How the World Remembers
7 Books on the Holocaust
De Blasio Welcomes First NYC Ferry Boats
VOL. 1, NO. 7 | APRIL 19 – 25, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE
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OPINION
Yom Hashoah BY CHARLES E. SCHUMER
Each year on Yom Hashoah, we are called on to do something that sounds very simple—“remember.” But in fact, it is much more than just a simple task of recollection; it is a moral imperative, as sacred and as holy as a commandment. We must remember the innocent victims of the Holocaust who cannot speak for themselves, whose memory calls down to us through the decades for justice. We must teach our children and the children of the world what happened to the Jews of the Holocaust, so that such evil is never revisited on our people or on any other people. Ever since I was a young boy, I heard stories about my great-grandmother, who lived in the Ukraine—then part of Galicia—when the Nazis invaded in 1941. Shortly after the occupation began, SS stormtroopers ordered my great-grandmother to gather all her children and grandchildren on her porch. The troopers came to the porch and instructed the family to go with them. My great-grandmother refused, saying, “I will not leave.” The troopers proceeded to gun down the 17 souls who stood on that porch, killing them all.
Many Jews have stories like this. And though it is painful to remember and talk about, we must continue to do so, because over time the world forgets. In 2013, a survey of more than 53,000 respondents in 101 countries found that only 54 percent of the world’s adults had heard of the Holocaust—and of those, one-third believed it was either a myth or had been greatly exaggerated. Those are dispiriting numbers and they remind us of the job we have to do. So when my wife and children and I travel to Europe, we make a point of visiting the ghettos. Whether it’s in Venice or Prague, the vast majority of the visitors are Jewish, which gives me great pride that we are still teaching our children the tragic lessons of the Holocaust. And when I visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington and see schoolchildren from across the country and around the world—many of whom are not Jewish—it keeps me hopeful that we are still teaching the children of the world. They are all confronted with that pile of the shoes collected from the camps; that singular image of the inhumanity of the crimes committed
“One day soon we will not have Holocaust survivors to help keep the memory alive.” against the Jewish people. In recent years, the importance of Holocaust remembrance has been amplified by the fact that we continue to lose so many members of that first generation of survivors. Last July, we lost the incomparable Elie Wiesel, who dedicated his life to giving voice to those who—unlike him—were not lucky enough to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. He believed that describing the ghastly details of a single night at Treblinka could “shake humanity from its indifference…to make sure the torturer never tortures again.” Today there are fewer than 100,000 Holocaust survivors left in the world, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
So the burden is even greater on my generation and my children’s generation to commemorate Yom Hashoah, because one day soon we will not have Holocaust survivors to help keep the memory alive. We will have to speak out even louder and be even more vigilant against any effort to minimize or erase the Holocaust in our history books and our memory. We will have to work even harder to shake the conscience of the world. It is fitting that Yom Hashoah falls so soon after Passover, a holiday whose purpose is to remember and instruct future generations of Jews about the pain of slavery. Like the Jews who first entered the Holy Land after escaping from Egypt and wandering 40 years to forget the pain of slavery, we are now called on to keep the flame of memory alive, though we are not witnesses. We are now called on to teach the world the meaning of the Shoah [Holocaust], this year and every year henceforward, so that we are never witnesses to such darkness in the world again. Charles E. Schumer, the senior U.S. senator from New York, is the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate.
“We must remember the innocent victims of the Holocaust who cannot speak for themselves, whose memory calls down to us through the decades for justice.”
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Publisher’s Note
The horrors of the Holocaust, and the vital necessity of keeping it present, are lessons shared better by others throughout this issue. I echo their words and add my voice to theirs. New York Jewish Life will always speak up for active remembrance. I’d like to focus instead on two American stories—one that took place immediately before the horrors in Europe, and one that happened at the same time. These are stories of my grandfathers, but they could be anyone’s grandparents or parents. Theirs are New York stories. Morris Tobman was a Lower East Side communist, Russian born. He was the younger of two boys, the only surviving children (sadly of many) who came with their parents to America. Morris may have died not long before I was born, but his legacy has always been very important to me. Thankfully, his older brother, Harry, was with us until I was 20 years old, and we were close. My father’s father, Morris was an idealistic young man who believed in the primacy of working people, and in the validity of class analysis as the only legitimate lens through which to view events. Active in politics as a thinker and organizer, he put his money (so to speak; I’m not sure he ever had any) where his mouth was and volunteered to fight fascists in the Spanish Civil War. As part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American contingent of volunteers who went to Spain, my grandfather, and his peers, had to be smuggled into that war zone because America was officially neutral. The quick version is this: Spain was a landed-gentry monarchy for a very long time, and then there was a populist revolt. An elected socialist government was installed, and massive land and
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market reforms started. This was in the early 1930s. Everyone on the other side of these reforms came together in a revolt against the new government. Led by General Francisco Franco, this revolt was headed to defeat until Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy saw Spain as a testing ground for their military and propaganda machines. America, and most of the world, was not prepared to confront Hitler. I’ve glossed over a lot, but ultimately those loyal to Spain’s elected government lost to the fascist-backed revolt. Half of the Americans who went to Spain died there. My grandfather fought and was injured, captured and held as a prisoner of war. He eventually made it home, but was persecuted here by the FBI and other agencies for his left-leaning politics. He married, had my father and my two aunts, and was active in union politics until his death. David Fischer, my mother’s father, was with us until I was in my 30s. Great guy. At the start of World War II, he had a good job in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. David was exempt from the draft, as work in the navy yard was critical for the war effort. He also made a good wage, which was needed at home. He was the second-oldest of eight children. However, he gave up his safe job to volunteer for the air corps. His father, I’m told, chased him around their block, angry and fearful for his son. My maternal grandfather became a tail gunner in a large bomber. He operated a heavy machine gun at the rear of the plane. That spot was second only to the fabled belly-gunner turrets under the planes in terms of danger and vulnerability. He and his crew flew bombing missions over Europe as part of the legendary waves of American planes that were said to darken the skies with their size and numbers. His luck held for a long while, but his plane was eventually shot down. My brother still has the shrapnel they pulled from David’s leg when he was found and treated by Dutch resistance fighters. He was smuggled out of occupied Europe by posing as a deaf mute at a border crossing. He made it home, thankfully; married; tried living in California; came
home to New York; and had my mother and uncle. Their stories sound remarkable; I was and still am impressed. But so many of our parents and grandparents have similar histories. As we remember the horrors of the Holocaust—the Shoah— and commit to Never Again, let us also remember that some did try to stop this before it became a genocidal horror, and many fought to eradicate the evil once it was underway. My mother’s father was a war hero, but he rarely spoke of it to my brother and me. America was a smaller country then, and everybody either had a family member who had died in the war, or knew someone who did. People were also more modest. Though the terrors of Stalin and collapse of the Soviet Union moved much of that worldview to the trash bin, and my family has long since moved to the political center, history now treats those who fought in Spain kindly. No longer traitors or “Reds,” they are now “premature antifascists.” Sen. John McCain wrote a moving eulogy in The New York Times for the last known living veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Delmer Berg, just over one year ago. McCain wrote: “Mr. Berg went to Spain when he was a very young man. He fought in some of the biggest and most consequential battles of the war. He sustained wounds. He watched friends die. He knew he had ransomed his life to a lost cause, for a people who were strangers to him, but to whom he felt an obligation, and he did not quit on them... He didn’t need to know for whom the bell tolls. He knew it tolled for him. And I salute him. Rest in peace.” I’d like to think Sen. McCain was also writing about my grandfather, and surely for all those who tried to raise the alarm for an America that wasn’t ready to listen.
Michael Tobman, Publisher
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Friday, April 21 Candles: 7:24 p.m. Shabbat Ends: 8:26 p.m. Friday April 28 Candles: 7:31 p.m. Shabbat Ends: 8:35 p.m.
BDSWatch
Tufts Student Senate Passes Israel Divestment Resolution (JTA) — The Tufts University student senate passed a resolution calling on the university to divest from four companies that do business with Israel. The resolution, titled “A Resolution Calling for Tufts University to End Investments in The Israeli Occupation,” passed the Tufts Community Union Senate on April 9 by a vote of 17 in favor and six opposed, with eight abstentions. More than 100 students attended the senate debate prior to the vote, according to the Tufts Daily student newspaper. The resolution calls for the university to divest from or not begin investing in Elbit Systems, G4S, Northrop Grumman and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and to screen its investments for human rights compliance. It is unclear whether Tufts currently invests in those four companies. The symbolic resolution is not binding on the university. Students associated with the Students for Justice in Palestine group put forth the resolution last week. Some students during the question-and-answer period
of Sunday’s senate meeting expressed concern that holding the vote the day before the start of the Passover holiday prevented Jewish students who went home for the holiday from expressing their opinions, according to the Tufts Daily. Tufts Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, who is also a research professor at the university, told the Algemeiner Journal on Sunday that Hillel was working to combat the resolution. “The Hillel Jewish community is deeply disturbed by this vote, and by the way the resolution was brought so close to Pesach, at a time when many of our students are home with their families readying themselves for the holiday,” Summit told the Algemeiner. Several other student governments at colleges and universities have passed similar resolutions. They include Stanford, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Oberlin, Vassar, Wesleyan University and a number in the University of California network— Los Angeles, Berkeley, Irvine, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Cruz and Davis.
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The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany
worship in Budapest. The synagogue is a center for scientific research, education and culture. It welcomes visitors with interactive permanent and special periodic exhibitions, experience-based museum pedagogical programs and cultural performances. Guided tours are available in five languages and special thematically focused tours are offered regularly. A bookshop and a cozy coffee shop contribute to a memorable visit. (Photo and description courtesy of the Hungarian Holocaust Center)
Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City
How the World Remembers NEW YORK JEWISH LIFE HIGHLIGHTS HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS AND FOUNDATIONS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD
The impact of the Holocaust is felt across the globe and throughout generations. In this feature, New York Jewish Life highlights six different Holocaust museums, memorials and educational programs across the world in an effort to show how different peoples and cultures choose to remember the tragic events leading up to, during and following the Holocaust.
Holocaust Memorial Center Budapest, Hungary
The Holocaust Memorial Center is a national institution established by the government in 1999. In 2002, it decided to construct the building of the center on Pava Street, outside the traditional
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Jewish quarter, further emphasizing its national character. The Holocaust Memorial Center is one of the few institutions in the world, established by the state, that focuses entirely on Holocaust research and education.The visitors are welcomed into a unique
space that is considered among the most impressive in Budapest, next to the city’s panorama itself by Frank Owen Gehry, one of the leading architects of our time. The modern building is organically linked to the Pava Street Synagogue, an authentic venue that once used to be the second-largest site for Jewish
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Berlin, Germany
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the center of Berlin is the German Holocaust Memorial honoring and remembering the up to six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Located between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, the memorial consists of the Field of Stelae designed by Peter Eisenman and the subterranean information center. The admission is free of charge. The exhibition at the information center documents the persecution and extermination of European Jewry as well as the historic sites of the crimes. Each year, nearly half a million visitors come to the information center. (Photo and description courtesy of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe)
Museum of Jewish Heritage New York City
Created as a living memorial to those who perished during the Holocaust, the museum honors those who died by celebrating their lives—cherishing the traditions that they embraced, examining their achievements and faith, and affirming the vibrant worldwide Jewish community that is their legacy today. New generations are taught how
to recognize and fight contemporary instances of injustice and oppression. (Photo and description courtesy of the Museum of Jewish Heritage)
The South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation Durban, Capetown and Johannesburg, South Africa
The South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation strives to further Holocaust education through: providing accurate historical content knowledge of the Holocaust to develop an understanding of the past; facilitating the making of connections between the human rights atrocities committed during the Holocaust so that the moral and ethical issues raised can be instructive in dealing with contemporary challenges of human rights abuses, e.g., xenophobia, racism and bigotry; encouraging a commitment to the protection of human rights to support the building of a human rights culture and to encourage respect for diversity; encouraging social activism and a greater individual responsibility to building the community; and encouraging empathy and compassion and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human. Through achieving these aims, the
foundation hopes to honor the memory of the millions of victims of Nazi persecution and the six million Jewish victims of Nazi genocide. (Photo and description courtesy of the South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation)
Shanghai Jewish Refugees Memorial Shanghai, China
From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai became a modern-day Noah’s Ark, accepting around 30,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe. In the “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees” in the Tilanqiao area of Shanghai, about 20,000 Jewish refugees lived harmoniously with local citizens, overcoming numerous difficulties together. By the time the Second World War ended in 1945, most of the Jewish refugees had survived. Dr. David Kranzler, a noted Holocaust historian, called it the “miracle of Shanghai” and commented that within Jewry’s greatest tragedy, i.e., the Holocaust, there shone a few bright lights. Among the brightest of these is the Shanghai haven. In the “Tilanqiao Historic Area,” the original features of the Jewish settlement are still well preserved. They are the only typical historic traces of Jewish refugee life inside China during
The Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne, Australia
the Second World War. For more information, please visit http://www.shanghaijews.org.cn. (Photo and description courtesy of the Consulate General of Israel in Shanghai)
The Jewish Holocaust Centre Melbourne, Australia
The Jewish Holocaust Centre was the fulfilment of a vision by Melbourne Holocaust survivors to create a memorial to the millions of Jews who were
murdered between 1933 and 1945. The center was established under the patronage of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. From its humble beginnings in 1984, it has grown to become an active and internationally recognized institution dedicated to combating racism, hatred and prejudice by fostering tolerance and understanding. The center was founded without large government or other grants, relying on the generous donation of time, materials and money from Holocaust survivors, their families and other supporters. Following a generous donation from the late Mina Fink in memory of her late husband, Leo Fink, an old double-story building (a former dance school) was purchased and subsequently turned into a space suitable for housing exhibitions and a library. (Photo and description courtesy of the Jewish Holocaust Centre)
Shanghai Jewish Refugees Memorial
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Never Again
A joint project by the Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst and the Holocaust Survivors Project tells the stories of Russian Jewish Holocaust survivors. New York Jewish Life highlights two of these stories as part of our Yom Hashoah edition of the publication. For more information on the Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst, including ways to support their efforts, please visit www.JCHB.org.
Riva Levina
Hiding in Occupied Territory (in Leningrad Oblast, Russia) devastated when he left to the join the army, as she knew that they would never see each other again. He died several months later due to Nazi shootings and to this day they are unaware of where his grave is. Riva had to hide in the forest as well. At one point she had to hide above a Russian oven while a Nazi searched at gunpoint. Taisiya and her mother saved and hid her; Riva considered them her second mother and grandmother. In 1944, they had to hide in a distant forest while Nazis burned down a house full of people nearby. They also burned all of the grain; there were no cows and no food. On Feb. 23, 1944, the occupation was over. Taisiya started working on a railroad while her relative took Riva in. No one knew what was occurring in Leningrad since there were no telegraphs. Eventually Riva’s uncle, who served in the army, found her and they returned to Leningrad, where she was reunited with her parents. Riva experienced many health issues and struggled to finish second grade. She had told her classmates she
Riva was born on July 28, 1933, in Leningrad and her parents were from Belarus. Riva’s family had few Jewish traditions and lived in an apartment with various other families. She had a great childhood before the war and an older brother with whom she was very close. Since both of Riva’s parents worked, she had a nanny (by the name of Taisiya Mironova) who played a great role in saving her life. The Levinas had a very close relationship with Taisiya and her family; Riva went to her house, located in the village of Zamoskobye, Leningradsky Oblast, for summer vacation. Since Riva’s family was not aware of the immediate threat of the announcement of war, they were unable to evacuate or return to Leningrad. The Nazis had moved in quickly; people built hiding spots and slept in clothing in case they had to run away from Nazi raids. Riva’s brother wanted to join the partisans; she was
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had been hiding and during the third grade, she wrote her survival story for an assignment. The assignment was submitted to the Leningrad Youth Organization. However, it was not approved and never returned to Riva. Riva eventually finished medical school, but was unable to advance her medical degree after graduation due to being Jewish. Riva got married, but her husband died early. However, she had two sons and three grandchildren. Riva has lived in the United States for 17 years and is happy she can live a Jewish life here. She hopes her children and grandchildren never have to experience her past. Taisiya was awarded with the title of “The Righteous Among the Nations” after her death. Today there is a memorial of Taisiya Mironova in the museum Yad Vashem in Israel to honor her noble actions of saving Riva’s life during the war. Riva is very close to Taisiya’s family to this day. Taisiya’s daughter, two granddaughters and great grandson live in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In the fall of 2013, her family visited Israel to commemorate the memory of Taisiya.
Saveliy Kaplinsky
Minsk Ghetto Survivor (Belarus) Saveliy Kaplinsky was born on September 18, 1929, in Minsk, Belarus, and lived with his family in a small house with his four siblings. He had friendly relationships with his neighbors before WWII began. Kaplinsky did not receive any Jewish education, though both of his brothers did. Kapinsky’s older brother went to an institute in Leningrad, Russia, and served in the army throughout the entire war. His other brother left Minsk to go work at a war factory in Siberia, Russia. The rest of the family did not vacate Minsk due to a newborn sister. They ended up living in the Minsk ghetto, surrounded by barbed wire and automatic guns. The parents died in the pogroms and Kaplinsky set up a memorial for them in Holocaust Memorial Park in Brooklyn, to honor their memory. When WWII began, the family lived in the city of Minsk. Saveliy’s older brother escaped to the east and worked on a military plant in Siberia, Russia. During the four years, the eldest brother became a soldier and fought against the Nazis. His other family members lived in a ghetto in Minsk. During 1941-’42, Saveliy’s mother, father and little sister were killed by the Nazis in the ghetto. He stayed hidden the entire time. His younger brother and Saveliy stayed alive, but in the summer of 1943 his brother Yacha was also killed by the Nazis. At that time, Saveliy was 13 years old. He was starving and went to work with other people. The soldiers went to the territory where Nazis lived in barracks. The soldiers did not stay there for a long time; they were either taken to the front or sent away to the reform unit. Saveliy took advantage of this revolving door and stole weapons, grenades and cartridges from them. Jews who worked carried galvanized cans for leftover food that the Nazis gave to the workers. They
would then carry this food to the people in the ghetto. Saveliy was a member of an underground group in the ghetto, which had connected with partisans in the forest. In June 1943, the group escaped at night to the Partisans. After the war, he graduated from a factory and workshop school at a technical secondary school and the building faculty of the Polytechnic University. When people rebuilt Minsk, he worked as the head of the Building Department, deputy director and chief engineer. He decided to immigrate to the U.S. with his wife in 1992. He enrolled in school in order to improve
his English. In 1993, he became a member of the Association of Holocaust Survivors from the former Soviet Union and he eventually became president. He is also a board member of the American Association of Jews from the former USSR. He often participates in the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. He regularly travels to Minsk to participate in memorial services, particularly a mass grave called “Minsky Yama” where 5,000 executed Jews are buried, including his relatives. He has spent a lot of time advocating against anti-Semitism.
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POLIN: A Museum of the Past Faces the Future BY MAXINE DOVERE
Maciej Golubiewski, recently appointed consul general of the Republic of Poland in New York, welcomed an overflow audience to the Polish Consulate in New York April 5 to celebrate the opening of a photography exhibit at the POLIN Museum of the History of the Jews. The exhibit is titled “The Righteous Among Nations: They Risked Their Lives— Poles Who Saved Jews During the Holocaust.” The exhibit features images of the wartime lives of Jan Karski, the Polish patriot who revealed the horrors of the concentration camps to President Franklin Roosevelt, and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a hero of the Zegota, the Polish underground that worked to save Jews. The exhibit documents the Polish governmentin-exile and illustrates life in occupied Poland. It is the culmination of a series of more than 400 interviews with Poles who saved Jewish lives during World War II. Dariusz Stola, director of the POLIN Museum, and Shimon Mercer Woods, counsul of Media Affairs at the Consulate of Israel in New York, were featured speakers. Woods recalled that “on a personal level, the state of Israel owes a great deal” to the Righteous Poles and “places great value on documenting every individual and telling their story.” Many, said Woods, “ask, ‘Where was God in Auschwitz?’ The more present question is where was humanity? Where was the human spirit?” “Those who are honored here were humanity,” Woods asserted. He emphasized that both on a national and universal level, “all of us as human beings
owe a great deal to these people for saving the spirit of humanity. Nazism denied the universal humanity of all living people. The Righteous Among the Nations risked their lives to save the spirit of humanity.” The state of Israel formally recognized the Righteous Among the Nations in the 1960s. Concurrent with the Exhibit of the Righteous, the POLIN Museum has initiated an education program about the Righteous Among the Nations. The museum recognizes the great work of the Zegota, which provided escaping Jews with food and documents. Stola said that there is “a growing interest in Poland” about the World War II era. “How representative of the Polish population were the Righteous?” Stola asked rhetorically, answering, “They were not….The Righteous shine even greater against the darkness of the era and the loss of human life...the dark conditions created by the Nazis….The Righteous reach the highest levels.” Planning for the creation of the POLIN Museum, which opened in December 2014, began more than 20 years ago. The award-winning structure is a result of cooperation between the Polish government’s Ministry of Culture, the city of Warsaw and the Polish Jewish diaspora (especially in the United States), which has provided significant support. The museum faces the statue commemorating the heroes of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when the fighters of the ghetto battled the overwhelming Nazi forces. The museum was designed by the Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki, whose “jewel in a box” concept was chosen in an international design competition. It is conceived as a “place of meaning” and contains symbolic and color references to the splitting of the Red Sea and the Judean desert.
The museum’s core exhibit, curated by Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, follows a linear progression chronicling the 1,000-year history of the Jews in Poland, beginning from the transplanted Jewish immigrants to a court-protected minority to the “Golden Age” between the wars. A rare coin, dating from the 12th century and containing Hebrew engraving, testifies to the early Jewish presence in Poland and to the community’s participation in the Polish economy. Despite this shared history, Jews in Poland were always a parallel population, living generally full lives alongside their Polish neighbors. One of the most striking exhibits is the re-creation of the 17th-century Gwozdziec Synagogue. This 85-percent-to-scale recreation represents more than 200 painted wooden synagogues destroyed by the invading Nazis. To climb on the bimah (pulpit) of this extraordinary connection to history was an intense emotional experience for this writer, one of the 70 percent of the world’s Jewish population who trace their roots to Polish Jews. To imagine the prayers and supplications offered in the original structure that this exhibit mirrors provides a deep connection to one’s emotional Jewish genes. Each of the painted images has a theological meaning or a Torah reference. The POLIN Museum’s display of the “great explosion” of the culture, literature and life of the Jews of Poland has been recognized internationally. The European Museum Academy prize recognizing “pioneering museums...destined to influence the development of museological discourse at the international level” was awarded to the POLIN Museum in 2016. The academy called the POLIN Museum “a state-of-the-art cultural institution that reaches diverse publics all over the world.”
Photo By Boston9 Via Wikimedia Commons
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Jews digging a trench in which they were later buried, after being shot, in Ponary, Poland COURTESY OF YAD VASHEM
Science Helped Verify This Unbelievable Holocaust Escape Story BY TOM TUGEND
LOS ANGELES (JTA) – A one-hour TV program airing on PBS brings advanced scientific techniques to bear on an incredible Holocaust escape story. “Holocaust Escape Tunnel,” a “NOVA” production to be shown tonight, April 19, sheds new light on the attempt by 80 imprisoned men and women—mostly Lithuanian Jews—to make a break for freedom in the face of Nazi bullets. The show documents the application of scientific methods to verify what would otherwise be a nearly unbelievable story. The documentary is set in and around Vilna, the Yiddish and Hebrew designation for Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. At its peak, before World War II and the Holocaust, the city boasted a Jewish population of some 77,000; and had 105 synagogues, the largest Jewish library in the world and six daily Jewish newspapers.
The vigorous Jewish life in Vilna started to decline in 1940, when the Soviet Union absorbed Lithuania. It was almost completely destroyed after German armies attacked Russia in 1941, quickly conquering Lithuania. Within a year, Nazis shot and killed—in the days before Auschwitz-type gas chambers—most of the Jews and tossed their corpses into huge pits in the nearby Ponar Forest, initially dug by the Soviets to store fuel and ammunition. One pit alone held 20,000 to 25,000 corpses. In late 1943, with Russian armies advancing from the east and partisans attacking German supply lines in surrounding forests, Hitler’s headquarters in Berlin decided to cover up the monumental massacre by ordering that all the bodies be cremated. The Germans ordered the region’s surviving Jews,
along with some Russian prisoners of war, to first chop down large trees in the forests, cut them into planks, form huge layers of wood, spread the bodies between the layers and then set them aflame. Methodically, the Germans formed 10 “burning brigades,” each consisting of 80 prisoners, mainly Jewish. After a day’s work, the “burners” were held in pits and their feet shackled. One such unit, consisting of 76 men and four women, decided it was duty bound to pass on the truth to the world and future generations. The prisoners freed their legs by cutting the shackles with a smuggled-in file. For the next 76 days, using only spoons and their hands, they carved out a 2-by-2-foot-wide tunnel extending 130 feet. April 15, 1944, the last day of Passover, was set for the escape. As the first prisoners left the tunnel, guards opened fire and killed almost the entire group. But 12 made it out and cut through the wire fence. They joined a detachment of partisans commanded by the legendary Abba Kovner. At the end of the war, all but one of the escapees were still alive. They eventually settled elsewhere, mainly in pre-state Israel and the United States. Among the thousands, if not millions, of postHolocaust remembrances, the story of the Vilna escapees was met with widespread skepticism, even by the future wives and children of the 11 survivors, said historian Richard Freund, who is prominently featured in the documentary. The skepticism was fueled by the absence of any physical evidence of the alleged tunnel. Lithuania —already beleaguered by charges of its wartime collaboration with the Germans—showed little enthusiasm for further investigations. In recent years, however, with a change of attitude by a new generation of Lithuanians, their government was ready to seek the truth about the Holocaust and invite outside experts to participate in the endeavor. An initial contact was Jon Seligman, a leading researcher with the Israel Antiquities Authority. Freund, of the University of Hartford, also was interested—he had directed archaeological projects at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, as well as at six ancient sites in Israel. In 2014, the two scholars decided to cooperate on the project, spurred by their similar ancestral descent from Vilna Jews. A third member of the documentary team with Jewish roots in Eastern Europe was Paula Apsell, the senior executive producer for “NOVA.” Seligman and Freund had initially set their sights on exploring the fate of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, which was once the center of Jewish worship and scholarship and had been destroyed by the Germans. The Soviets later razed the remains and built a school there. The two scholars—backed by other experts and teams of young volunteers—made some dramatic discoveries at the Great Synagogue site, but also were intrigued by reports on the escape tunnel. In approaching the latter, the project leaders ruled out using the traditional method of digging into an continued on page 14
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HOLOCAUST ESCAPE STORY from page 13
archaeological site with spades and machines. “Traditional archaeology uses a highly destructive method,” Freund told the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). “You only have one chance to get it right and you can’t repeat an experiment. Additionally, in our case, we were determined not to desecrate the site and victimize the dead a second time.” Instead, the teams used two noninvasive techniques that are widely employed in gas and oil explorations. One approach was through ground penetrating radar, or GPR, which uses radar pulses to return images of objects found beneath the earth’s surface. The results were analyzed in Los Angeles by geophysicist Dean Goodman, who developed the GPR software. In the second approach, called electrical resistivity tomography, or ETR, scientists investigate subsurface materials through their electrical properties. The same technique is widely used in medical imaging of the human body. Thanks to these techniques, in 2016 the investigators were able to scientifically confirm the existence and dimensions of a wartime escape tunnel, as the JTA reported at the time. The New York Times listed the feat as one of the top science stories of the year. One of the successful tunnel escapees was Shlomo Gol, whose son Abraham (Abe) was born in a displaced-persons camp in Munich, Germany. The elder Gol died in 1986 at the age of 77, and his son will be 68 in July. The family initially immigrated to Israel, and then moved to the United States. Abe Gol, who lives in Pembroke Pines, Florida, told the JTA that friends recalled his father as a young man full of life and as a natural leader. However, the father
young Abe knew “withdrew within himself ” and did not speak of his experiences. The little he learned of his father’s past came in two ways: One was the annual reunion, on the last day of Passover, held by escapees who had settled in Israel. At dinner, when shots of vodka loosened tongues, the men talked of the past, paying no attention to the boy listening in. In later years, Gol discovered that his father had kept a written record of his past, which the son translated into English. One small recollection from the diary: the persistent stink from the combination of kerosene and tar the prisoners had to pour on the wood pyres to fan the flames. At the time of the tunnel’s discovery, Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority wrote, “As an Israeli whose family originated in Lithuania, I was reduced to tears on the discovery of the escape tunnel at Ponar. This discovery is a heartwarming witness to the victory of hope over desperation. The exposure of this tunnel enables us to present not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but also the yearning for life.” With the deaths of the last eyewitnesses of the Holocaust, Freund said, historians will have to rely increasingly on as yet unknown scientific and technological advances to preserve and enlarge our knowledge of the great tragedy of the 20th century. “Holocaust Escape Tunnel” airs April 19 at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific times; 8 p.m. Central time. Check your local PBS station for details.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, then-CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., speaking during the World Gas Conference in Paris on June 2, 2015 PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHE MORIN/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Visits U.S. Holocaust Museum (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his wife visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Tillerson, his wife and two other family members, accompanied by a small security detail, toured the museum’s permanent exhibit on Saturday, the Washington Post reported. The visit comes days after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer apologized for saying that Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons in a discussion of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, and called Nazi concentration camps “Holocaust centers,” raising the ire of Jewish groups around the world. The White House also angered Jewish groups in January when it failed to mention Jews in its statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The infamous “Burning Pit” used by the Nazis to burn the remains of their Jewish victims in order to rid themselves of all evidence COURTESY EZRA WOLFINGER FOR WGBH
14 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 19 – 25, 2017
For the First Time, the State Teachers Union Will Be Headed by a New York City Educator “I would hope that in the next year or so, we continue to build on the support for public schools coming from the governor’s office.” –Andrew Pallotta
Andrew Pallotta PHOTO COURTESY OF NYSUT
One of the most influential labor unions in Albany—the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)—has a new leader. And for the first time in its roughly 45-year history, that person hails from New York City. Andrew Pallotta, who attended the city’s schools and spent 22 years as an elementary school teacher at P.S. 32 in the Bronx, replaces Karen Magee, a fierce supporter of the test-refusal movement. She did not seek reelection after a three-year stint leading the roughly 600,000-member union. In an interview, Pallotta said he does not intend to back away from the union’s support of the opt-out movement, and he predicted a warmer relationship with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose initial moves on education angered unions. “The rhetoric has definitely been toned down,” Pallotta said of Cuomo’s reform agenda, which included a controversial “receivership” law that could allow struggling schools to sidestep labor rules or be taken over by an outside entity. Just one school has been threatened with a takeover, and Cuomo has increasingly plugged the union-favored approach: giving schools extra resources instead. “I would hope that in the next year or so, we continue to build on the support for public schools coming from the
governor’s office,” Pallotta added. Pallotta served as NYSUT’s executive vice president overseeing its legislative and political fundraising efforts, and was previously a representative of District 10 in the Bronx for the United Federation of Teachers. His election last weekend to head the state teachers union means he’ll be a key player in state education policy as officials craft a plan to measure schools’ progress and hold them accountable under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. But Pallotta also emphasized a slew of other priorities, including pushing back against Betsy DeVos’ school choice agenda and protecting state education funding from cuts. (The latest budget boosts funding by $1.1 billion.) “We’re going to play a role in pretty much everything,” he said. Charting a course that satisfies the union’s diverse membership, which runs the gamut from teachers in the largest school system in the country to those in rural school districts, is a perennial challenge, said Peter Goodman, who blogs about state education policy. “There are internal political complexities,” Goodman said. “I think he’s going to have to convince a lot of these locals that voted against him that he represents everyone.”
APRIL 19 – 25, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 15
7 New Books About the Holocaust You Should Read, According to Scholars BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN APRIL 14, 2017
(JTA) — From Anne Frank’s diary to Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” books about the Holocaust remain some of the most powerful and well-known pieces of literature published in the past century. Books have the power to educate about the Shoah’s unimaginable horrors and bring to life the stories of its victims, as well as unearth hidden details about wartime crimes. Ahead of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, JTA reached out to Jewish studies scholars across the country seeking their recommendations on recently published books dealing with the Holocaust. Their picks, all published in the past three years, include an investigation into the 1941 massacre of Jews in the Polish town of Jedwabne (two scholars recommended the same book on that topic), a critical examination of theories trying to explain the Holocaust and a look at how Adolf Hitler saw Islam as a religion that could be exploited for anti-Semitic purposes.
The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) By Anna Bikont
shedding new light on the character of the perpetrators, bystanders and the intricate way the crime was concealed for 50 years after the Holocaust. It is written in the form of a journal of the author’s travels and conversations with people. Barbara Grossman, professor of drama at Tufts University and former U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council board member, also recommended Bikont’s book. She writes: I first read about the Jedwabne massacre in Gross’ book and still remember being riveted by the cover image of a barn engulfed in flames. Perhaps because my paternal grandfather was from Łomża, Poland — a city relatively near Jedwabne — I felt a particular connection to this atrocity, as well as gratitude to him for leaving the country years before the Holocaust. I directed Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s “Our Class,” a play loosely based on the events in Jedwabne, at Tufts in 2012, and remain fascinated by this story of greed, treachery and cruelty, a horrific crime in which as many as 1,600 Jewish men, women and children perished. Bikont’s magnificent work of investigative
journalism details her meticulous reconstruction of the massacre and its subsequent decades-long coverup. It is a sobering and compelling account of antiSemitism, denial and isolated acts of heroism.
The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2015) By Lisa Moses Leff
Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, writes: This award-winning book recounts the amazing story of Zosa Szajkowski, the scholar who rescued archives that might otherwise have been lost in the Holocaust. Szajkowski wrote numerous books and articles, but was also a known archive thief, caught red handed stealing valuable papers from the New York Public Library. Leff ’s meticulous account reads like a thriller, yet conveys invaluable information concerning the fate of Jewish archives during and after the Shoah, and why removal of archives from their original home matters. Brandeis University and my late father, Bible scholar Nahum Sarna, play bit parts in this story. I remember Szajkowski, too; in fact, I took a class with him as a Brandeis undergraduate. He told lots of stories in class about his archival experiences during and after World War II, but it was only after reading Leff ’s wonderful book that I understood “the rest of the story.”
Why? Explaining the Holocaust (W.W. Norton & Company, 2017) By Peter Hayes
David Engel, professor of Holocaust studies and chair of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, writes: I recommend this book for a lucid, well-crafted introduction to the history of the Holocaust. Unlike most works on the Holocaust written for a general audience, which tend to emphasize how the Holocaust was carried out and experienced, Hayes’ book concentrates, as its title suggests, on helping readers to understand why the Holocaust occurred when it did, where it did, in the manner it did and with the results it produced. It offers readers a window onto how historians go about finding answers to these questions, why some answers turn out to be more compelling than others and how new evidence can change understanding.
Joshua Zimmerman, professorial chair in Holocaust studies and East European Jewish history and professor of history at Yeshiva University, writes: This book, a winner of the 2015 National Jewish Book Award, was written by a Polish journalist who discovered she was Jewish in her 30s and became deeply engaged in the topic of Polish-Jewish relations. After Jan T. Gross’ controversial book “Neighbors: the Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland” (2000) proved that the local Poles — not the Germans — committed the massive pogrom in that town in July 1941, Bikont went to Jedwabne and its surroundings, interviewJewish studies scholars recommended these seven recently published books about the ing eyewitnesses to the crime Holocaust. in the years 2000 to 2003, JTA COLLAGE; BACKGROUND IMAGE: PIOTR DRABIK/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
16 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 19 – 25, 2017
Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture (Harvard University Press, 2016) Edited by Claudio Fogu, Wulf Kansteiner and Todd Presner
Omer Bartov, professor of European history and German studies at Brown University, writes: This book comes out a quarter of a century after the publication of
Saul Friedlander’s crucial edited volume, “Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution” (1992), which had challenged the conventional discourse on the mass murder of the Jews and critiqued its popular representation. The current volume attempts to grapple with the wider impact of Holocaust scholarship, fiction and representation in the intervening period. It includes fascinating essays on new modes of narrating the Shoah, the insights provided by the “spatial turn” on research and understanding of the event and the politics of exceptionality, especially the contextualization of the Holocaust within the larger framework of modern genocide. As such, it enables readers to understand both the ongoing presence of the Holocaust in our present culture and the different ways in which it has come to be understood in the early 21st century.
Islam and Nazi Germany’s War (Belknap Press, 2014) By David Motadel
Susannah Heschel, professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, writes: This is a major work of scholarship, examining the various ways the Nazis fostered a relationship with Muslims both before the war and especially during the war. Jeffrey Herf wrote a book a bit earlier, “Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World,” detailing Nazi antiSemitic propaganda sent, in Arabic translation, to
North African Muslims, and Motadel expands the range of influence: that Hitler understood Islam as a warrior religion that could be exploited for propaganda efforts and to serve in both the Wehrmacht and the SS. The indoctrination of Muslims with Nazi antiSemitic propaganda may well have had effects lasting long past the end of the war, a topic that deserves additional attention.
both confronts historical conundrums about race, reconciliation and responsibility for the past, and offers glimpses of very contemporary questions about the contours of German identity. Her earnest reckoning with family and national history can inspire us all to reflect on what it means to be implicated in histories of racial violence, even those we have not participated in directly.
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past (The Experiment, 2015) By Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair
They Were Like Family to Me: Stories (Scribner, 2016) By Helen Maryles Shankman
Michael Rothberg, professor of English and comparative literature and chair in Holocaust studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, writes: Teege’s memoir, published in German in 2013 and translated into English in 2015, is a fascinating contribution to the discussion of the ongoing impact of the Holocaust over multiple generations. When she was in her late 30s, Teege discovered that her grandfather was a Nazi war criminal. And not just any Nazi: he was Amon Goeth, the commandant of Plaszów depicted in the film “Schindler’s List.” Because Teege is herself a black German woman — the daughter of a Nigerian father and a white German mother who was herself the daughter of Goeth’s mistress — her story takes on additional resonance. Intercut with contextualizing passages by Sellmair, a journalist, Teege’s memoir
Jeremy Dauber, director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and professor of Yiddish at Columbia University, writes: Writing literature about the Holocaust is many things, but it is never easy; and writing Holocaust literature in the vein of magic realism is more difficult yet. It risks taking the great horror of the 20th century and rendering it ungrounded, imaginative, even — God forbid — whimsically slight. But when a skillful writer pulls it off — David Grossman, for example, and now Shankman — the fantastic casts illuminating and terrible light on the dark shadows of the history of the war against the Jews. The stories in her collection are by no means factual in all respects. But they contain unmistakable truth.
All Aboard: Mayor de Blasio Welcomes NYC Ferry Boats to New York Harbor
IN THE COMMUNITY
NEW YORK—Mayor Bill de Blasio today welcomed the first three of 20 total NYC Ferry vessels into New York Harbor. The boats departed from Liberty Landing in New Jersey this morning before docking at Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. In keeping with maritime tradition, the docking included the christening of the first NYC Ferry vessel. Named “Lunchbox” by Bay Ridge’s P.S. 170 secondgraders, the first ferry was christened by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, who will serve as “godmother” to the ferry boat. The dedication ceremony also included a reading of “Sailor’s Paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm,” by FDNY Chaplain Ann Kansfield. Additional boats will be christened in the coming weeks. “All aboard! As we prepare for launch day on May 1, we celebrate the arrival of NYC Ferry to New York Harbor and what this new citywide ferry service
represents: greater opportunity for every New Yorker, from the Rockaways to the Bronx, and at just $2.75 a ride,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “I’m so honored to christen this first ferry. In just two weeks, this service will start transforming the way thousands of New Yorkers travel. The docks are ready. The boats are ready. The riders are ready. NYC Ferry is about to become a reality!” Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen said. “After months of construction and weeks of travel, the new NYC Ferry boats are officially here in the five boroughs. And in just two weeks’ time, New Yorkers will be able to ride these brand new boats themselves —to work, to school or to explore all the incredible things our waterfront has to offer,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation President and CEO James Patchett.
In addition to welcoming the new boats, the city announced the construction of new infrastructure at Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Basin in Red Hook that will serve New Yorkers when the South Brooklyn route launches in June. Mayor Bill de Blasio today also released a new 2017 NYC Ferry map, highlighting the routes that will be activated this year, and announced schedules for the Rockaway Route and East River Route, both of which will be operating May 1. The new maps and timetables can be viewed at www.ferry.nyc. The map and timetable will be displayed at all East River and Rockaway landings by May 1, and at the South Brooklyn and Astoria landings prior to those routes’ launching in June and August respectively. When the system is fully launched, in 2018, the combined routes will cover more than 60 miles of waterway.
APRIL 19 – 25, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 17
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WE HOUSE NEW YORK 18 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 19 – 25, 2017
7 SevenQuestions of the Holocaust to fade.
02
STEVEN CYMBROWITZ
Brooklyn Assemblyman
01 You are the son of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States. As such, what is the most important thing your parents taught or imparted to you regarding their experience? When I was growing up, my parents would tell me stories that began in Demblin, Poland, where they met as children and became each other’s first and only love. This childhood ended the day everyone in Demblin was rounded up and put in cattle cars and sent to concentration or slave labor camps. My mom and dad were sent to Czestochowa to a slave labor camp called Warta. My mother and grandmother were in one barracks lined with bunk beds. My mother’s father was in the men’s barracks with my father and some members of his family. The night before the camp was liberated by the Russian army, my grandfather was taken away and sent to Buchenwald, never to be seen again. Nobody would have blamed my parents for never talking about their experiences, but they believed it was the survivors’ responsibility to talk and to educate—to make sure those of us who weren’t there truly understand how horrific the consequences of anti-Semitism can be, and how history can and will repeat itself if we allow the memories
With a reported increase in antiSemitic acts in your district and throughout the world, what do you see as your role in combating these horrific acts as an elected official in New York? Speaking out whenever and wherever a hate crime occurs is very important. So is taking care of our Holocaust survivors, many of whom live in my Assembly district. What many people don’t realize is that of the 50,000 or so survivors currently living in the New York area, more than half live below the poverty line. It is our obligation to ensure that every single one of these human beings, who have endured the most brutal acts of inhumanity, lives out his or her days in dignity—not in insolvency and isolation. To that end, I hired a bilingual staff member to help Holocaust survivors from the former Soviet Union apply for compensation funds from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. After a number of Russian-speaking survivors in my district were denied benefits due to bureaucratic snafus, my office intervened. To advocate on behalf of these Russian-speaking Holocaust survivors, I met with a board member from the Claims Conference during my trip to Munich, as well as with a number of board members back here in the United States, in order to rectify the situation and to ensure that some small measure of justice is achieved.
the Holocaust. It was my mother who always had a story, but both my parents reminded me that I had to tell my children and they were to tell their children about the horrors of the Jews during the war. It was these stories that shaped my being and are the reason I do as much as I do about the Holocaust.
04 You have traveled personally and in an official capacity as a member of the New York State legislature across the globe on educational missions relating to the Holocaust. Is there a particular location or experience that had an impact on you? During a trip to Munich, Germany, I visited the site of the Dachau concentration camp where more than 32,000 Jews and non-Jews were killed. The memorial bears this inscription: “Dachau—the significance of this name will never be erased from German history. It stands for all concentration camps which the Nazis established in their territory.” It was deeply moving to be in this spot to commemorate all the people who were murdered and the survivors who somehow managed to retain their hope and transcend the evil they witnessed. An experience that had deep personal meaning for me was visiting Demblin, Poland, to walk the same streets my parents walked, in the town where they met, a place that held so many happy memories for them until the Nazis came. I just wish they had been there to experience it with me.
05
03 Your district office has a longrunning competition for children to educate them about Yom Hashoah through art, music and other creative media. Where did the idea for this project originate? My parents were the inspiration. As a child, I would go into my parents’ bedroom to say goodnight but always asked to hear about their time during
Your district is home to the Holocaust Memorial Park, which has a gathering each year to remember and honor the victims. Why is this type of memorial important? These memorials are permanent, visual reminders of what happens when bigotry is taken to the extreme, and they also give people a chance to pay tribute to those who perished. In the case of Holocaust Memorial Park, it’s located in a heavily traveled spot, in
the very community where so many Holocaust survivors and secondand third-generation survivors live. It’s also right across the street from Bay Academy Junior High School, presenting a great teaching opportunity. Bay Academy is always an enthusiastic participant in my Holocaust Memorial Contest.
06 What is your hope for future generations in Brooklyn and beyond on how best to continue remembering and learning from the Holocaust? Sadly, the hatred and bigotry that allowed the Holocaust to take place is still a recurrent theme in our socalled civilized society—not just targeting Jews, but other groups as well. Educating our younger generations is our best hope for the future. Learning about the Holocaust doesn’t just teach kids about the dangers of anti-Semitism. It teaches them about tolerance, compassion, the danger of blind obedience and the urgency of speaking out against the ethical misdeeds we witness in our daily lives.
07 Is there a particular book, activity or experience that you can recommend to our readers to help honor and remember Yom Hashoah? For my Holocaust contest this year, I gave students the opportunity to respond to a quote from Elie Wiesel: “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” That quote is from Night, Wiesel’s book about his experience with his father in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. You can’t help but be affected by Night. I’m always reminded of what my parents went through—having their childhood stolen from them and having to grow up so suddenly amid pain and misery. And they were the lucky ones.
APRIL 19 – 25, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19
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OPINION
We Can Never Forget BY SCOTT M. STRINGER, NYC COMPTROLLER
It was around this time last year. A delegation of Latino elected officials and I wanted to promote cross-cultural understanding and embrace diversity. We landed, after a 10-hour flight, in a place like no other in the world. We were in Israel. We went to ask questions, and find answers. It was a journey – both personal and political – about how to be successful in the future by thinking about the past, about how to thrive going forward and break down barriers by reflecting on shared history. That is, to me, what Yom Hashoah is all about. Who we are, where we come from, the meaning of struggle, and how we grow from it – these are questions we ask ourselves on this day of reflection. The Holocaust stirs up a complicated and painful array of human emotions – horror, pain, fear, sadness, and more. It’s a reminder of the depths of the lowest points of human history. It’s painful, but the existence of that pain demonstrates exactly why we must keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. To draw lessons from the intersection of bigotry, rhetoric, hate and power that characterized the Holocaust, and to advance a simple message: We can never forget. And we can never let it happen again. We have a moral imperative to reflect on the memory of those who have been lost, to think critically and deeply about the pain and horror of the Holocaust. It’s part of our history. It’s a piece of who we are.
And it can never happen again not just to us. To anyone. I believe Yom Hashoah presents an opportunity to contemplate how we can learn from that past and build a better future – for all. Today, we’re living in uncertain times, and increasingly around the world, we’re seeing people being targeted because of who they are, what language they speak, and where they come from. We’re seeing hate crimes increase dramatically, and xenophobia on the rise.
Hate is germinating. What might have once been subliminal racism is increasingly out in the open. Jewish cemeteries and community centers have been vandalized. Bomb threats have been called. Swastikas have been painted on playgrounds. And it’s happened because at a time when we should be tearing down both literal and figurative barriers, many want to put up walls that are the “biggest” and “best” we’ve ever seen. At a time when we should be welcoming refugees and opening our country to those who need us most, we’re implementing travel bans and targeting specific religions. At a time when we should be opening our hearts and our country to families seeking a better life, America seems to be embracing mass deportations. We, as a people, know what it’s like to be targeted. We know what it means to be systematically segregated. And on Yom Hashoah, it’s critical to remember this past and think about how we can prevent it in the future. It’s imperative that we remember how we can stand up for those who are targeted by the forces of hate. Last year, while standing atop the Golan Heights, I thought about the Jewish state. Our history. Our values. Our struggle. I also thought about why we must encourage understanding and embrace diversity to thrive in the future. I thought about how we can be better. As Jews, we are challenged to transform and improve our world. We say “tikkun olam,” which means “repair the world.” And that’s a message we should remember on Yom Hashoah. Never forget. And never again. For anyone.
“Today, we’re living in uncertain times, and increasingly around the world, we’re seeing people being targeted because of who they are, what language they speak, and where they come from.”
22 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 19 – 25, 2017
NY Times Public Editor Raps Paper for Omitting Palestinian Writer’s Terrorist Past (JTA) — Liz Spayd, the public editor of The New York Times, took the newspaper to task for failing to identify Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti as a convicted murderer of Israeli Jews. Spayd responded Tuesday to criticism of the newspaper for publishing Sunday an op-ed by Barghouti identifying him only as “a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.” Nearly a day later, an editor’s note appended to the end of the article clarified that Barghouti is serving a lengthy prison term after being convicted in an Israeli court of five counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization. The publication of the op-ed, titled “Why we are on hunger strike in Israel’s prisons,” explained the launch of a hunger strike Monday by hundreds of
Palestinians who are jailed in Israel and seeking more favorable conditions. Failure to “more fully identify the biography and credentials of authors, especially details that help people make judgments about the opinions they’re reading,” Spayd wrote, “risks the credibility of the author and the oped pages. “In this case, I’m pleased to see the editors responding to the complaints, and moving to correct the issue rather than resist it. Hopefully, it’s a sign that fuller disclosure will become regular practice.” The newspaper was slammed by Israeli leaders and U.S. Jewish groups for its failure to mention Barghouti’s terrorist activities and conviction for murder.
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PHOTO VIA NY GOV. CUOMO’S FLICKR ACCOUNT
New York State to Establish HateCrimes Task Force (JTA) — New York State reportedly will establish a hate-crimes task force. The task force, which will identify and investigate hate crimes and discriminatory practices, will be established using $1 million set aside in the new state budget passed earlier this month, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The task force will be made up of members of the New York State Police, who will work with the state Division of Human Rights, prosecutors, and local school and law enforcement officials, the AP reported, citing the office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Following the vandalism at a Jewish cemetery in Rochester, New York,
Cuomo said in a statement, “New York has zero tolerance for bias or discrimination of any kind, and we will always stand united in the face of antiSemitism and divisiveness.” In mid-February, a report said that hate crimes against Jews more than doubled in New York City since the start of the new year from the same period in 2016. The city’s police department said 56 hate crimes were reported from Jan. 1 to Feb. 12, with 28 of the incidents targeting Jews. In the same period last year, the total number of hate crimes was 31, with 13 targeting Jews. Jews were the top targets in both years.
APRIL 19 – 25, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 23
Learning the Past Confronting the Present Educating the Future
Museum of Jewish Heritage A Living Memorial to the Holocaust presents
HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE COMMEMORATIONS AND EVENTS NEW YORK CITY APRIL 19 – APRIL 30, 2017
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24 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 19 – 25, 2017