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Thank to our many sponsors for supporting Holocaust education!

Carrots and....the Holocaust?

Eating carrots will improve your vision. True or false?

False.

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

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

Talk about propaganda!

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

Kent Teacher, Debbie Carlson, Puts Emphasis on Social Justice

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

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

By LAURA PIERCE
Kent Reporter Editor
Sep 14 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New books to check out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The stories of five women who survived the Holocaust.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A fun, educational, and family-friendly Haggadah.

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

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

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

September 15, 2010

Good morning!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teachers in the News

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

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


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

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

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

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

http://armenianstory.coffeetownpress.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(image below: Carl Wilkens)

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

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

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