THE INDEPENDENT PRESS OF VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY 2ⁿ place, weekly newspaper of the year — 2018 Pinnacle Awards
COMMONWEALTHTIMES.ORG @theCT
VOL. 60, NO. 15 | DECEMBER 5, 2018
GRUELING STRETCH Redshirt-sophomore forward Corey Douglas opened the scoring against Iona with a three from the left wing. He finished with 11 points and four blocks. Photo by Jon Mirador
Men’s Basketball routes Iona ahead of season-defining matchups with Texas and UVA
See MEN’S BASKETBALL on page 5
Remembering the destruction of the Holocaust through the eyes of a survivor LOGAN REARDON Staff Writer
was taken to an airport to fix a vehicle where he crossed paths with a farmer he knew. The pair worked to plan his family’s escape. ay Ipson had to count lice to entertain himTwo years later, just before Ipson and his famself during the six months of his childhood ily escaped, the Kovno Ghetto was transitioned he spent in a cramped underground room into the Kovno Concentration Camp. with a dozen other Jewish family members. He Ipson recalled the night in November 1943 was one of the few Lithuanian Jews to make it when he and his parents escaped Kovno through out of the Holocaust alive. a cut in the wire fence. Ipson ran across the In May 1997, Ipson co-founded the Virginia street to hide behind the fence of another house. Holocaust Museum in Richmond. The muse“I was scared shitless,” Ipson said. “I couldn’t um features recreations of his memories of the say a word. It was dark. It was cold. I huddled Holocaust and important events that transpired behind a fence for about 45 minutes before during and after World War II. Ipson said my mother came to get me. That seemed like watching the museum grow in popularity was an eternity.” “very gratifying.” Ipson and his family walked in the freezing In 1941, Ipson and his family were forced Lithuanian cold to a farmer waiting to take them into the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania. Later that away in a wagon full of straw. They went to anyear, 27,000 people were herded into a huge field other farmer’s property, which would become inside the ghetto. Through a selection process, their new home for the next nine months. more than 10,000 people were executed. Ipson’s Meet Jay Ipson, survivor of the Lithuanian Kovno Ghetto in father lied, saying he was a car mechanic and See HOLOCAUST on page 2 the thick of World War II. Photo by Erin Edgerton
J
A final encore for Strange Matter Three piece band, Vundabar, performing at Strange Matter. Photo by Henry Archer
NEWS Diversity forum 3
SPORTS Baseball 6
SPECTRUM Implicit dimensions 11
OPINIONS Farewells 13
Story on page 11