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