Holocaust As Contested History

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Drew University Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study The Holocaust as Contested History Tue., October 30, 2018, 7 p.m. Drew University, Learning Center Free & Open (under the library), Room 28 to the Public Utasha Guards at Jasenovac Death Camp search Jewish prisoners before executing them. As many countries in Europe “swing right,” the way in which the Holocaust is recalled has become contentious. For example, there is currently a movement in Croatia to rehabilitate the Ustasha, the Croatian fascist movement during the Holocaust, which was responsible for the mass-murder of Serbs, Jews, and Roma. In Poland, an ultimately failed attempt to criminalize holding the Polish nation responsible for the atrocities committed on Polish soil during World War II has created an international controversy. And throughout eastern and central Europe, the crimes committed by Nazi Germany are being equated with those committed under Communist rule. These are just some examples of how the Holocaust has become embroiled in 21st century quests to develop national identities. Mr. Menachem Rosensaft is the General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress, and teaches about the law of genocide at the law schools of Columbia and Cornell Universities. He was appointed to the United Sates Holocaust Memorial Council by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and is the editor of God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors, published by Jewish Lights Publishing. Supported by: New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education In memory of Holocaust survivors Lea and Barry Berger, and Holocaust victims in the extended Berger, Glicensztejn, Perl and Opass families.

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CHAI News Fall 2018
CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST October 2018 AWARENESS AND INFORMATION (CHAI) CHAI update Tishri-Cheshvan 5779 80 YEARS AFTER KRISTALLNACHT: Remember and Be the Light Thursday, November 8, 2018 • 7—8 pm Fabric of Survival for Educators Temple B’rith Kodesh • 2131 Elmwood Ave Teacher Professional Development Program Kristallnacht, also known as the (Art, ELA, SS) Night of Broken Glass, took place Wednesday, October 3 on November 9-10, 1938. This 4:30—7:00 pm massive pogrom was planned Memorial Art Gallery and carried out 80 years ago to terrorize Jews and destroy Jewish institutions (synagogues, schools, etc.) throughout Germa- ny and Austria. Firefighters were in place at every site but their duty was not to extinguish the fire. They were there only to keep the fire from spreading to adjacent proper- ties not owned by Jews. A depiction of Passover by Esther Historically, Kristallnacht is considered to be the harbinger of the Holocaust. It Nisenthal Krinitz foreshadowed the Nazis’ diabolical plan to exterminate the Jews, a plan that Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, Holocaust succeeded in the loss of six million. survivor, uses beautiful and haunt- ing images to record her story when, If the response to Kristallnacht had been different in 1938, could the Holocaust at age 15, the war came to her Pol- have been averted? Eighty years after Kristallnacht, what are the lessons we ish village. She recounts every detail should take away in the context of today’s world? through a series of exquisite fabric collages using the techniques of em- This 80 year commemoration will be a response to these questions in the form broidery, fabric appliqué and stitched of testimony from local Holocaust survivors who lived through Kristallnacht, narrative captioning, exhibited at the as well as their direct descendents.
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Despite All Odds, They Survived, Persisted — and Thrived Despite All Odds, They Survived, Persisted — and Thrived
The Hidden® Child VOL. XXVII 2019 PUBLISHED BY HIDDEN CHILD FOUNDATION /ADL DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED FROM HUNTED ESCAPEE TO FEARFUL REFUGEE: POLAND, 1935-1946 Anna Rabkin hen the mass slaughter of Jews ended, the remnants’ sole desire was to go 3 back to ‘normalcy.’ Children yearned for the return of their parents and their previous family life. For most child survivors, this wasn’t to be. As WEva Fogelman says, “Liberation was not an exhilarating moment. To learn that one is all alone in the world is to move from one nightmarish world to another.” A MISCHLING’S STORY Anna Rabkin writes, “After years of living with fear and deprivation, what did I imagine Maren Friedman peace would bring? Foremost, I hoped it would mean the end of hunger and a return to 9 school. Although I clutched at the hope that our parents would return, the fatalistic per- son I had become knew deep down it was improbable.” Maren Friedman, a mischling who lived openly with her sister and Jewish mother in wartime Germany states, “My father, who had been captured by the Russians and been a prisoner of war in Siberia, MY LIFE returned to Kiel in 1949. I had yearned for his return and had the fantasy that now that Rivka Pardes Bimbaum the war was over and he was home, all would be well. That was not the way it turned out.” Rebecca Birnbaum had both her parents by war’s end. She was able to return to 12 school one month after the liberation of Brussels, and to this day, she considers herself among the luckiest of all hidden children.
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American Jewish Philanthropy and the Shaping of Holocaust Survivor Narratives in Postwar America (1945 – 1953)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles “In a world still trembling”: American Jewish philanthropy and the shaping of Holocaust survivor narratives in postwar America (1945 – 1953) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Rachel Beth Deblinger 2014 © Copyright by Rachel Beth Deblinger 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION “In a world still trembling”: American Jewish philanthropy and the shaping of Holocaust survivor narratives in postwar America (1945 – 1953) by Rachel Beth Deblinger Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor David N. Myers, Chair The insistence that American Jews did not respond to the Holocaust has long defined the postwar period as one of silence and inaction. In fact, American Jewish communal organizations waged a robust response to the Holocaust that addressed the immediate needs of survivors in the aftermath of the war and collected, translated, and transmitted stories about the Holocaust and its survivors to American Jews. Fundraising materials that employed narratives about Jewish persecution under Nazism reached nearly every Jewish home in America and philanthropic programs aimed at aiding survivors in the postwar period engaged Jews across the politically, culturally, and socially diverse American Jewish landscape. This study examines the fundraising pamphlets, letters, posters, short films, campaign appeals, radio programs, pen-pal letters, and advertisements that make up the material record of this communal response to the Holocaust and, ii in so doing, examines how American Jews came to know stories about Holocaust survivors in the early postwar period. This kind of cultural history expands our understanding of how the Holocaust became part of an American Jewish discourse in the aftermath of the war by revealing that philanthropic efforts produced multiple survivor representations while defining American Jews as saviors of Jewish lives and a Jewish future.
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'However Sick a Joke…': on Comedy, the Representation
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Roma and Sinti Under-Studied Victims of Nazism
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Jewish Survivors of the Holocaust Residing in the United States
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History of the Holocaust
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The Holocaust to Darfur: a Recipe for Genocide
Journal of Inquiry & Action in Education, 2(1), 2009 From the Holocaust to Darfur: A Recipe for Genocide Joseph D. Karb Springville (NY) Middle School and Andrew T. Beiter Springville (NY) Middle School All too often, social studies teachers present the cruelty of the Holocaust as an isolated event. These units focus on Hitler, gas chambers, and war crimes and end with a defiant and honorable “Never again!” While covering mass murder in this way is laudable, it ultimately might not go as far as it could. For as teaches if we really want to empower our students to prevent genocide, we must look beyond the facts alone to the larger lessons these horrific events can teach us. It is with this background in mind that we wrote this chapter; that in order to teach our students to be good, we have the obligation to help them develop their own understandings of where and why society has fallen off the tracks. The idea of a recipe provided us with a way to help students understand the early warning signs of mass murder such that they would be better equipped to prevent them in the future. Doing so would hopefully inspire them not to bystanders to any similar cruelty, both in the world and in their daily lives. After all, Rwandan President Paul Kagame notes, “people can be made to be bad, and they can also taught to be good.” My responsibility as a teacher is to try to help my students to be good people. And good people work to make the right choices and work against evil.
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A Guidebook for Clinicians CARING for HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS with SENSITIVITY at END of LIFE
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The Holocaust Booklet
• Memories of History • ...to remain silent and“ “indifferent is the greatest sin of all... By Elie Wiesel SPONSORED BY THE KNIGHT FOUNDATION “All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” –– Edmund Burke, British statesman Learning from Memories of History ABOUT NEWSPAPER IN EDUCATION Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. The Tallahassee Democrat Newspaper in Wiesenthal wrote, “The new generation has to Education program is one of more than 950 hear what the older generation refuses to tell Eisenhower insisted on seeing everything. newspapers that offer educational activities, it.” Wiesenthal, who died in September 2005, He witnessed sheds piled with bodies, various workshops and guides to parents, teachers devoted his life to documenting the crimes of the torture devices and a butcher’s block used for and students. NIE programs make newspapers Holocaust and to hunting down the perpetrators available free to classrooms. smashing gold fillings from the mouths of the still at large. “When history looks back,” dead. According to the Dwight D. Eisenhower In cooperation with The National Council of Wiesenthal explained, “I want people to know Library Archives, “Eisenhower felt that it was Jewish Women (NCJW), Tallahassee Section, this the Nazis weren’t able to kill millions of people necessary for his troops to see for themselves, complementary teaching tool is attached to many and get away with it.” His work stands as a and the world to know about the conditions at learning strands and has been written and aligned reminder and a warning.
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