Witnesses of Witnesses. Remembering and Recounting Auschwitz

education file

Witnesses of witnesses. Remembering and recounting Auschwitz

Following a Journey of the Memory to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, we students decided to make a direct commitment to the witnesses who guided us through their memories with stories of events that feel as though they happened so much longer ago than they actually did, by recalling, by handing down the memory of what happened and by not forgetting the atrocities that reaped thousands of victims, in short, by becoming witnesses ourselves. In an era when people are afraid of anyone who’s different, of foreigners, and when laws are adopted specifically to sideline people, the memory of what happened may well be the thing that saves us. Students of the Jouneys of Memory

This education file is devised • GLOSSARY for adults, teachers and parents interested in exploring further. • WHAT IS THE SHOAH? The Shoah is explained for young people, set in its time, introduced • HISTORICAL CONTEXT by a glossary and brought closer by a selection of illustrated albums. • BOOKS AND FILMS FOR TEENAGERS A useful resource for further developing the topics addressed • SITOGRAPHY in the museum either at school or at home. For an ongoing exchange and reflection extending beyond the tour of the exhibition. 1 Glossary

AUSHWITZ the biggest concentration camp in Europe, in Poland, sadly famous for hav- ing been a factory of suffering and death.

BIRKENAU not only Auschwitz but also Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and nu- merous other cities in Germany, Poland, Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia and Italy.

CONCENTRATION CAMP a camp in which Jews, political adversaries, Roma and Sinti people, disabled people, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses are violently imprisoned, used for hard labour and marked down for death.

DEPORTATION when people were forcefully rounded up and taken to the camps in cattle wagons or small boats used for carrying animals. The journey was soul-de- stroying and lasted for weeks, without food and without a stop.

EMANUELE ARTOM an Italian Jewish artisan and historian who fell victim to the Shoah. His diary is an exceptional document on racial persecution in Italy and on the partisans’ contribution to the liberation of Italy from Nazi-Fascism.

FÜHRER the German word for guide or leader, this was the title one had to use when addressing or talking about Adolf Hitler.

JEWISH GHETTO a part of the city marked off from the rest to confine Jews, instituted in many European cities as long ago as the later Middle Ages.

2 HITLER in his 12 years in power, hatred for - and the total annihilation of - anyone different reached a peak and made an indelible mark on world history.

IRENA SENDLER she was one of the great “Righteous Among the Nations”; together with other members of the Polish Resistance she saved 2,500 Jewish children by taking them out of the ghetto in Warsaw and hiding them in homes, convents and orphanages.

LAGER the German word for forced labour camp.

MANUAL LABOUR some of the deportees were forced to perform hard labour until it killed them, others were exploited as porters, arms factory workers, waiters, mu- sicians, barbers and tatooers.

ENEMY the image of the enemy was specifically built to be negative and caricatural compared to one’s own: us/them, good/bad and dirty/clean were some of the juxtapositions on which hatred for anyone different was based.

HOMOSEXUALS men and women attracted by people of the same gender, they were victims of the Shoah because their sexual orientation was considered unnatural.

PROPAGANDA when public opinion is influenced by the media: the press, television, the cinema, the social media; it entails the manipulation of news in favour of those responsible for spreading the propaganda.

JEWISH QUESTION affairs associated since ancient times with the presence of Jews in the world, with religion linked to nationality, to the customs and prejudices that have fraught their settlement with difficulties throughout History.

ROMA AND SINTI PEOPLES ethnic minorites who fell victim to the Shoah on account of alleged racial differences; present in Europe since the year 1,000, they are still the object of discrimination and ill-treatment today.

SHOAH the Hebrew word for catastrophe, destruction.

WITNESSES the survivors who informed the world of the tragedy of the concentration camps; they are few in number today, and keeping their memory alive means becoming a “witness of the witnesses”.

MANKIND in his diversity of culture, habits, customs, lifestyle and religion, each human being is equal to the others; mankind with his rights and duties is based on diversity.

VICTIMS roughly 6 million Jews, 3 million prisoners of war, 250,000 Roma and Sinti people, 80,000 political adversaries, 70,000 disabled, 12,000 homosexuals, 2,500 Jehovah’s Witnesses and many others.

ZYKLON B the poisonous insecticide in blue capsules that was used in gas form in a number of concentration camps; it was invented by Nobel Chemistry Prize- winner Fritz Haber, who was a Jew and so he also ended up being persecuted.

3 IDEAS FOR DEBATE

In our own small way What is the Shoah? Many people still suffer from discrimination and racism in various The Holocaust is a page in the book of Mankind from ways even today. What can we do which we should never remove the bookmark of memory. about it? There are gestures of dissent that have a particularly effective impact, that become symbols in their Primo Levi own right - such as when American athletes knelt during the national anthem in protest against their On 27 January 1945, Red Army troops battered down the gates of Auschwitz President’s creeping racism. How would you oppose discrimination and freed the largest Nazi concentration camp’s inmates. The horror was un- and racism? In our own small way, imaginable, difficult to recall and to recount to younger audiences. we have the strength to achieve great Can we talk to children and teenagers about the persecution and mass exter- things! mination perpetrated in the concentration camps? We think we can, even if it is a tough and difficult memory that requires proper mediation. What we can Legal doesn’t always mean right and must do is understand how the Shoah can possibly have come about, how With the race laws of 1939, backed things got that far, what racism, intolerance and their consequences lead to. by scientists who argued the Millions of people lost their lives in the concentration camps, including many existence of different human races, boys and girls - Jews, but also Roma and Sinti people, political adversaries, some of which they claimed were the disabled, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses. All those “extraneous “inferior”, Fascist Italy became to the community” were discriminated against, persecuted and eliminated to all intents and purposes a racist on the basis of a radical and scientific programme in which every phase was state. So the state can violate deliberately and meticulously planned. the basic rights of the individual, of equality and of human dignity. In today’s societies, in which hatred and intolerance for weaker members still exist, it’s important to remember that the complex interplay between politics, ideology and laws can foster inequality and injustice. 4 Historical context The least glorious pages of our past would be the most instructive if only we agreed to read them in their entirety.

Tzvetan Todorov

How did things get as far as the Shoah? Getting the historical context right is the starting point for avoiding falling into the rhetoric of horror and the superficial division into good guys and bad guys. The denial of the rights of Jews and all the other “undesirables” needs to set in a context of economic crisis, abuse of power, propaganda and minorities’ gradual marginalisation.

1918 Germany loses World War I. 1919/1933 Weimar Republic. 1919 Adolf Hitler founds the National Socialist Party. 1923 Party members attempt a coup d’etat but fail. Hitler is jailed and writes Mein Kampf in prison. 1924 General election. The National Socialist Party garners 3% of the vote. 1929 Global economic crisis. 1930 The National Socialist Party garners 18.3% 1932 The President of the Weimar Republic gives Hitler a mandate to form a government.

5 1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor. The dictatorship of the Third Reich begins. 1933 Political adversaries are imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp. 1933 Jewish shops and businesses start to be boycotted. 1933 The Nazis throw some 25,000 books considered dangerous onto bonfires in the public square. 1935 The so-called Nuremberg race laws deprive Jews of citizenship, voting rights and the right to marry non-Jews or to work in the unversities, in theatres and in publishing houses. 1937 An exhibition on Degenerate Art opens in Munich, showcasing works of art rejected by the Reich. 1938 Anschluss: Austria is annexed by the Third Reich to form “Große Deutschland” 18 settembre 1938 Mussolini promulgates the race laws in Italy 1938 Kristallnacht, on which 91 Jews are killed and 1,400 synagogues are burnt together with homes and shops; 30,000 are arrested and sent to concentration camps. 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of non-aggression between the Third Reich and Soviet Russia. 1939 Hitler’s invasion of Poland marks the start of World War II. 10 giugno 1940 Mussolini’s Italy joins the war as Hitler’s ally 1942 Wannsee Conference decides on the “final solution to the Jewish question”. 16 ottobre 1943 Roundup in Rome’s Jewish ghetto 1945 Auschwitz concentration camp is liberated. 25 aprile 1945 Italy is liberated from Nazi-Fascism 1946 Nazi leaders are brought to trial in Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

6 Books and films for teenagers Commemoration, like teaching, leads nowhere if you restrict yourself to simply reflecting on the horror [...] The educational effort must, on the contrary, ask the questions that begin to look out of date and irrelevant once things resume their natural course.

Georges Bensoussan

Illustrated albums and animated films are always a valuable tool for mediation with boys and girls even when they deal with such difficult issues as the Shoah. This selection presents original narratives whose leading characters are children and minor players, in an effort to bring out, even in the tragedy of History, the strength of children’s imagination and the examples of solidarity displayed by those who opposed, hid and protected. Because it is important to stimulate each person’s sense of responsibility even in the face of terrible injustice.

Tomi Ungerer, Otto. Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, Mondadori 2003 The tale is told by Otto, young David’s teddy bear, who spends the day playing and laughing with him and with the inseparable Oscar. But the three friends are separated by a yellow star on the breast and by terrible air raids. A story of friendship capable of transcending the horror of deportation and war.

Lia Levi and Emanuela Orciari, Apollonia the Concierge, Orecchio Acerbo 2006 Daniel lives in a city occupied by Nazi troops. His father is away fighting and his mother is forced to work in secret. In the child’s eyes, Apollonia the concierge with her thick glasses and brusque manner has the makings of a witch. Yet it is she who saves him and his mother, displaying the kind of immense human solidarity that withstands barbarity and points up the need to transcend appearances.

Roberto Innocenti, Rosa Bianca, La Margherita 2016 Little Rosa Bianca discovers the existence of concentration camps and puts her own life at risk to bring her snacks to the children imprisoned there. On the day the camp is freed, Rosa Bianca is involved in the clash and doesn’t return home. The last illustration leaves us with a glimmer of hope for the future. The same illustrator has also illustrated the splendid Story of Erika (La Magherita 2003) written by Ruth Vander Zee.

7 Irène Cohen Janca and Maurizio A.C. Quarello, Anne’s Tree, Orecchio Acerbo 2013 A large conker tree outside number 263, Prinsengracht in Amsterdam is the narrator in this delicate and evocative book. The story of Anne Frank is told from an original point of view. “I made a gift of a little hope and beauty to a thirteen-year-old girl who is a prisoner like a bird in a cage,” the tree tells us, pointing up the value of memory thanks also to its sophisticated illustrations. The same authors have also written The Last Journey (Orecchio Acerbo 2015) devoted to the courageous Dr. Korczak and his children.

Lorenza Farina and Sonia Maria Luce Possentini, Sara’s Flight, Fatatrac 2011 The terrible story of young Sara, from her deportation in a cattle truck to the concentration camp and to her death, is told with immense tact and sensitivity through her meeting and friendship with a soft robin redbreast. He accompanies his young friend with a blue ribbon in her hair on her journey and flies away with her at the end.

Matteo Corradini and Vittoria Facchini, There Was a Star, Lapis 2019 A six-point star cut into a book from cover to cover is the leading character and narrator’s voice in this story. Sewn onto the breast pocket of deported Jews, it uses a long nursery rhyme to tell the stories of dozens of emblematic characters, from a child and a bookseller to a teacher and a lunatic. The drawings emulate the photographs of the period but adding back the bright colours.

Guia Risari and Gioia Marchegiani, The Star That Doesn’t Shine, Gribaudo 2019 A grandad and a granddaughter, a small box discovered in the attic, a yellow star, a tooth and an old photograph: a story of the transmission of memory from one generation to another, a seed planted to prevent it from ever happening again. Gioia Marchegiani’s beautiful pictures are a tribute to the places and the monuments of memory.

Fabrizio Silei and Maurizio A.C. Quarello, Off Side, Orecchio Acerbo 2014 The emblematic story of Matthias Sindelar, the greatest Austrian footballer of all time. After Austria’s annexation to Germany in 1938, during a friendly match between the two teams, Sindelar refused to give the Nazi salute in a stadium bursting with people. He had the backing of his partner Camilla, a Jewish teacher who had fallen victim to the race laws. A gripping tale with mesmerising hyper-realistic images.

The Star of Andra and Tati 2018 An animated feature film, the first in Europe, tells the story of the Bucci sisters, who were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau aged 4 and 6 and who miraculously survived the Shoah. Directed by Rosalba Vitellaro and Alessandro Belli with drawings by Annalisa Corsi, the film was produced thanks to cooperatoin between the Ministry of Education, Research and University, the RAI and Larcadarte. 8 Sitography

Those who do not remember the past are fated to repeat it.

George Santayana

A useful resource is a sitography of Shoah museums and memorials throughout the world. You can find information, images, suggestions for further study and other educational material in English and in Italian.

Camp and Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau www.auschwitz.org.pl

Anna Frank House Museum in Amsterdam www.annefrank.org

Judische Museum Berlin www.jmberlin.de

Mémorial de la Shoah Paris www.memorialdelashoah.org

Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem www.yadvashem.org

Fondazione Museo della Shoah di Roma www.museodellashoah.it

Gariwo la Foresta dei Giusti it.gariwo.net

CREDITS The exhibition entitled Witnesses of Witnesses. Remembering and Recounting Auschwitz running at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni from 26 January to 31 March 2019 is staged by Studio Azzurro from an original idea devised by the Journey of Memory students. The education file has been devised by the Palazzo delle Esposizioni’s Education Department – Art Workshop.