Accordions - New Artifacts

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

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

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!

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

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

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.