The Holocaust/ Genocide Project An End to Intolerance

STOP HATE: TAKE A STAND

The Holocaust/ Genocide Project

An End to IntoleranceJune, 2006

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Introduction & What’s New

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Contributors and Staff

American School of The Hague, The NetherlandsBlue Ridge High School, ArizonaBoston Latin School, MassachussettsBowdoin College, MaineFacing History and Ourselves Cold Spring Harbor High School, New YorkCollege of Charleston, South CarolinaCommittee on Conscience, USHMM, Washington, D.C.Creighton University, NebraskaThe David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust StudiesDoctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres)Drew University, New JerseyGerda and Kurt Klein Foundation, Pennsylvania, USAGeorgetown University, Washington D.C.Heinrich Böll Comprehensive School, Cologne, GermanyHudson Falls High School, New YorkInternational School of Prague, Czech RepublicIsrael Education and Resource NetworkLakeview High School, Battle Creek, MichiganMaranyundo School For Girls, RwandaMetropolitan Youth Orchestra, New YorkNew Milford High School, New JerseyNew York State English Council, USAParaclete Human Rights OrganizationSchool #689, Moscow, RussiaSimon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, USAS.T.A.N.D., Students Take Action Now: DarfurSt. Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, Warragul, AustraliaTemple Beth El, Huntington, New YorkTemple Judea Holocaust Center, Manhasset, New YorkUnited Nations, New YorkUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.USC Shoah Foundation for the Visual History and Education

Danielle AbramcyzkJennica AllenKrikor AngacianSevan AngacianTalar AngacianAyten AriMaria BallKimberly BarbaLindsay BasilGreg BerneyCassie BixAmy BlizCaroline BodiCaroline BowerSam BrownDan ButlerAlexa CampagnaMatt CapetolaKeith CasadeiPatrick CareyAmanda CarterAnthony CerulloChristina CodySusan CoyneJohn CraneGeneva CumminsMichaela D’AgostinoMarikah DavinWade DavisDorian DeAngeloSofia de GuzmanMike DeJuneKristen DePreCheryl de VriesKatherine DiamondTara DolanTim DouglasJillian DoylePatricia DuarteDanielle DunnderRebekah EdelsteinBrendan EganDavid EitelCecilia EscobarSpencer EwallKevin FeinbergBrian FetterolfElise FishelsonConor FitzsimmonsCaitlin Flanagan

Bob FolksAshley FoxenJudi FreemanRachel FriedmanIrina GavrichevaLisa GelshenenLillian GewirtzmanEster GolanBen GoldJared GoldmanGideon GoldsteinKelsey GreenScott GuthartRachel HirschAndrew HollingerKatharine HughesDaryin HummelCindy HuynhMan Ho IpBrad KernerBobby KleinOrli KleinerSwenja KnopfTatyana KosterovaMatt KwockChristopher LackertSarah LackertStephanie LauCaroline LaverriereGreg LaverriereKate LaverriereCameron LeeJack LessingMargaret LincolnSam LisabethOlaf LundmarkRose ManilowDavid MaireRachel MargesonJames McCartenColin McGeoughBrandon McLearJohn McNeurDr. Rafael MedoffVictor MinachinMarina MikhailovaMary MillsNatasha MirAshley MogulTommy Montoya

Kate MoriartyRuth MorrongielloKelly MoynihanKayla MurdockJon NewmarkTim NicoletGalina NovichkovaMary O’ConnorMegan O’ConnorMichael O’ConnorLilly O’FlahertyAndrea PaloianAlyssa PassarelliNick PatchaBreanne PorzeltKatelyn PullingJames ReihingIrving RothJ.P. RoukisDasha SamuilovaKatya SavkovaKatya SavovaJutta SchaffarczykBoris SeincherRuth Minsky SenderYuriy ShashkovKayla ShaughnessyJessica ShueyMatti SimonElizaveta SklyshkinaEmma SobotaKelly SolingerStephanie SquillaceMatthew SunshineDasha SuklishkinaJustin SteinbergColleen TambuscioJessica TassanCarol TerburgKatie ThatcherNicole ThawFelix TsalikovJanice TyminskiNatalia UglavaVictoria VogelTim WagnerDeanna WallachJennifer WalsdorfShaina WhalenAaron Yost

Editor-in-ChiefLance Shapiro

Technical EditorsScott Kaufman and Herman Singh

International EditorSwenja Knopf, Germany

Art EditorsSofia de Guzman, David Eitel, Andrea Paloian

Senior EditorsKrikor Angacian, Caroline Bodi, Matt Capetola,

Keith Casadei, Tara Dolan, Daryin Hummel, Bobby Klein, Chelsea Macco, Natasha Mir, Mary O’Connor,

Peter Finocchiaro, James Reihing, Sarah Yewdell

Section EditorsTalar Angacian, Ben Gold, Orli Kleiner,

Jon Newmark, Matt Sunshine, Priya Vohra

Project MentorGideon Goldstein, Israel

Project CoordinatorHoney Kern, USA

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On the Cover:Top: Hungarian Jewish women and children await selection on the ramp of Birkenau. Courtesy of Newseum.org

Bottom: Kebkabiya IDP Children: A group of displaced children in Kebkabiya, North Darfur. Courtesty of USAID.gov“We wish to give special recognition to Mrs. Shirley Mayer for her invaluable contribution in conceiving and originating Holocaust-Genocide Studies in the Cold Spring Harbor S.D.”

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What’s New?4 Letter from the Editors5 A Message from the HGP Mentor 6 A Message from the Project Coordinator

Survivors Speak8 A Memorial10 Retracing My Past: DP Camps12 Helen Feder, My Grandmother14 The Story of My Story

In the Schools16 Earthquake in Kashmir17 The ‘Saved’ Torah18 Students Visit Poland20 The Facing History School21 Fifty Feet from Freedom22 The Next Top Seller23 The American Mistake24 A Field Trip in Netherlands26 Life In Shadows Exhibit28 The Great Blog36 In Germany, a Growing Jewish Community37 In Remembrance of Gestapo Victims38 Inside the EL-DE House39 Echo of Beslan’s Grief40 2005 Events in France42 A Holocaust Center Visit

Human Rights and Genocide43 A Trip to the ICTY44 The Paraclete Human Rights Organization45 90 Years of Denial46 Turkish-Armenian Court Case47 Never Again?48 A Call for Change in North Korea

Global Education50 Dachau: I’ll Never Forget

Volume 14, June 2006Cold Spring Harbor High School, New York, USA

A Telecommunications Project on the Israel Education and Resource Network

All Materials Contained Within are Copyright AETI 1993-2006© AETI 2006

Table of Contents50 Spielberg’s Shoah Project and USC51 Language Scholar Translates Poems52 U.N. International Day of Commemoration53 The Metropolitan Youth Orchestra55 Remembering Simon Wiesenthal57 “Deine Treue Mutti”60 Oprah and Auschwitz61 Moe Berg and Baseball62 Promoting Hate: ANP64 Holodomor Day in New York65 Diasporas and Host Societies68 Nuremberg Trials69 USHMM Denounces Holocaust Denial70 Holocaust Remembrance Day in Moscow

Student Reviews71 Obasan72 The Genocide Intervention Fund72 Crash73 One Survivor Remembers74 An Interactive Journey and the USHMM75 Paper Clips75 Update on Darfur

Alumni Podium76 Alumni Podium

Creative Impressions80 “Invisibility Powers”80 “Tears”81 “Faith to Live” 81 “Whisper of Innocence” 81 “At One Time”82 “Hate”82 “Famished and Naked”82 “Cage of Uncertainty”82 “Of Steel Worth”83 “The Nightmare”83 “Kristallnacht”

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June, 2006

Dear Readers,

This year the Holocaust/Genocide Project (HGP) celebrates its 14th year of publication and continues to work diligently and passionately to spread its message of tolerance. Students from all over the world contribute to this project and help make An End to Intolerance a reality. Over the years, Ruth Minsky Sender has visited the 8th graders at Cold Spring Harbor Junior-Senior High School, sharing her experiences of the Holocaust with them. They read her memoir, The Cage. Always accompanying her was her husband, Morris Sender, a generous man who assisted her in her presentations, carried her books, and displayed, for students, the concentration camp numbers branded on his arm. This year’s magazine is dedicated to Morris, who, though he passed away this past year, continues to inspire empathy for the victims of atrocities and genocide. Though it’s been over sixty years since the Holocaust ended, the world is still filled with distressing examples of human rights’ violations. Thousands of innocent lives continue to be lost to genocide in Darfur. Terrorism remains a sobering example of the destructive effects of hate. All over the world, intolerance remains epidemic, and, despite the determined efforts of various humanitarian organizations, shows no signs of disappearing. Accordingly, the theme of An End to Intolerance this year is Stop Hate: Take a Stand. The altruism displayed by students and teachers such as the contributors to this magazine, if magnified, can truly make a difference. With a concerted, global effort, it might be possible to, at least in some small way, curb the devastating influence of hate. Our project continues to spread its message of tolerance in conjunction with the new Israel Education and Resource Network (IEARN), which brings us to the world wide web. The HGP can be found on IEARN’s website, at www.iearn.org.il/hgp. Finally, the editors of this magazine would like to thank everyone who has participated in the project and without whose help the realization of this magazine could not have been accomplished. Thank you all for your fantastic efforts throughout this year.

Student Editors of An End to Intolerance

Cold Spring Harbor High School82 Turkey Lane, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 11724, USA

Tel: (631) 692-8600 Fax: (631) 692-8016E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.iearn.org.il/hgp

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The year gone by since AETI ’05 went to press, was a very important one for the influence of Holocaust remembrance around the world. In more than one sense, it was a year of extremes.

To begin with, I wish to thank the editors of AETI ’05 for allowing me to present a last minute column on the late Pope John Paul II1. The first Polish Pope personifies the contradictions of Holocaust remembrance: As I indicated in my column, there was no other pope who did so much for denouncing hate and anti-Semitism, and who profoundly emphasized the lessons of the Holocaust both in word and deed. Yet, it was Pope John Paul II who initiated during his pontificate the canonizing of his predecessor Pope Pius XII, who was infamously known as “Hitler’s Pope”. Pope John Paul II also completed the canonizing of Maximilian Kolbe, an active anti-Semitic bishop from Poland who volunteered his life to save a fellow Pole in Auschwitz; as well as Edith Stein - Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who was born to an orthodox Jewish family and was sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz despite having converted to Catholicism2.

On the positive side, it is interesting to note the process of the intensification of Holocaust remembrance as time goes by. Some years ago Professor Shewach Weiss, Ambassador of Israel to Poland and a Holocaust survivor wrote3:

“There are many indications that the Holocaust is becoming a new religion of sorts of Western civilization - a pervasive historical experience that grows wider and deeper. Alongside the rising tide of historical research and political preoccupation, ritual aspects are spreading... Next to the killing sites - Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Sobibór, Treblinka… and other vales of agony … monuments, museums and memorials are being erected, and plazas and streets are being named for Holocaust victims and resistance fighters.” As if to prove the above contentions, The United Nations, on November 1, 2005 accepted a comprehensive resolution4 including a global Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 of every year as well as urging member countries to forge educational programs on the Holocaust and condemning Holocaust denial. This resolution followed the acceptance of a very similar decision made earlier that year by the parliament of the European Union5.

Another important decision was reached in an Austrian court on February of 2006. One of the world’s most notorious Holocaust deniers, Professor David Irving was sentenced to three years in prison for his denial activities6.

Yet, on the other extreme, this past year produced the first national policy of Holocaust denial entwined with the first national policy of anti-Semitism. Iranian president Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad publicly proclaimed that the Holocaust was “a Myth”7 and that Israel must be moved elsewhere in the world. Ahmadi-Nejad is not the first politician charged with Holocaust denial; Dr. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen), the current President of the Palestinian Authority was charged with including revisionist philosophy in his doctoral dissertation8; yet the Iranian leader made his proclamation as a state policy in his presidential capacity.

The year 2006 also brought about a huge rise in the number of anti-Semitic cartoons in Arab and Muslim media9. The publication of anti-Muslim cartoons in the Scandinavian press brought about a formal, public

A Year in Review A Message from the HGP Mentor, Gideon Goldstein, Israel

Gideon Goldstein, Mentor

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competition initiated by Iran’s largest newspaper offering gold coins (and a $12,000 first prize) to the 12 top anti-Holocaust cartoons10 . Two-hundred entries have already been sent, some of which are viewable on the Internet11.

The questions to ask in mid-2006 are all about the duration of the trends. Will the recommendations of the United Nations General Assembly remain on paper or will they be practically adopted? Will we see awareness of the lessons of the Holocaust in countries that have not been active in Holocaust education? Will the polarization in the opinions on the Holocaust as demonstrated continue? All these could and should be future topics of research for AETI contributors and HGP participants.

1 h�p://www.iearn.org.il/hgp/aeti/aeti-2005/5-Global.PDF (Page 18 on the document; page 74 of the magazine).2 h�p://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ELENCO_SANTI_GPII_ok.htm3 www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/2/The+Impact+of+the+Holocaust+on+Politics-+by+Profes.htm4h�p://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/96/PDF/N0548796.pdf?OpenElement5 h�p://www.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade3?TYPE-DOC=MOTION&REF=P6-RC-2005-0069&MODE=SIP&L=EN6 h�p://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2049360,00.html7 h�p://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1930053,00.html8 Abbas, M. (Abu Mazen) (1984). “The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement.” The Wiesenthal Center Los Angeles.9 h�p://www.adl.org/main_Arab_World/arab_media_portrayal_jews.htm10 h�p://www.hamshahri.org/images/InternationalCartoonE.jpg11 h�p://www.irancartoon.com/110/contest/index2.htm

Holocaust/ Genocide Project Named “Program of Excellence”

Honey Kern, Project Coordinator and USHMM Teaching Fellow

It seems amazing to say: this is the 14th year of the Holocaust/Genocide Project (HGP). What began as a ‘grass roots’ project, has grown to include students and teachers in over 37 countries! With this in mind, I thought you would like to read an early email communication between one of the original HGP students and our project mentor, Gideon Goldstein. Brad Kerner, who sent this email message, wrote recently from Malawi a�er doing volunteer work for the Peace Corps in Gabon and working in a health clinic in Harlem, NY. Brad is now married and works with Save the Children as a Youth Health Specialist.

From the very beginning, Brad and the other HGP students wanted to write about their shared telecommunicating experiences, and so, An End to Intolerance (AETI), the global student magazine, was born. It has been such a wonderful journey: learning about each other’s cultures and history, writing to one

another, and visiting and traveling with each other. Because the Internet has made communication

easy, history and current events are closer to us all. Now our project has its own web site: www.iearn.org.il/hgp and the world has access to our work and has encouraged us. This past year, the HGP was named a Program of Excellence by the New York State English Council at its “We Can Change the World: The Transformative Nature of Teaching Conference”; our project was featured on the Facing History and Ourselves website and also on the Gerda and Kurt Klein website. In addition, copies of the magazine are part of the United Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Teaching Fellows’ resources. In the accompanying picture you can see students in Australia, holding up copies of last year’s AETI, for a presentation in their home country. It certainly has been a rewarding 14 years!

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Judy Barr and Students, St. Paul’s Anglican School, Australia

Documents

The Holocaust/ Genocide Project An End to Intolerance