Anniversary

This Saturday, July 28th, marked the six year anniversary of the shooting at the Jewish Federation, in the same building as the Holocaust Center. Today we recited the Kaddish for Pam Waechter and paused for a moment of reflection here in our office.

Director Dee Simon addresses the group

Forget Me Not: Agnes Ringwald

Left and Right

They came during the night,

Forcing them from their homes

Shoving them onto trains,

Like sardines in a can;

Their destination unknown

The whimpers of strangers,

Screeching of wheels meant the ride was over.

One-by-one the train was emptied,

Lines seemed to stretch on for miles

Some go right; others left

Left they went

Agnes with her mom,

Gripping tightly, each other's hands

There were stalls, for bathing

And so they prepared.

The chiking smell of their demise,

The world slowly fading

Their lives short lived.

The potential is gone and so only memories remain.

Thank you so much to Kathryn Corprew, age 14, and her grandmother Mary Lou Maguess for sharing Kathryn's poem with us!

Some of our latest artifacts

Here are a few of our latest artifacts that we are in the process of archiving. They portray a human side of the United States liberators during World War II, something that should always be shown in history. They were donated to the Holocaust Center by Mallory McCray, and come from her father Frank Adams, a camp liberator of Buchenwald. Click image to view larger.

Thanksgiving dinner, 1944

A beautiful and clear shot of a soldier working outside

An outside meal in France, 1944

Royal Air Force vs American Officers volleyball game

Books to check out

In Our Hearts We Were Giants by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev
The Ovitz family--seven dwarfs and three normal-statured siblings--traveled through Transylvania and neighboring lands singing songs for enthusiastic audiences in the 1930s and early 1940s. Then in 1944, they were shipped with thousands of other Jews to Auschwitz, where the infamous Dr. Mengele took an interest in them. Saved from immediate murder by Mengele, they were treated far better than the average resident of Auschwitz. Although forced to suffer through painful and humiliating medical tests, they kept their own clothes and were better fed than others at the camp. They survived Mengele's experiments, eventually moving to Israel and going on a successful reunion tour before retiring to run a cinema together. Employing information culled from interviews with friends and the last surviving Ovitz sister, Koren and Negev explore with considerable depth the Ovitzes' complicated relationships with their size, one another, and their awful savior, Mengele. This is a quirky, illuminating, and unique addition to Holocaust history.

Just when I thought I knew all the big stories from the Holocaust, I come upon this. Tender, raw, and real. -Reader

The Children of Willesden Lane - Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen

 

Based on the true story of her mother, Mona Golabek describes the inspirational story of Lisa Jura Golabek's escape from Austria to England on the Kindertransport. Jewish musical prodigy Lisa Jura has a wonderful life in Vienna, but when the Nazis start closing in on the city, life changes irreversibly. Although he has three daughters, Lisa's father is only able to secure one on the Kindertransport. The family decides to send Lisa so that she may pursue her a career as a concert pianist. Lisa bravely endures the trip and a disastrous posting outside London before finding her way to the Willesden Lane Orphanage. Her music inspires the other orphanage children, and they, in turn, cheer her on in her efforts to realize her musical potential. Through hard work and sheer pluck, Lisa wins a scholarship to study piano at the Royal Academy. As she supports herself and studies, she makes a new life for herself and dreams of reconnecting with the family she was forced to leave behind. The resulting tale delivers a message of the power of music to uplift the human spirit and to grant the individual soul endurance, patience, and peace.

The Children of Willesden Lane is a remarkable, transporting story, at once upllifting and heartbreaking. I'm a better person for reading it. -Reader

 

 

 

 

The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses by Manfred Gerstenfeld

In an increasingly uncertain world, the Holocaust is likely to continue to play an important role as the metaphor of absolute evil. This is all the more so as threats of genocide again appear in public statements. Fighting the main manipulations of the Holocaust requires first understanding the nature of the abuses. This must be followed by exposing the manipulation of the perpetrators, who should then be turned into the accused. Preserving Holocaust memory correctly requires documentation, education, the establishment of monuments, museums, and memorials, ceremonies and remembrance days; as well as commemorative projects. Legislation and art are other spheres that have made important contributions.This book analyzes the categories of distortion and the responses to them. Also included are case studies that analyze Holocaust distortion in several European countries and the Muslim world.

Written with exemplary tenacity, research and courage, this volume's urgency is proven by its resolve to unmask and denounce the nefarious ugliness of Holocaust abuse and denial.   -Elie Wiesel

Local Holocaust Survivor Profiled in New Book

Paul Zilsel is the founder of Left Hand Books in Pike Place, Seattle. At the onset of the Nazi occupation in 1938, Paul fled to England along with other Jewish children. He and his parents ultimately obtained refugee status in the United States, although other family members perished in the Holocaust.

Rude Awakenings: An American Historian's Encounters with Nazism, Communism, and McCarthyism, a new book by Carol Sicherman, describes Paul's resistance to McCarthyism. Sicherman writes that, "Of all the people whom I came to know in the course of my research for the book, he was one of the ones I most wished I had had known. He was, for me, an emblem of moral purity; his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee is a moving example of American idealism." This book has been praised as a must read for people interested in political history.

Found Poems

Check out these awesome pieces of art from Erin Landvatter's class at Kingston High School!

"As we read Night, I have students keep track of the images and emotions they find most vividly expressed.  We then discuss Wiesel's style, including his use of poetic devices such as repetition, and how his style helps convey meaning and develop certain themes.  After this discussion, I show students how to create a 'found' poem - a poem that uses words and phrases from various parts of the novel to examine an important idea. Finally, once a student has finished his/her poem, he/she creates artwork that complements the mood of the piece and rewrites the poem onto that artwork." -Erin Landvatter

Click the image to view larger. Each piece, along with other student projects, can also be seen here.

Donor Spotlight

Thank you Commerce Bank of Washington for being a sponsor for the Voices for Humanity Luncheon 2012.

Save the Date: October 15, 2012 at the Westin Seattle – Voices for Humanity Luncheon

Congrats Natalie!

Natalie Pilgeram, of Mt. Spokane High School in Mead, WA received 2nd Place in the National History Day (national) competition for her paper, "The Trial of the Century: A Reaction to Nazi Atrocities Prompts Revolution and Reform in Principles of International Law." Natalie interviewed Seattle-area Holocaust survivor Bob H. for part of her research. Congratulations Natalie!

The research I carried out on this topic not only brought me into contact with some wonderful people whom I never would have met otherwise, but left me with an awareness of the varied issues surrounding the Holocaust that I will always carry with me.  I never expected that this project would take me this far.  Those hours and days after I learned I had placed at nationals were an incredible whirlwind experience that I still don’t think I have fully processed!

-Natalie Pilergeram

The following is the text from the first page of Natalie's essay.

The Trial of the Century: A Reaction to Nazi Atrocities Prompts Revolution and Reform in Principles of International Law

             In November of 1945, Lena Kaplan of Minneapolis received a letter from her husband: “Here we are on the eve of the opening of the second most important trial in the history of the world (No. 1: the trial of Jesus Christ),” he wrote.  “Tomorrow morning the trial opens…and from that point on we’re in the soup.”[1]  The letter came from the bombed out city of Nuremberg, Germany, and Lena Kaplan’s husband was a senior attorney on the United States prosecutorial staff for Case Number One of the International Military Tribunal (I.M.T) - the Nuremberg Trial. As a historically unique reaction to the crimes of the Nazi regime, this trial prompted reform in principles of international law and ultimately a revolution in the way sovereign nations interact in the legal realm.

The “soup” Kaplan referred to lasted from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 and tried twenty-two defendants, including one in absentia.  Their crimes were those that could not be restricted to any particular geographic location.  They fell under four counts:  crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and participation in the “common plan” or conspiracy to commit those crimes.[2]  The Allies endeavored to handpick high-level defendants from every gear of the National Socialist machine, creating a roster that would serve to establish the criminality of the organizations represented (a key objective of the American delegation especially).  Of the defendants convicted in the end, twelve were sentenced to hang.  Three were fully acquitted.  (see Appendix I)  Control Council Law No. 10, formalized in December of 1945, guided subsequent trials of lower level defendants carried out by individual Allied nations (primarily the United States) in their respective occupied zones.[3]  These trials explored the culpabilities of an eclectic assortment of defendants: concentration camp leaders, medical experimenters, unjust Nazi judges, and even industrialists who supplied Zyklon B to gas chambers.[4]

The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg was selected as the seat of the I.M.T. largely for symbolic reasons.  The trial of the century would play out in the city where the annual rallies of the Nazi Party had spurred the German people into a militant nationalistic frenzy, the city that lent its name to the “Nuremberg Decrees” that began the creeping policy of Jewish persecution.[5]  The connection was clear.  Twenty-one countries prosecuted the Nazi officials (with France, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union actually sending representative judges),[6] but chief American prosecutor Justice Robert H. Jackson would argue in his opening address to the tribunal, “The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization.”[7] 

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[1] Barrett, John Q. "The Nuremberg Roles of Justice Robert H. Jackson." Washington University Global Studies Law Review. 6. (2007): 512-513.

[2] "Indictment." Nuremberg Trial Proceedings 1. The Avalon Project. Web. 9 Feb 2012.

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[3] "Memorandum, Control Council Law No. 10: Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes against Peace and against Humanity." 07 Jan 1946. 1-4. Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Web. 30 Mar 2012.

[4] And in April of 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East opened the “Tokyo War Crimes Trial” of twenty-eight Japanese military and civilian leaders.  With its eleven nation judgment team, two and a half year span, and fifty-five counts, it was much more complex than the Nuremberg Trial.  Its successful impact from the Allied perspective was less obvious (four of the eleven judges dissented), although it is still referenced as another landmark in the development of international law.

[5] Maguire, Peter. Law and War: An American Story. New York: Columbia University, 2000. 108.

[6] "Charter of the International Military Tribunal." Nuremberg Trial Proceedings 1. The Avalon Project. Web. 9 Feb 2012. .

[7] Jackson, Robert H. "Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal." Nuremberg Trial Proceedings 2. The Avalon Project. Web. 9 Feb 2012.