Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

ing months found CHES committee mem- tions between the Jewish and Christian Words bers busy creating the new initiatives. A communities of Europe. The presenta- sub-committee researched and suggested tion, “Relations, Resistance, Resilience”, from the potential topics for our film, which was en- focused on rare books and Holocaust- titled Voices for the Past, the Present, and era artifacts from three centuries of the Future. It was time-consuming but Christian-Jewish relations.” (See “Books Director rewarding to manage the contract with that Speak to My Grandfather’s Resilience, film maker Yolanda Papini-Pollock, Page 20). (https://museeholocauste.ca/ develop the script, review to-ate, nine en/news-and-events/relations-resistance- versions (called “cuts” in movie terminol- resilience/ ). ogy) of the film, and provide detailed Parliamentary Petition comments. Important additions to the With the increase in antisemitic inci- November 8th program were Professor dents in Canada and around the world, Irwin Cotler and Dr. Avinoam Patt, Dr. Art Leader, a CHES member, the voices of contemporary expert opin- worked with CHES members and author ions on Holocaust education in the 21st and lawyer Maureen McTeer to create century, a petition urging Canada’s Parliament The launch of the newly named Virtual to address the pressing challenges pre- Holocaust Museum on November 15th sented by the growing antisemitism, was a collaboration between CHES and Holocaust deniers, and those who dis- the Zelikovitz Centre. To augment the tort the true nature of the Holocaust. Mina Cohn 2018 artifacts, a call went out to survivors Anita Vandenbeld, MP for and members of their families for addi- West-Nepean, is the petition’s sponsor in Faced with the Covid-19 Pandemic and tional submissions. One additional artifact Parliament. the first lockdown in last March, rounded out the collection which now has Developing Partnerships the Centre for Holocaust Education and 48 artifact posts in nine categories. During the late summer and fall, we Scholarship (CHES) was forced to cancel For years, researchers were not con- were approached by several organizations live activities and search for new ways to vinced that artifacts donated by survivors seeking collaboration with CHES. These deliver meaningful Holocaust Education could add anything to Holocaust research, include the Wiesenthal Centre in Toronto, Month (HEM) programs through which but this attitude gradually changed over The Centre for Genocide Education in we honour the lessons and legacy of the time. Therefore, it was fitting to invite Montreal, Canadian Jewish Holocaust Holocaust each November. Sarah Shor, the manager of artifacts at Yad Survivors and Descendants Toronto, and By July, three programs were in the early Vashem in Jerusalem, and Dr. Robert the Jewish Public Library in Montreal. stages of development: Zikaron BaSalon, Ehrenreich, director of the United Meetings were conducted in Covid-19 style a new concept for our Ottawa audience States Holocaust Memorial Museum via Zoom. We believe that working togeth- that would be featured on November 4th; (USHMM) national academic program, er with likeminded organizations across a film telling the CHES story and celebrat- to participate in the webinar. Three local the country will only strengthen our cause ing our many accomplishments since participants in the 2018 Pop Up Museum and are excited about the potential for de- our establishment five years ago would were invited to share the stories behind veloping projects together. be premiered on November 8th; and the the artifacts they submitted. I want to thank all who joined us for an- artifacts of the Pop Up Museum, which “Relations, Resistance, Resilience” other successful and meaningful month of were submitted two years ago, would be On November 18th, the Montreal events and for signing the parliamentary uploaded to an online platform (https:// Holocaust Museum and the Montreal petition. Special thanks go to Yolanda carleton.ca/hempopup/virtual-museum/) Jewish Public Library were joined by the Papini-Pollock for her help in produc- and unveiled in a webinar on November Zelikovitz Centre and CHES for a collabo- ing CHES film Voices for the Past, The 15th. rative workshop featuring rare books and Present and Future. With the understanding that Zoom, a objects from their collections. These his- Wishing you all an easy and safe winter. new medium for CHES, would become the toric artifacts chronicle over 350 years of vehicle to reach our audience, the follow- the complex connections and disconnec-

11 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

Presenting Holocaust Education Month During a Pandemic: An Overview of CHES Initiatives Sheila Hurtig Robertson

ingful way. Zikaron BaSalon events typi- the Holocaust and the essential role cally occur on the eve of Yom HaShoah her grandmother played in saving Kati Memorial Day on 27th Nisan in tens of and her sister. After her parents were thousands of homes and communities in both taken away, her mother to Dachau Israel and abroad. concentration camp and her father to a work battalion, she and her sister were Adhering to the traditional Zikaron in the care of her maternal grandmother, BaSalon format of three components, the first female ophthalmologist in the CHES event focussed on “Testimony, Hungary, an accomplishment that would Expression, and Discussion”. save their lives. Forced from their home, they found themselves sharing a two- “Testimony” featured the remembrances bedroom apartment with 80 others in of survivor Kati Morrison; participants a building that housed several hundred in “Expression” expressed their feelings Jews. In January 1945, members of the about the Holocaust through a creative Arrow Cross, a far-right fascist orga- lens: and “Discussion” included a facili- nization, showed up and ordered the tated segment focusing on the memory residents to line up. and significance of the Holocaust. “One Arrow Cross man motioned to The event concluded with a discussion my grandmother not to join the line so Sheila Hurtig Robertson, Photography that built on Kati’s testimony and in- instead we hid under the staircase. Un- by Valerie Keeler, Valberg Imaging cluded lessons that can be learned from fortunately, my aunt, who was screaming survivors about hope, faith, and strength Since 2015, CHES has been bringing for them not to take the children, ended during the Holocaust and in the troubled year-round Holocaust education pro- up in the line and she, and all the others, times we are currently experiencing. grams to Ottawa and environs with Ho- were taken to the banks of the Danube locaust Education Month (HEM) being This event was developed in cooperation River and shot. We were the only survi- the focal point throughout November. with AJA 50+ (Active Jewish Adults) and vors of that action. Why? Because that was only open to their members. Arrow Cross man had been my grand- Forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to mother’s patient. Her profession saved cancel live activities, the volunteers who our lives.” comprise CHES were determined to de- Zikaron BaSalon A Powerful liver a meaningful HEM that honours the Experience The Holocaust affected most survivors lessons and legacy of the Holocaust. The Annette Wildgoose for many years, and it is only in the past result was three imaginative and sensi- 15 years that Kati has been able to share tive Zoom events: the social initiative Sheila Osterer, executive director of her experiences with others. The survivor Zikaron BaSalon; an evening with two AJA, and CHES member Minda Cha- strategy of denial and luck was a coping celebrated speakers and the premiere kin welcomed over 40 participants and mechanism for many Holocaust survi- of a celebratory film commissioned by introduced the evening’s program and vors. However, Kati suggested that new CHES; and a virtual Pop Up Museum. presenters. coping strategies are needed today. “We all must be alert, not be silent and be November 4th, 1:00 p.m. – Zikaron In her gripping presentation entitled ready to stand up for human rights for BaSalon “Nothing Will Break Us: Hope in Dif- everyone,” she explained. ficult Times”, Kati Morrison shared Zikaron BaSalon, or “Remembrance in her testimony which demonstrates Guitarist Joel Yan, a member of the Your Living Room” originated in Israel how the human spirit and the belief Ottawa Simcha Band, performed three in 2011 and brings together a community in human kindness was sorely tested musical selections that reflected the of people who choose to commemorate during the Holocaust. She spoke of her the Holocaust in an intimate and mean- family’s traumas in Hungary during Continued on next page

12 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

solemnity of Zikaron BaSalon; Eli, Eli, he calls out, “You who live safe in your professor who had enabled him to com- words by Chana Senesh, music by David warm houses” and then again shouts plete his work in spite of the anti-Jewish Zahavi; Ani Maamin-, Z”l, words from to you, beckons, and commands, and environment. In Fascist Italy, he had to Maimonides’ 12th principle of Faith, implores finally, with threats of dire con- get a false identity and forged papers in music by Rabbi David Fastag; and The sequences, all the while fulfilling the vow order to find work. After his father died, Partisan Song, words by Hirsch Glick, he took in camp to speak so all will hear his sister and mother went into hiding music by Dmitry Pokrass. and never forget. and Levi joined friends as ill-equipped partisans in the hills north of Turin. CHES member Hilda Bleyer read a poem In the December 2015 issue of the They were soon arrested and, when the by Primo Levy entitled “Shema”, a favou- Atlantic Monthly, William Deresiewicz Germans took over, “Levi was sent to rite of her late husband, Stephen Bleyer, reminds us that Levi wrote that his one Auschwitz (Buna-Monowitz, otherwise who had survived Auschwitz as a young conscious purpose in life has been to known as Auschwitz III, was the larg- boy and greatly admired Primo Levy. make his “voice heard by the German est slave labour camp in the Auschwitz people, to ‘talk back’ to the SS… and their Why Primo Levi? complex); he was 24.” heirs”. In 1961, fourteen years after the book’s initial publication, it was trans- Stephen and Levi were in that huge lated into German. complex of diabolical camps for some of the same period and were liberated at Stephen Bleyer was a child survivor the same time. Later they ended up in of Auschwitz-Birkenau. A tall strong the same city for a short time, Turin. For 13-year-old, Steve (Istvan) was directed Levi, it was a return home after a very by his mother to stand with the men long journey that is the topic of another upon their arrival in the camps from autobiographical book, The Truce or The Hungary. It was the last time he saw her. Reawakening. It took time and his outrage at the denial of the Holocaust to break the heavy bur- Stephen spent months in the Russian den of silence and allow him to act on his camp hospital before being able to travel perceived responsibility as a survivor. back to Hungary to see what family he could find. He found his older brother, Stephen joined others speaking to groups and they eventually became refugees at the Montreal Holocaust Museum and in Italy as they waited for a permanent in schools and colleges. In a June 1991 home. Meanwhile, Stephen started his address that he named “Remembering Hilda Bleyer architectural studies in Turin. the Holocaust in Museums and Educa- tion”, he said, “I would like to dedicate Neither Primo Levi nor Stephen Bleyer I was asked to read a poem for Zikaron this short talk to the memory of my were recognizable to the first person see- BaSalon, an event which was a first for favourite author of Holocaust literature: ing them upon their return; both write of CHES. I knew immediately I wanted Primo Levi”. that moment. Stephen has more to say to share the poem known as “Shemà” about getting to see what he looked like or If This Is a Man, written by my late On January 26, 1995, in a piece writ- at liberation. “I recognized myself only husband’s favourite author of Holocaust ten for the Canadian Jewish News, he because of the number”; this was his re- literature, Primo Levi. describes himself at liberation 50 years action to finding a photograph of himself earlier in the makeshift infirmary which by chance in the book, “Auschwitz: a His- When Levi describes the process of “was in effect a waiting room for the dy- tory in Photographs”. It is the name of writing “If This Is a Man”, the 178-page ing skeletons” who knew their “lives were the submission for the Pop Up Museum autobiographical work that contains the hanging on very thin threads”. Primo on the CHES website. eponymous poem, he speaks of being Levi’s poem was published alongside. pushed by the urgency of the memories. Stephen was then President of the Mon- Levi’s experience as a chemist allowed “In a few months of work, it was done… treal Holocaust Museum continuing the him to get a “job” in a laboratory in the I had written the 17 chapters almost work he felt was important. synthetic rubber factory next to the precisely backwards…Then I wrote camp. This meant a little more food, a the Preface and in the end I added as Primo Levi, author, poet, chemist, was change of clothing, and some heat in his Epigraph a poem that was dancing in born in Turin, Italy in 1919 in a Jewish workplace. He acknowledged what he my head already in Auschwitz, and that I community, but growing up, he knew called his “good fortune”; workers in the wrote a few days after my return”. little about the practice of Judaism. camps generally were “disposable” but He was a gifted student and when he when Levi arrived, they were in short Levi the poet forcefully commands you to graduated from university with honors supply as was the gas and ammunition listen, Shemà. Immediately, the reader in Chemistry, his diploma was stamped used for killing. is drawn in, involved, implicated, when OF JEWISH RACE. It was an individual

13 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

From the very beginning of his camp Shema Poem by Primo Levi reach to schools and educators, sympo- experience, Levi admits he was engaged You who live secure siums for descendants of survivors, and in observing, recording mentally to be In your warm houses special events. ready to tell the world. With directness and simplicity, he tells what he sees, Who return at evening to find The film presentation was followed by how he survives. He exchanged bread Hot food and friendly faces: an animated and informative discussion featuring The Honorable Irwin Cot- for German lessons from the begin- Consider whether this is a man, ning, explaining how horrible it was ler and Dr. Avinoam Patt, who are Who labours in the mud for those prisoners who could not even experts in the importance of Holocaust understand the shouted commands with Who knows no peace education today. sometimes terrifying results. Primo Levi Who fights for a crust of bread Irwin Cotler is the Chair of the Raoul said, as did Stephen, it was fortunate to Who dies at a yes or a no. Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, arrive reasonably healthy and knowing an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill some German. Consider whether this is a woman, University, former Minister of Justice Without hair or name Levi describes being in the camp infirma- and Attorney General of Canada, and an With no more strength to remember ry at the time of Liberation, “fortunate” international human rights lawyer. He to get scarlet fever, not too serious an Eyes empty and womb cold spoke about the importance of Holocaust illness, at the right time. Stephen too felt As a frog in winter. education in today’s world and CHES’ that his infected feet might prove lucky. role in this vital work. Consider that this has been: They both were too weak and sick to join Dr. Avinoam Patt is a professor of the forced march and were left behind. I commend these words to you. Modern Jewish History at the University Engrave them on your hearts In Levi’s methodical report of the last of Hartford and Assistant Director of the When you are in your house, when you 10 days, he describes how three men, university’s Maurice Greenberg Center a barely mobile Levi included, work walk on your way, of Judaic Studies. He facilitated a timely together to care for others suffering from When you go to bed, when you rise. webinar entitled “Obligation and Chal- lenges of Teaching the Holocaust in the typhus and diphtheria. They hunt for Repeat them to your children. frozen potatoes and clean ice to melt, 21st Century”, based on his new book, Or may your house crumble, and “steal” a stove that they manage to Understanding and Teaching the Holo- repair. As Paul Bailey points out in the Disease render you powerless, caust, which he and Laura Hilton edited. introduction to Levi’s “If This Is a Man”, Your offspring avert their faces from you. Highlights of the Speakers’ the book ends on a hopeful note. Work is Remarks no longer the humiliating drudgery im- Marion Silver posed by the SS, instead it is finding and November 8th, 7:00 p.m. – Voices sharing food and healing the helpless. for the Past, the Present, and the The tired, cold, and hungry, wrapped Future Irwin Cotler, just appointed Canada’s in the blankets and rags abandoned by first special envoy for Holocaust remem- those who left on the forced march, or CHES was established on the eve of brance and combating anti-Semitism who had died, were now creeping out of Kristallnacht 2015, and chose November (November 25, 2020), spoke about the the shadows, and slowly becoming men 8, 2020 to reflect on its many accom- importance of speaking out against again. plishments. hatred and intolerance. He has called “anti-semitism an assault on our com- Stephen and his favourite Holocaust A new film, Voices for the Past, the mon humanity.” He stated that Kristall- author never met. But Stephen was Present, and the Future, celebrates the nacht is a sanitised term for the pogrom fortunate to have the support of Levi’s fifth anniversary of CHES and covers its that was the precursor to the Holocaust. words and ideas so deeply infused with inception, achievements, programs, out- This night, all over Germany and Austria humanity as he took up his own efforts saw the pillaging of Jewish homes, the to describe the indescribable, to consider burning of synagogues, and the rounding his own experience, and to make his up and killing of people who were Jews. contribution. No meeting, but perhaps a The Nuremburg laws which were passed meeting of the minds. in 1936 served to delegitimize and disen- franchise the Jewish community. Nazism was a regime anchored in antisemitism.

What are the lessons? The imperative of remembrance, zachor: Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were targeted

14 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

reflect family stories and encourage victims. Unto each person there is a Teaching the Holocaust demands a great learning and remembrance. The variety name, each person is a universe. deal of knowledge. My book (Under- of the artifacts reveals the richness and standing and Teaching the Holocaust) The danger of silence: This results in diversity of the lives lost while ensuring offers strategies and key topics of the complicity with evil itself. that they are not forgotten. Holocaust and suggestions to teach mul- State-sanctioned culture of hate, state- tiple facets of the Holocaust as well as The Holocaust Virtual Museum con- sanctioned incitement of hate. The integrate aspects of the Holocaust with tinues to accept new submission. For Holocaust did not begin with the horrors other areas of the curriculum. information, contact: jewish_studies@ of the camps, but with words, Raoul Wal- carleton.ca COVID-19 has had an impact on the col- lenberg, as a righteous bystander, dem- lective memory of the Shoah. The obser- onstrated how one person can confront On November 15th, a Virtual Holocaust vance of memorial events has changed hatred and transform history. Museum was launched on the websites of due to COVID-19 and Zikaron BaSalon CHES and the Zelikovitz Centre. The first Antisemitism did not die in Auschwitz takes place more and more. The war venture, entitled the Pop Up Museum but remains the canary in the coal mines against COVID-019 resembles the fight project, was part of HEM 2018 and was of humanity. Never again must we be against antisemitism: both are fought created by the Zelikovitz Centre in co- indifferent to racism and hate, antisemi- against an invisible enemy. operation with CHES and Temple Israel tism, mass atrocity, but we will speak out Synagogue. Children of survivors can relate the against all forms of hatred. This day is an experiences of their parents, but their act of remembrance. Anita Vandenbeld, MP for Nepean- stories are mediated by memory and do Carleton, set the tone for the webinar Where antisemitism is laundered by the not adequately reveal the depth of the with impressive and genuine remarks. far left, progressivism, we must unmask trauma Although she is not Jewish, she clearly it and expose it for what it is. has a deep understanding of the Holo- Holocaust education can be used to teach caust and its lasting impact on so many about antisemitism, but we must con- Jews have a sacred obligation to remem- people. A strong and vocal supporter front directly, all forms of anti-Semitism. ber. The study of genocide allows for of CHES, she spoke of her roots to the memory of a civilization. Netherlands, her family’s connection to acts of bravery in saving Jews, and of The Holocaust is a paradigm for radi- November 15th, 1:00 p.m. – Virtual growing up with stories of the war. (See cal evil; antisemitism is a paradigm for Holocaust Museum: The Impor- Holocaust Education Petition Addresses radical hate, but indifference or inaction tance of Artifacts to the Research Challenges of Growing Antisemitism). results in complicity with the perpetrator of the Holocaust and not the victim. Background Traditionally based on a theme, a Pop Up Museum welcomes people to share Dr. Avinoam Patt shared that in the On November 4th, 2018, Temple Israel information about an object relevant to United States young people, millennials, was the setting for a Pop Up Museum that theme. For the launch of its virtual and Generation Z have demonstrated a featuring Holocaust artifacts submitted Holocaust Museum, CHES and the Ze- shocking lack of knowledge and aware- by survivors and their families. The mu- ness of the Holocaust. seum, which was the brainchild of Rabbi Rob Morais, featured 47 documents, let- Many could not name a single concentra- ters, books, movies, short videos, a Tora tion camp or had ever heard of Aus- Scroll, and a tallit rescued from a Berlin chwitz. Moreover, there was no correla- synagogue. The positive response to this tion between states that taught about the event prompted the inauguration of a Holocaust and students knowing more. Holocaust Virtual Museum on Novem- In general, students showed an overall ber 15th, 2020. All the artifacts belong lack of knowledge of other historical to Ottawa-area Holocaust survivors events as well. and their families. These items have a connection to their experience of the Ho- The danger is that there is so much locaust and are testimony to survival. Holocaust denial on social media with Birthday Card, Yad Vashem Artifacts rampant misinformation available on all The artifacts allow us to honour the Collection donated by Benjamin (Brandt) social media platforms. humanity of Holocaust victims. They Kolton, Bellevue WA, USA

15 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

likovitz Centre chose the theme of “The Dr. Robert Ehrenreich, director of Dora Goldman, a survivor from Importance of Artifacts to the Research National Academic Programs at the Hungary, spoke movingly about three of the Holocaust”. The Virtual Holocaust USHMM, is the author or editor of four artifacts. The first was a yellow star made Museum features over 47 photographs of books, an international journal, and over by her mother and worn by her. The sec- artifacts, all submitted by survivors and 30 articles and reviews on the Holocaust, ond was a worn leather homespun bag their descendants who live in Ottawa. Holocaust studies, and European history that carried her family’s food following and prehistory. In his talk, “Viewing the deportation from the ghetto. The final CHES website: https://carleton.ca/hem- Holocaust Through Objects” he showed artifact was three buttons etched with popup/virtual-museum/ how objects, especially groups of items, the edelweiss, Austria’s national flower. can provide insights into human nature, These were saved from a dress given to Zelikovitz Centre website: community, and interconnections docu- her by an Austrian villager – a woman https://carleton.ca/jewishstudies/ ments and oral histories may neglect, who worked in the suitcase factory where Sara Shor, manager of the Artifacts overlook, or suppress. her mother worked. Dora and the other department of Yad Vashem Jerusalem’s children were locked in an empty garage Robert shared the story behind a brooch Museum Division, has been involved in while their parent(s) were at work (from that was made for Sala Spett while she in documentation and research for over 8 am to 6 sometimes7 pm). “These but- and her family were imprisoned in 30 years. A graduate of the Ontario Col- tons remind me that even in the most Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The lege of Art and the Hebrew University difficult times, I witnessed humanity in brooch, made by a young girl from War- of Jerusalem, she discussed how these people,” said Dora. saw who was also an inmate in the camp, items enhance Holocaust research in a was given to Sala by two of her children. Marlene Wolinsky’s story focused on presentation entitled “The Importance The brooch, rich in detail, posed many her beloved father, Arnold Sprecher, of Objects to the Study and Research of unanswered questions for researchers, and the dancing puppet he began to cre- the Holocaust”. Her presentation was included how the Polish girl was able ate while imprisoned in Dachau and the fascinating as she focused on a birthday to get materials for the brooch. Robert guitar he made while interned as an alien card found by a survivor as Auschwitz stressed the importance of learning as in Sherbrooke, Que. He hid these and was liberated in January 1945. Sara much as possible about such artifacts other items in the back of his closet for explained the card’s long journey to Yad in order to glean some understanding 50 years, unable or unwilling to speak of Vashem where work began to identify of people’s lives during the Holocaust. his ordeal before finally revealing them the talented artist who created it and the Another example was small fragments of to her and her children. A family reunion three prisoners whose names appeared Bakelite taken by survivors as keepsakes led to the creation of a wonderfully on it, including the one for whom it of their labour in an ammunition factory. detailed book entitled “The Sprechers of was intended. Eventually, painstaking Cologne: An Intimate History”, which research over many years identified the Three local contributors who submitted Marlene also displayed. recipient and two of the three men; the personal artifacts described their selec- man named Jacques has not yet been tions in stirring detail. CHES member Abigail Bimman, an found. award-winning journalist and Ottawa- Les Grumach spoke of the tallit his based correspondent for Global National, father, as a teenager, bravely salvaged emceed both webinars with warmth and from his synagogue in Berlin the day fol- professionalism. lowing Kristallnacht. His father survived the Holocaust and eventually settled This link will take you to the webinar in Australia. Les also showed a Rosh on “The Importance of Artifacts to the Hashonah card with a message in Ger- Research of the Holocaust” man and Hebrew. https://carleton.ca/jewishstudies/videos

Brooch from Buchenwald, United State Holocaust Memorial Museum collection

16 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

Holocaust Holocaust Education Petition Education Addresses Challenges of Growing Month at Sir Antisemitism Sheila Hurtig Robertson groups and helps youth to understand the Robert Borden dangers of indifference to the oppression Dr. Art Leader, the son of Holocaust of others.” survivors and a member of the Centre High School for Holocaust Education and Scholarship Convinced that the time is right to de- (CHES), was alarmed, and with reason. velop a comprehensive inventory of best Kenra Mroz practices in Holocaust education and In 2019, statistics reported by B’nai Brith relevant resources offered in Canadian Canada revealed that, for the fourth schools and communities, Dr. Leader, This is a very different school year for consecutive year, antisemitic incidents in working with CHES and author and law- everybody, one wherein semesters have Canada rose to more than 2,000 annually. yer Maureen McTeer, created a House of been replaced by quadmesters and the Commons petition urging Parliament to turnaround between classes is quite Also concerning him was the fact that, address the pressing challenges presented rapid. With less time in which to cover because of the COVID-19 pandemic, by the growing antisemitism, Holocaust important course material, club-hosted, many Holocaust remembrance events deniers, and those who distort the true school-wide events that are scheduled were virtual and, with schools closed nature of the Holocaust. Anita Vanden- during instructional time are, of neces- nationwide, Holocaust educational activi- beld, MP, is the petition’s sponsor in sity, few and far between. This is why ties were halted. He further noted that Parliament. Sir Robert Borden High School’s Social for working youth, Holocaust education Justice Club was thrilled to have been is non-existent. And with the passing of The petition urges the government to granted approval to organize a “virtual” time, decreasing numbers of eyewitnesses build upon its previous investments school-wide DEAR (Drop Everything And who survived the Holocaust are able to in Holocaust education, research, and Reflect) event to commemorate 2020 share their knowledge and relate their ex- remembrance initiatives; determine the Holocaust Education Month. periences, resulting in minimal awareness current availability of Holocaust educa- of atrocities they witnessed and endured. tion across Canada; identify new strate- Our event included a slideshow and video gies to reach those who are targeted by presentation outlining the dangers of Then, in 2020, the National Holocaust racist and hate propaganda online; and hatred and stereotyping. Our intent is to Monument in Ottawa was vandalized only urgently fund community organizations not only highlight representative student two days after International Holocaust to preserve the testimonies of Holocaust voices, but also to educate our school Remembrance Day. survivors, thereby educating community regarding the many ways about the destructive impact of hate and in which Holocaust history and legacy Later in 2020, anti-Nazi graffiti on a intolerance on our Charter Freedoms, continue to be relevant in this day and memorial in an Oakville, Ont., cemetery, to the detriment of current and future age. We also prepared optional letter which honours the 14th Waffen SS Divi- generations. writing and creative response activities sion, was initially considered a hate crime for teachers and students to do follow- by Halton Regional Police. Although the Supporters include former Prime Minis- ing our presentation, which are intended police later apologized for using that ter- ters Paul Martin and , members to encourage them to continue to reflect minology, it was particularly distasteful to of the Carleton University community upon, connect to, share and discuss what Dr. Leader, whose mother often spoke of including President Benoit-Antoine they have learned. the brutality of soldiers from that division Bacon, as well as Rabbi Reuven Bulka, and how they assisted Germans in the Rabbi Idan Scher, the Ottawa Jewish Fed- Ultimately, we wish to inspire our school murder of her entire family. eration, Kehillat Beth Israel Synagogue, community through a message of hope: Holocaust survivors, prominent Ottawa that there are no limits to the positive “Canada has demonstrated a commitment lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, and local results that a community of kindness, to remembrance and Holocaust educa- Members of Parliament, inclusiveness, and caring can achieve. tion and to fighting the antisemitism and racism that threaten and erode the CHES and the Zelikovitz Centre urge *The Social Justice Club wishes to express multicultural and pluralistic nature of readers to sign the petition and share the our sincere gratitude to Mina Cohn for our society,” says Dr. Leader. “Holocaust link with family and friends. The petition the loan of her personal copy of the education sensitizes Canadians to the role was open for signature until November United States Holocaust Memorial Mu- racist ideology and government propa- 19, 2020. Supporters’ identities are pro- seum’s publication, State of Deception: ganda played in the systematic murder tected by Canada’s privacy laws The Power of Nazi Propaganda. of millions of Jews and other persecuted

17 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

Ontario Students Face Critical Gaps in Holocaust Education and Awareness Michaela Bax-Leaney

In the wake of a widely shared report Those variables mean that for secondary Concerns about whether young Canadians on low levels of Holocaust awareness students in Ontario, there is very little are being adequately educated about the in the United States, there are growing consistency in the programming they Holocaust have grown louder in recent calls across North America — including receive around Holocaust education, and years, particularly as anti-Semitic inci- a parliamentary petition in Canada — for it’s introduced quite late. dents continue on an upward trajectory. what many have been urgently seeking for years: comprehensive Holocaust educa- Encyclopedia Britannica defines the Holo- As B’nai Brith, a Jewish advocacy orga- tion in schools. caust as “the systematic state-sponsored nization, has reported, 2019 saw anti-Se- killing of six million Jewish men, women, mitic incidents in Canada increase for the Splashed across the home page of and children and millions of others by fourth consecutive year. Ontario had the the Guardian news site on Sept. 16 was a Nazi Germany and its collaborators dur- greatest increase of any other province, startling headline that read: “Nearly two- ing World War II.” However, Holocaust with a 62.8-per-cent rise from 2018. thirds of U.S. young adults unaware 6M educators warn that even this bare-bones Jews killed in the Holocaust.” summary is not as universally known as In fact, in July, CHES member Arthur one would hope. Leader initiated a parliamentary peti- While the survey probed the Holocaust tion calling on the federal government to knowledge of American respondents, “A ‘typical’ high school student’s knowl- improve and expand Holocaust education Canada is hardly immune to the phenom- edge of the Holocaust varies tremen- nation-wide. The online petition, which enon. A study commissioned by the Azri- dously, which points to the gaps in both currently has 642 supporters, will contin- eli Foundation and the Claims Conference teacher training and the age of instruction ue to gather signatures until November. in 2018 found 22 per cent of Canadian . . . We need to begin Holocaust education Generation Z and Millennial respondents at a younger age and provide teachers The petition, sponsored by Anita Vanden- haven’t or don’t think they have heard of with appropriate training,” said Melissa beld, the Liberal member of Parliament the Holocaust. Mikel, the director of education at the for Ottawa West—Nepean, makes specific Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesen- mention of the need to better educate For those who work in Holocaust scholar- thal Centre for Holocaust Studies. young Canadians. ship, that disturbing picture is one they’ve been trying to draw attention to for years. Continued on next page

While the curriculum for Ontario public secondary schools provides some mention of the Holocaust, it is often left to the dis- cretion of schools and individual teachers to incorporate Holocaust education in the classroom, said Mina Cohn, the director of the Ottawa-based Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship (CHES).

“The Holocaust is taught in Grade 10 as part of World War II, with at best two classroom periods dedicated to the topic. However, the amount of time dedicated to the topic varies depending on the interest of the teacher,” said Cohn.

While the Holocaust may be touched on briefly in other courses, those brief lessons in Grade 10 history class is the extent of the mandatory Holocaust educa- tion high school students in Ontario will The main gate of Auschwitz, one of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps. It is receive. in Oświęcim, Poland. Photo licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 AT

18 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

Leader’s petition states that Holocaust know how to deal with the subject,” added “Many children are told that Hitler was education helps young Canadians “under- Cohn. “A new revised core provincial crazy, or evil, and learn nothing about the stand the dangers of indifference to the curriculum that mandates teaching the widespread popularity of Nazism, or Eu- oppression of others,” while noting that Holocaust, which includes best practices rope’s long history of anti-Jewish violence as time passes, fewer Holocaust survivors by Holocaust educators across Ontario, is . . . We need to equip young people with are able to share with us their accounts, needed.” the tools to think critically about our past and fewer young people are aware of the if we want them to be engaged citizens in atrocities committed. Cohn and Mikel encourage teachers to the present.” make use of the resources available to Leader also makes note of the importance them. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal For Cohn, Holocaust education goes well of Holocaust education in combating Centre has a best-practices guide for beyond remembrance, presenting stu- Holocaust deniers, who have found a Holocaust education available, and CHES dents with questions about morality and platform and an audience in the digital hosts an annual teachers’ workshop to human behaviour that still echo today, age — an audience that could include help train educators within Ottawa. as well as developing social awareness, impressionable young Canadians. empathy, critical thinking, and moral The Ottawa-Carleton District School reasoning. However, even when individual educators Board, for its part, says it is “committed incorporate more Holocaust education to ensuring students understand and “Many people don’t understand that into their classrooms, it can be challeng- appreciate the significance of the Holo- conversations around human rights today ing. caust.” OCDSB schools will host Holo- were born out of the ashes of the Holo- caust survivors for students to hear from, caust,” said Mikel, “acknowledging that Mikel notes that because most teachers and the board has also partnered with the post-war reckoning with the genocidal are not required to provide instruction organizations such as the Simon Wiesen- policies of the Nazi regime has radically about the Holocaust, it is not included in thal Centre. altered the way we think, discuss, and their training. legislate human rights issues.” However, with the Ontario curriculum as Unless teachers seek out training from the guiding framework, Ontario school Reprinted with permission of Michaela organizations like ours, there is no stan- boards are left largely to devise their own Bax-Leaney ( first written for Capital dardized training to prepare teachers for plan about when and how Holocaust Current, the flagship online publica- this topic,” said Mikel. education is introduced. tion of Carleton University’s journalism program) “The Holocaust is a very broad topic, and The consequences of inadequate Holo- most teachers lack knowledge and do not caust education, Mikel warns, are serious.

CHES Speakers’ Bureau Marion Silver

An important component of CHES’ mis- “We have recently finished an intensive The survivors deserve the highest praise sion is imparting the legacy of the Holo- Holocaust study unit and the students for the crucial role they play in convey- caust to today’s youngsters. This is espe- have been applying what they have ing their lived experience to the younger cially critical in the increasing climate of learned and developed through this generation. Their stories serve as a wake- overall racism and Holocaust denial. unit towards a greater understanding up call so that today’s students recognize of the profound and lasting impact of the dangers posed by bigotry and racial Working in partnership with the local discrimination as well as towards an intolerance. school boards, CHES encourages educa- understanding of how the events of the tors to invite Holocaust survivors, or their Holocaust must be recognized and used descendants, to address their classes. In as a means of promoting positive change the academic year 2018-2019, more than in our world. We have made it a point 3000 students in the areas of Ottawa and to examine and discuss how the legacy Kingston were given the opportunity to of the Holocaust serves as an important learn about this tragic moment in modern reminder of the need to work towards a history. The numbers of students were culture of inclusion and kindness.” significantly reduced in 2019-2020 due to work stoppages by the teachers and then Unfortunately, due to the ongoing CO- the onset of COVID-19. VID-19 virus, it is impossible for in-per- son school visits to take place. However, Noting the importance of Holocaust edu- by means of Zoom, Holocaust survivors cation, one high school teacher recently continue to deliver their vital message. CHES members Annette Wildgoose (l) remarked: and Marion Silver.

19 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship

Books that Speak to my Grandfather’s Resilience

four objects and discussed their origins. tures, and probably the names of previous Mina Cohn The museum was established in 1979 by owners, who might have perished a few local Holocaust survivors., All 13,500 years earlier in the Holocaust. “Relations, Resistance, Resilience” of- artifacts in the museum were donated by fered information about the history of the survivors or their families who wanted CHES’ webinar on November 15th on Montreal Jewish Public Library, which their story of survival preserved https:// the importance of artifacts to Holocaust was established in 1914, and included museeholocauste.ca/fr/expositions/ research taught us about the research an interesting presentation about books exposition-permanente. potential hidden in such dedications. Re- from its rare book collection. We learned alizing that these books also serve as that immediately after the World War The topic of the workshop took me back memorials to their previous owners, we II, a warehouse in Offenbach, Germany, to my maternal grandfather, Zvi Yitchak handle them with care and respect. held over one million Jewish books, Wacholder, a Holocaust survivor from Po- manuscripts, and objects looted by the land. He was a modern orthodox, kindly I want to thank Dr. Deidre Butler for Nazis and which the United States army man, the youngest and sole survivor of 11 this initiative; CHES is looking forward attempted to repatriate to their original adult brothers and sisters who perished to many more such opportunities. owners. along with their extended families. CHES Newsletter Editor: Sheila Hurtig Eddie Paul, head of Bibliographic & In- After the war, thousands of Jewish used Robertson formation Services of Montreal’s Jewish books and numerous other Jewish ritual Public Library, said: “The so-called ‘or- objects found their way to public markets phan’ books whose original owners could in Europe. These objects had been pil- not be found were distributed to libraries laged from their original owners by the in areas where Jewish populations had Nazis, their collaborators, or by the settled.” Some 1,500 such books salvaged owner’s neighbours themselves. One of from the Nazis arrived in the early 1950’s the first things my grandfather acquired from Offenbach to the Montreal Jewish were prayer books and Bibles to replace Public Library and were recently cata- those he lost during the war. Some of logued. Eddie Paul and Nicole Beaudry, these books had been published in vari- Researcher and Facilitator, Risen Leaves ous European publishing houses in the Rare Books Initiative, discussed three second half of the 19th century. books from the collection, including the antisemitic polemic, Entdecktes Juden- Among the books I inherited from my tum, by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, grandfather is a Machzor for Sukkot published in 1700. Eddie Stone presented published in Prague in 1869; the “Book the book, Machzor B’nai Roma, which of Numbers” published in Vilna in 1886; Daniel Bomberg published in Venice in and the “Books of Joshua and Judges”, 1526. with commentary in Yiddish, published in Lublin in 1899; these books speak to my As part of its contribution to the discus- grandfather’s resilience. sion on “Relations, Resistance, Resil- ience,” Andréa Shaulis, curator for The It is important to note that the books Montreal Holocaust Museum presented include handwritten dedications, signa-

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20 Newsletter of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies