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AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM Vol. 41-No.4 ISSN 0892-1571 March/April 2015 - Adar/Nissan 5775 70 YEARS AFTER THE HOLOCAUST: RESEARCH, RESOURCES AND REMEMBRANCE ASYV SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE ON HOLOCAUST EDUCATION he Education Department of the American Society, in 1999. the conference participants, she students to realize the importance of T American Society for Yad on Meier, executive director of emphasized the importance of learn- documenting the Holocaust to meet the Vashem and its Young Leadership Rthe American Society, gave ing from the lessons of the Holocaust. challenges of Holocaust denial. The Associates held its seventeenth greetings on behalf of the American Carolyn remarked on the challenge of workshop topics complemented the annual professional development Society and spoke about the impor- teaching this topic without reducing theme of the program: Using Survivor conference on Holocaust education tance of this program as one of many the topic to numbers and statistics, Testimonies in the Classroom; on March 22, 2015. vehicles the American Society has to and emphasizing the human ele- Ripples from the Holocaust — This program is a collaborative offer in its efforts to raise Holocaust ments of the events — victims, res- Learning about the Second effort with the Association of Teachers awareness through education. cuers, perpetrators and bystanders. Generation; German Rescuers of for Social Studies of the United Carolyn Herbst, past president /past Professor Karen Shawn, visiting Jews: Unbelievable but True; and Federation of Teachers, the chairperson of the ATSS/UFT, associate professor of Jewish educa- Global Perspectives on Holocaust Educators’ Chapter of the UFT Jewish emphasized that this conference is a tion at Azrieli School of Jewish Education — the Efforts of Germany, Heritage Committee, and the School of Education of Manhattanville College. Participants in this year’s program, which included educators from all five boroughs of New York City and from the tri-state area, received in-service credits for com- pleting the conference. The program also included a display of the educa- tional unit developed by the International School of Holocaust Studies, “Keeping the Memory Alive: International Poster Competition.” Through teaching we warn about the consequences of extreme and baseless hatred and prejudice. We educate to promote tolerance in the hope that through our efforts, future generations will make sure that the Holocaust, a low chapter in human history, will not repeat itself. This conference, organized by Dr. Marlene W. Yahalom, director of education of the American Society for Yad Vashem, has proven to be a strong vehicle to promote the mission of Holocaust (Left to right) Helene Alalouf; Caroline Massel, executive board member; Abbi Halpern, YLA co-chair; Professor Karen Shawn; Marlene W. remembrance and commemoration Yahalom, PhD, director of education, ASYV; Carolyn Herbst, past president, ATSS/UFT; Ron Meier, executive director, ASYV; Barry Levine, co- chair, YLA. through education over the years. The conference was created by valuable resource for increasing Education and Administration of Israel and the US in This Process. Caroline Massel, founding chair of the awareness and sensitivity to intoler- Yeshiva University, spoke about he American Society for Yad Young Leadership Associates of the ance and injustice. In her remarks to “Understanding Jewish Life in the T Vashem has recently been Shadow of Destruction.” Her remarks awarded the 2015 President’s Award offered a window of opportunity to by the Association of Teachers of learn about the bravery and heroism Social Studies/United Federation of IN THIS ISSUE of Jews during the Holocaust. She Teachers for the Society’s contribu- My pilgrimage to Auschwitz to honor the ghosts of my murdered family...2 gave an informative and engaging tions to social studies education No banality in this evil.....................................................................................3 presentation of case studies of nationally. This is the first time this Soviet propaganda during World War II.........................................................4 Jewish heroes and heroines during award was given to an organization. How the Philippines saved 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.....................5 the War. The award represents the A Holocaust survivor tells of Auschwitz at 18 and, again, at 90...................6 Our program and theme, “70 Years ATSS/UFT's recognition of the valu- Photo highlights from the YLA winter gala................................................8-9 after the Holocaust: Research, able part the American Society plays Living with the shadow, creating with the light...........................................10 Resources and Remembrance,” in social studies education, and of the UNESCO recognizes Yad Vashem’s Holocaust testimonies......................11 offered educators strategies on how to American Society's turning to the Surviving the Nazis, only to be jailed by America.......................................15 incorporate Holocaust studies into their ATSS/UFT for assistance in bringing Save the date: ASYV Annual Spring Luncheon...........................................16 lesson plans and curricula to enable (Continued on page 15) Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2015 - Adar/Nissan 5775 MY PILGRIMAGE TO AUSCHWITZ TO HONOR THE GHOSTS OF MY MURDERED FAMILY schnapps, tell stories and play cards those years ago. You drive through from the weather next to Block 10. BY ALEX BRUMMER, DAILY MAIL and checkers. cultivated fields that could be This was a gruesome spot, where His mother would busy herself in the Hampshire, past white-painted hous- sterilization experiments were carried ramed against the grey sky, the kitchen preparing her specialties, es with bright orange roofs. out on the helpless human guinea rabbi clambered on to the ruins F including rolled cabbage leaves filled By the time we crossed the railway pigs. of the Auschwitz crematorium, lifted with meat, rice and spices, served tracks and saw the most chilling sta- y mind flashed back to the the sacred ram’s horn to his lips and with paprika and tomato sauce. tion name in the world, the sky had hushed tones of my childhood: sounded the plaintive notes handed M ver the decades, as I’ve lis- darkened, with a swirling wind and the visiting my Auntie Sussie in Hemel down the generations since the bibli- tened to the reminiscences of rain pelting down incessantly. The Hempstead after she had given birth cal days of Joshua. O my two aunts, an uncle and cousin — horror of what faced us became real, to a tiny baby, who was kept alive only Then there was a moment of death- who all, miraculously, survived the and a dull ache grew in the pit of my by the skills of modern medicine. ly silence. For a few brief seconds, I death camps — the image of Sandor stomach. Josef Mengele’s henchmen had has become imprinted in my psyche. Today, this is not some remote, hid- experimented on my father’s sisters, Travelling to Auschwitz and being so den-away facility; it is surrounded by who were barely out of puberty at the close to the spot where he and my industrial buildings and modern time. grandmother perished had brought Polish army bases. But the Nazi doctors failed. Having him back for a few precious moments. There are shops and petrol stations, survived, moved to suburban Britain That was 17 years ago. But the whose architecture blends into that of and married, they were eventually, emotion of my first visit to this place of Auschwitz 1 — the death and torture, where my relatives main camp — itself. It suffered and died, still lives with me. is a death camp in For most of my childhood in suburbia. Brighton, the industrial killing of six And yet the smell of million Jews was a verboten subject burning corpses, only talked about in knowing whis- which more than five pers. decades later still per- What I learned, however, was that it meates the cremato- was the courage and tenacity of my ria, is a constant wit- first cousin, Shindy — then still a ness to what took teenage girl — who helped to keep place inside the gates my two similarly aged aunts, Rosie with their iron sign that and Sussie, alive at Auschwitz reads “Arbeit Macht despite the best efforts of Josef Frei.” Mengele and the Nazi doctors. There is nothing It was Shindy who bargained for immediately alarming bread and made the deals that made about Auschwitz 1. survival and eventual rescue possi- Superficially — with- ble. out the icy wind, and And yet the smell of burning corpses, which more than five decades My father Michael, who had trained the rain that had later still permeates the crematoria (crematorium in the Nazi Alex’s father Michael Brummer with son to be a naval officer, was able to flee turned the tracks to Auschwitz concentration camp pictured above), is a constant witness Martin circa 1948. Hungary and escape to Britain in mud — the recon- to what took place inside the gates with their iron sign that reads 1939, though not before anti-Semitic structed barracks, sur- “Arbeit Macht Frei.” could visualize my paternal grandfa- thugs had beaten him up and guards rounded by grass verges and lined with great difficulty, able to conceive. ther, Sandor, standing at my side, his at the Czech border turned back his with trees, could be mistaken for a The physiological scars may have long, red beard swaying in the wind, younger brother. pleasant housing estate. healed, but the psychological impact wearing his long dark Sabbath coat, It was only after the war, in 1947, But at Block 4, there is a quiet, terri- has cascaded down the generations. emaciated from illness and hunger, that my father — by then settled in ble reality. In a stark room, where the The survivors in my family live with but smiling to see me there. Brighton — received out of the blue a smell of chemical preservative takes the past every day. My Aunt Rosie lost Both my grandfather and my grand- telegram from the Swedish Red one by surprise, human hair is piled her sense of smell because of the mother, Fanya, died in the killing Cross.

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