray
This is scary
The food is bad
Diseases spreading faster

Nazis no where
Nazis not here
This is our chance
Run on the count of three
We will be free!
Freedom is no dream
We made it through
This is the worker's of the camps song
We made it through
The barb wired fence
No longer am I here
No longer are we Workers
Here is our freedom song

This poem is to the people who survived the work and death camps. And to those who didn't This poem came from my heart.

by: Cheyan K. 4th grade student, Tonasket Elementary School, Tonasket, Wa. Teacher: Jollie Evans