Holocaust Education Resources Council Newsletter March 2016

Board of Directors Dear HERC Friends,

John Rosner President First I want to thank all the donors his facial expressions really captured the emotional and volunteers that have helped HERC in response to the situation as well as his absolute Rita Blank Vice President the past years. So many people have single mindedness in seeing that the young helped make a difference in our Hungarian boy received a proper burial. In the Tasha Weinstein community. The transformative work of midst of such draconian evil, Saul's humanity was Secretary HERC could not be achieved without not deterred." David Kirk people like you. With your support, HERC Everyone is invited on May 5th for Treasurer is teaching the next generation lessons Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, from history to Never Forget. HERC with a meaningful commemoration program at Monte Finkelstein continues to work tirelessly to develop Congregation Shomrei Torah at 7pm. HERC Education Director new programs and expand our efforts This newsletter is dedicated to the through the Big Bend Area. With our memory of Rachel Capelouto, mother of At-Large Members guideline for the next year, HERC's vision Raymond and Grant. The Capelouto Family is unprecedented and changing the has been a longtime supporter of HERC. Linda Davey roadmap of Holocaust education. If you have already donated to HERC's Eileen Lerner The Academy Award Winner Film, membership, thank you kindly. If you have Robyn Rachin Shari Gewanter SON OF SAUL, should be seen by not, please use the form included now for your Donna Callaway everyone. It is based on the book We tax-deductible donation, and help us continue Michelle Gayle Wept without Tears by Holocaust historian our work to educate and remember. Mary Ann Deitchman Gideon Greif. According to Mary Ann Lynda Kinard Avi Wygodski Deitchman, HERC Board member, "It was Barbara Daniela Wellner absolutely brilliant and one of the most Goldstein psychologically compelling movies I have Executive Director ever seen. Its brilliance was its immediacy and the sense that you were in Saul's head the whole time. You could not escape nor could he. Saul's meta communication via

Inside this Edition...

H E RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

Italy & : Place of Hope

H E 2 RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

HERC Book Club – A Thread of Grace

H E 3 RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

I SAW IT IN THE MOVIES!

H E 4 RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

Coming in 2016: I SAW IT IN THE MOVIES!

What did Americans know about the racism and horrors of the NAZI threat before and during WWII? In search of the answer, HERC invites you to look at the social media of the day – the movies. While Nazi tyranny was widely written about in the newspapers, magazines, and journals of the time and reported on the radio, thousands of moviegoers received their current events education from the movies they saw. The second year of HERC's film series will present four movies which portray Nazi racism and oppression of dissent. All of the movies are presented for free to you by HERC and will be shown at 7:00 PM at the All Saint's Cinema at 918 1/2 Railroad Avenue. The selections for 2016 are:

Tuesday March 22, 2016 Thursday April 28, 2016 Released by 20th Century Fox in June 1941, "Man In 1941, Gregor Ziemer wrote a bestselling book called Hunt" was based on a popular novel by Geoffrey Education for Death. As a former head of the American Household entitled Rogue Male. The movie was Colony School in , he had seen firsthand the directed by Fritz Lang who fled Germany in 1933 rather Nazification of youth from infants through teens in the than accept a commission from Goebbels to produce Nazi education system. His stark conclusion was that all Nazi propaganda films. The story is about a hunter, boys were trained to become the Fuhrer's soldiers, seeing Alan, who imagines shooting Hitler near his death as an honor. The girls were trained to be breeders Berchtesgaden compound. Needless to say, the Nazis do of children for the Fuhrer. Anyone who did not conform not take this stalking lightly, and the hunter becomes the to these proscriptions or fit the racial purity ideology of hunted. The Nazis brutally attempt to make Alan an the Nazis would be eliminated from German society. international scapegoat and he is ruthlessly hounded by The 1943 RKO film, "Hitler's Children" dramatizes his merciless pursuers back to his native England. Lang these facts in a haunting love story in which freedom is tells the story with unremitting intensity. pitted against the Master Race, and cries out for truth.

H E Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 5 RC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

Regional Holocaust Education Conference - June 13 & 14

H E Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 6 RC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

“Son of Saul” Article: The Times of Isreal, by Jessica Steinberg

When Holocaust historian Gideon Greif heard that about the . Greif told him it was a good Hungarian film "Son of Saul" had won the Oscar for Best idea. Foreign Film, he was surprised but pleased. As part of popular culture, movies, said Greif, can "I had naively thought that the film industry is less be useful in helping people to better understand the in favor of dealing with the Holocaust, and this film really Holocaust. Not every film, however. He pointed to the looks at the core of the Holocaust, at its most complicated 2001 film "The Grey Zone," also about the chapter," said Greif. Sonderkommandos, which he felt gave a "very distorted The film, from Hungarian Jewish director László impression, showing them as corrupt," a description that Nemes, is about the Sonderkommandos, the who he said wasn't factual. were charged with disposing of the corpses of their fellow Nemes, by contrast, created a story that seems Jews after they were killed in the gas chambers. Its story impossible, but was completely authentic. "He really is about one , Saul, played by first-time followed my instructions," Greif said. actor and native Hungarian Géza Röhrig. Greif was also impressed with lead actor Röhrig, It was Greif, currently the chief historian at Shem who he calls "one of the most intelligent people he's ever Olam, the Faith and the Holocaust Institute for Education, met. He's so wise." Documentation and Research in , whose dogged Greif's book about the Sonderkommandos is now research initially uncovered much of the history of the being translated into Hungarian, after a dozen Hungarian Sonderkommandos. His book, "We Wept without Tears… publishers contacted him following the release of the film. the Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando in He said it's gratifying to be receiving all this attention, Auschwitz," was the result of 13 years of research that even after so many years. began in the late 1980s. "It's a big achievement," he said. "Most of the At the time, 31 Sonderkommandos were still alive, people I interviewed aren't alive anymore." and until then, "no one thought it was important to But he will continue to write books and articles interview them," he told The Times of Israel. "I nominated about the topic because it's so important, said Greif. myself. People were reluctant to speak out, and I It's also part of his own history. persuaded them that it was important." Following the November 1938 Kristallnacht, or He calls the research "a diamond of history." Night of Broken Glass, Greif's grandfather was There are currently only two Sonderkommandos imprisoned in Buchenwald, one of the first concentration still alive, both in the US, and Greif is in regular contact camps, but was released five months later and emigrated with both of their families. to Israel in 1939. “I'm still writing books and articles about this "He survived the Holocaust but emotionally he topic because it's so central and so important," he said. never left Buchenwald," said Greif. "He used to scream "One fact that people really can't understand is how can a every night. He never told the story but that was his person be surrounded by corpses for days and sometimes story." years? It's impossible, incredible. And those that did Greif's great-aunt stayed in Germany to care for survive were able to because of a strong desire to tell the her mother, and was deported to Auschwitz where she was world. They wanted to bear witness." killed. Greif, who currently lectures widely around "I felt very attached to Jewish history and the Germany about the Holocaust and has addressed 200,000 Holocaust conquered me," he said. "Now I'm enslaved to Germans at his last count, was contacted by "Son of Saul" it and I do not complain. It's the mission of my life." director Nemes about two years ago. When they met in Tel Aviv, Nemes told Greif he wanted to make a movie

H E Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 7 RC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

Sam Willenberg – by Monique O. Madan (Miami Herald)

There are two types of Holocaust survivors, says “Survivors are dying at an exponential rate. In a few more documentary filmmaker Alan Tomlinson: "Those who want years there will be no more living witnesses of any of the to push it out of their memory and those who embrace it and Holocaust events. Maintaining these kind of testimonies in want to use their experiences to make sure the rest of us films and in books is very important going forward because don't forget." so much history tends to be rewritten.” Samuel Willenberg, 93, was the second type. The last Willenberg spent about a month in Miami with his known living survivor of the Treblinka death camp, where family when Treblinka's Last Witness debuted in October 875,000 people were systematically murdered, died Friday 2014. Every year, Willenberg would visit the site of in Israel. Treblinka. "He was not only the last survivor of the tribe, he had "I learned that he goes there every year, including dedicated his twilight years to telling his story so that the last year in August 2015," Tomlinson said. "He takes parties events that he witnessed there would not be lost to of Israeli school students there, where he tells his story." oblivion," Tomlinson told the Miami Herald. In 2014, In 2010, Willenberg told The Associated Press that Tomlinson produced a feature-length movie, Treblinka's "the world cannot forget Treblinka. I live two lives: one is Last Witness, which offered a first-hand account by the last here and now, and the other is what happened there. It never known living survivor. leaves me. It stays in my head. It goes with me always." He described Willenberg, who had remained a "dear After the war Willenberg moved to Israel and friend" until his last breath, as a "brilliant storyteller." became a surveyor for the Housing Ministry. Later in life, "When I found Samuel, not only was he the last he took up sculpting to describe his experiences. His bronze living survivor, but he was such an astonishing person," statues depicted Jews standing on a train platform, a father Tomlinson said. "He was a cocktail of emotions when removing his son's shoes before entering the gas chambers, a telling his story. It was like it was a story from someone young girl having her head shaved, and prisoners removing who survived yesterday." bodies. Willenberg and his family had lived in Czestochowa, The death toll at Treblinka was second only to , when the Germans marched into their country in Auschwitz — a prison camp where more than a million 1939. The family went into hiding, but his two sisters were people died in gas chambers or from starvation, disease and captured in 1942 and were killed. Willenberg fled to nearby forced labor. Treblinka holds a notorious place in history as Opatow but was herded, along with the town's entire Jewish perhaps the most vivid example of the "," the population of 6,000, aboard a cattle train bound for Nazi plan to exterminate Europe's Jews. Unlike at other Treblinka. Within hours, all would be dead. Except camps, where some Jews were assigned to forced labor Willenberg. A member of a nearby Jewish work camp before being killed, nearly all Jews brought to Treblinka recognized him and pulled him aside to join a labor force. were immediately gassed to death, according to The AP. There, while sorting through clothes that once Willenberg is survived by his wife, Ada, his daughter belonged to Jews and were to be sent back to Germany for and three grandchildren. the war effort, he recognized a pair of green velvet sleeves Tomlinson said Willenberg's wife told him that she on a coat. He could never tell his parents, who survived the was there when he "died peacefully" and "closed his war, that he knew his sisters had been murdered. beautiful blue eyes for the last time." Willenberg escaped and managed to make his way to , where he took part in the of Read more here: 1944. About 16,000 fellow members of the Polish resistance http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article61 were killed, and the city was mostly destroyed. 493247.html#storylink=cpy “Only 67 people who survived Treblinka were alive at the end of World War II. There were only two survivors alive when I started filming, and one when I finished filming [Willenberg]. Now there are none,” Tomlinson said.

H E RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 8 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

Rise of Anti-Semitism Emphasizes the Need for Holocaust Education

By: Danielle Wirsansky one month on campus, one scratched into a metal 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of bathroom door, while another was made out of snow left WWII and the Holocaust. One would think that after 70 on the roof of a car. Again, this is only listing a few years people would have learned the myriad lessons of the incidents that occurred only during February of 2016. Holocaust. Unfortunately, this is not the case. One major President Obama himself was forced to address the issue stemming from the Holocaust that remains today is issue because of its prevalence in a speech against anti- anti-Semitism and it is more rampant than you think. Semitism in January of this year, acknowledging that anti- According to a report released in April 2015 by Semitism is on the rise. researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel, anti-Semitism And let's not even begin discussing the awful anti- worldwide increased more than 40% with a 21% increase Semitic attacks abroad, because they are usually more in the U.S. alone. The Times of Israel reports that attacks violent and occur more often than they do even in the against Jews world-wide account for close to 60% of hate United States, or the incidents tied to the Boycott crimes. And according to the Anti-Defamation League Divestment Sanction (BDS). This is an organization (ADL), 1.09 billion people in the world are anti-Semitic. dedicated to alienating and eventually destroying Israel, This means that roughly 1/7 of the human population is innately tied to and representative of Jewish people, which anti-Semitic. The ADL also estimates that just in the U.S., is often used as a tool of propaganda to justify anti- there are 21 million people harboring anti-Semitic Semitism. As I have said before, there are simply too many attitudes. to count. Perhaps statistics aren't convincing enough. How With the rise of anti-Semitism in the world today, dire can harboring anti-Semitic thoughts be unless those Holocaust education is more important than ever before; people act on it? But the thing is these people are acting on and this is why people should join the Holocaust Education it. The Perelman Jewish Day School in Lower Merion, Resource Council (HERC) to support the mission of Pennsylvania, received a threatening call where the caller Holocaust education. As the Holocaust Museum of threatened to "kill Jews" before hanging up. That same Holocaust History says, "The Holocaust was not an day, The Joseph and Florence Mandel Jewish Day School accident in history; it occurred because individuals, in Beachwood, Ohio also received a threatening organizations, and governments made choices that not only anonymous phone call. In Boise, Idaho, a woman attacked legalized discrimination but also allowed prejudice, hatred, her Jewish neighbor and stood on her neck until she said and ultimately mass murder to occur." she believed in Jesus. Swastikas were spray painted on In order to combat hate, there must be education. some 30 homes in Madison, Wisconsin. All of these anti- And HERC, as a Holocaust education task site for the state Semitic incidents took place in the month of February, of Florida, has taken on the mantle of educating a 2016. And there are plenty more examples. particularly important region in Florida: Tallahassee, the On college campuses, there are too many incidents capitol of the state. As the HERC website says, at present, to count. The AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization "less than $1.00 is allotted for each student annually in the dedicated to investigating, documenting, educating about, State of Florida for education of the Holocaust. It is nearly and combating anti-Semitism at institutions of higher impossible for students to grasp the material and education in America, lists anti-Semitic incidents across understand its relevance with inadequate curriculum, the nation. At the University of Illinois, a large menorah in training, and supplies. It is imperative our future front of a Chabad house was vandalized for the third time generations recognize the danger of prejudice and hate and in a year when a woman broke off one of the arms. A instead approach others with respect and acceptance." Jewish student at Rutgers discovered a swastika taped onto HERC is a powerful and effective tool to combat the anti- the ceiling of her dorm room. At the University of Semitism and hate filling our world. Massachusetts-Amherst, many swastikas were reported in

H E RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 9 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

HERC Membership

Sandy Ballas David and Mona Markell Bruce and Karen Bickley Julie Matherly Felix and Rita Blank Jim and Laurye Messer Phil and Rita Blank Paul Mitchell Byron and Pam Block Ursula Morgan Joe and Sue Boyd Richard and Jamie Morris Fran and Nancy Buhler Diane Neidhart Raymond and Wendy Capelouto Brooks and Almena Pettit Tonya Chavis Earle and Virginia Perkins Judge Robert and Karen Cohen Colin and Anne Phipps Caroline Collins Jorge and Betty Piekarewicz Art and Elaine Cooper Robyn Rachin Bill and Stephanie Corry DeeDee Rasmussen Martha Cunningham Kathy Reeves Linda Davey Robert and Linda Reiser Paul and MaryAnn Deitchman John and Monica Rosner Bryan Desloge Dr. Herbert and Judy Rubin Lisa Finkelstein and Jim Hruska Eleanore Rosenberg Monte Finkelstein Ruby Diamond Foundation Stephen and Marcia Fregger Lesley Sacher Ann Gabor and Jay Payne Diane R Salz Michelle Y. Gayle Paula Saunders Elizabeth George Ron and Jane Schagrin Mitchell and Jacque Gilberg Martin Schneiderman Linda Gilleon Mark and Missy Shamis Stacey Goldring Judge J. Layne and Cynthia S Smith Kara Gross Leslie Smith Susan Haddix Larry and Beverly Sokolow Tom and Dot Hayward Alvin and Susan Stauber Jeff Helicher Gerry and Susan Sternstein Sol Hirsch Jackie Stubbs Madelon Horwich Marjorie Turnbull Richard and Linda Hyson Tallahassee Jewish Federation Sandra Kendall Steve and Susan Turner Dr. Howard Kessler and Ann Van Meter Barry and Tiffanie Webster Sam and Jessica Kimelman Aria and Daniela Wellner Lynda Kinard Jodi Wilkof Davia Kramer Steve and Judy Winn Kim Koutnik Jim and Jolene Wolf Dr. Sam and Judy Lamb Avi Wygodski Eileen Lerner Gary Yordon Gabriella Mackee Peggy Youngblood

H E Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org 10 RC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee

HERC Membership Form

Name:

Address:

Home phone: Cell phone: Email:

I am interested to help on one or more committee:

Book Club Holocaust Remembrance Film Series Community Outreach Memorial Membership Teacher Workshop

MEMBERSHIP ENABLES YOU TO: • Attend programs, films, and scholars’ lectures – at reduced rates or no charge • Receive notice of ongoing programs and invitations to special events • Borrow from our extensive collection of books, media, research files, and curricula on Holocaust • Affirm your personal commitment to our mission and help us reach our goal

HERC is making a difference in our community, but we cannot continue to do so without your support. We urge you to join us at whatever membership level is most comfortable for you.

HERC OFFERS VARIOUS LEVELS OF MEMBERSHIP: Please select a membership level.

$36 (Life) This membership level purchases a DVD, book, or periodical for our school resources

$100 (Peace) This membership level provides a scholarship for a student outreach program

$250 (Courage) This membership level buys a set of books for a school classroom

$500 (Remembrance) This membership level helps to sponsor a speaker for Professional Learning Opportunities.

PLEASE SEND CHECKS TO: Holocaust Education Resource Council P.O. Box 16282 Tallahassee, FL. 32317 Donations can be submitted by PayPal on HERC website www.holocaustresources.org

H E 11 RC Holocaust Education Resource Council | P.O.Box 16282 Tall., FL 32317 | holocaustresources.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERCTallahassee