The Holocaust

Our Speakers:

Hannie J. Voyles: Hannie's commitment to honoring the children of World War II, who survived that "ravaged time" is at the center of our 2011 Crossing Lines Seminar. Throughout our week together, we will refer often to Storming the Tulips, the book Hannie has both translated from the original Dutch version - and contributed to. Storming the Tulips is a tribute to 173 students from Hannie’s 1st Montessori School who were murdered by the Nazis and tells the story of twenty students who lived through that time. It is a complement to The Diary of Anne Frank and other works that explain the ravaging effect the war had on the children. Anne’s story tells of her sequestered life in The Annex; the children in Storming the Tulips show what life was like on the streets, in hiding, and in the concentration camps.

Resources:

• • An Interview with Hannie Voyles - Growing up in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, Hannie Voyles discusses life as a Holocaust survivor.

  • Storming the Tulips - Hannie Voyles' collection of stories from 20 former students of the 1st Montessori School in Amsterdam - child contemporaries of Anne Frank.

  • Storming the Tulips: An Interview with Hannie Voyles - Lesson to accompany or introduce Hannie's book.

  • Storming the Tulips: An Interview with Hannie Voyles - Teacher guide to use with the lesson.

  • Moments in the Mirror - "These are short pieces that set out to capture 'moments’ – a moment of truth, of recognition, of ah-ha, of being at one with our environment or culture, or universe."

  • First Montessori School of Amsterdam Commemoration - Video from Hannie's 2011 visit to the school with a plague to commemorate the children who did not survive WWII.

Sam and Carol Edelman: Carol Edelman is a Professor of Sociology at California State University, Chico, and Sam Edelman is a retired Professor of Communications at CSUC. They have been teaching courses on the Holocaust and genocide since the mid 1980’s and Carol continues to offer these classes every semester. Together, they have raised over $700,000 for their center and have been running seminars and workshops all over California for teachers on the Holocaust and genocide.

Each semester, Carol and Sam teach a course at CSU, Chico entitled Perspectives on Genocide in the 20th Century. With Sam , Carol is the recipient of numerous grants for her work as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award for Outstanding Documentaries in the Humanities for her documentary on cultural responses to Genocide. She is currently completing a book on the Holocaust entitled Underground Without Bullets.

Resources:

• • Crossing the Line - Bystanding Quotes

  • German Society Exercise

  • Life Choice Exercise

  • Remember.org

  • The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous

  • Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

  • Facing Histories and Ourselves

  • Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations

  • The Milgram Shock Experiment

  • Assigned Video 3.1: Obedience (Stanley Milgram's Classic Documentary)

  • The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

  • Anti-Antisemitism - The Longest Hatred

  • Unorthodox

Judie Fertig Penneton - As the daughter of a Holocaust survivors, Judie is committed to documenting and writing about survivors of the Holocaust and instances of discrimination, intolerance, and forced removals. Her book Proud Americans: Growing Up As Children of Immigrants "contains an element of autobiography: along with the 50 essays, memoirs and snippets she’s written or collected from first-generation U.S. residents."

• • Proud Americans: Growing Up as Children of Immigrants - A collection of inspirational stories about approximately 50 people’s joys and struggles while coming of age in the United States as children of immigrants. Here is an 18-minute audio interview with Judie's father, William Fertig.

Note: The photos at the top of this page were shared by Judie Panneton. From left to right: Wedding photo of her parents Esther Malach Fertig and William Fertig; photo of her parents at Displaced Persons Camp in Vienna, Austria; photo of her parents with her mom's sister, Hinda and her husband, Chanina. Chanina lived in Poland and worked with the underground. He also secured the false papers for Hinda and Judie's mom, identifying them as Christian orphans.

The faded photo at the bottom of this page is of Judie's father (on left) and mother (next to him) and Adam (who jumped to freedom with her father from a moving train) and Adam's wife Lola who was experimented on and could not have children.

A panel of 2nd Gen speakers will be joining Judie Panneton;

• • Judy Zolatar - Judy's mother's interview has been archived by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum - Oral history interview with Viola Dubov. Judy has also shared that when her grandparents and aunts arrived in Auschwitz, they were separated into two lines. Her grandmother and youngest aunt were sent into the line that went to the gas chamber. They were eliminated upon arrival at Auschwitz. The men, if they were chosen for slave labor, were sent to a labor camp. Her grandfather was sent to Dachau, an extermination camp in Germany, where he perished due to disease and starvation. Her mother’s three sisters survived Auschwitz. One sister was sent to Sweden to recover from tuberculosis and the other two sisters went home after the war.

  • Lorraine Katz - Lorraine Neibrief Katz was born and raised in New Jersey. Lorraine and her older sister, Ester, grew up with both of parents who had both survived many concentration camps. Her parents met in the DP camps after the war and moved to New Jersey to start a new life. In 1983 Lorraine moved to Florida with her husband. In 1999, the family, including their son, Jeffrey, moved to Northern California, where Lorraine still resides. She has a BS in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, N.J. Most of her career has been in employee benefits and workers compensation.

  • Judith (Judi) Schane - Judi was born 1948 in Shanghai, China, to Jewish parents who, with their parents and siblings, fled to that city in 1939. Her mother came from Vienna and father from Berlin. They left Shanghai in 1948, when Judi was an infant, along many other refugees by ship to San Francisco, and eventually settled in Oakland where Judi was raised. She attended San Francisco State University and obtained a teaching credential. Judi raised two children and spent over 25 years teaching elementary school in San Mateo, CA.

A Few Resources from Judi Schane:

• • Books

    • Shanghai Diary: A young Girl’s Journey from Hitler’s Hate to War-Torn China - From Ursula Bacon

    • Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War ll Ghetto - From Ernest G. Heppner

    • Survival in Shanghai: The Journals of Fred Marcus 1939-49 - From Audrey Friedman Marcus/Rena Krasno

    • Shanghai Escape: A Holocaust Remembrance Book for Young Readers - From Kathy Kacer

  • Documentary Films:

    • • Shanghai Exodus: Incredible Stories from the Caucasians Who Grew Up in China - Directed by Greg Andermann

      • Zufluct in Shanghai The Port of Last Resort - A film by Joan Grossman and Paul Rosdy

      • Shanghai Ghetto - A film by Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann

Joan Arnay Halperin - Joan is also the daughter of Holocaust survivors. With a BA in Speech and Drama and a Master of Arts Degree in TESOL, she has devoted many years to teaching, grant writing and teacher training at various New York City Public Schools.

• • My Sister's Eyes: A Family Chronicle of Rescue and Loss During World War II - Based on Joan's parents' exodus across half the world following their rescue by the 'Angel of Bordeaux,' Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

  • Sousa Mendes Foundation - The Sousa Mendes Foundation is dedicated to honoring the memory of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes and to educating the world about his good work.

  • Portugal finally recognizes consul who saved thousands from Holocaust - From the BBC, an excellent account of the moral dilemma Aristides de Sousa Mendes faced as "the streets of Bordeaux filling with Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis."

  • Pope Francis: Freedom of conscience must be respected always and everywhere - "Marking the Day of Conscience, inspired by the witness of Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Pope Francis appeals that freedom of conscience be respected always and everywhere."

  • Journey on the Road to Freedom - Retrace the footsteps of the rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes and the refugees he saved in 1940 on this 11-day, 10-night guided trip of a lifetime, beginning in Bordeaux and ending in Lisbon. Note: Due to Covid-19, the 2020 trip has been cancelled.

  • Nobody Wants Us: Recommended by Joan, this documentary film, directed by Laura Seltzer-Duny, tells the story of some of the last refugees allowed into the United States until the end of World War II: "In 1940, a ship called the S.S. Quanza left the port of Lisbon carrying several hundred Jewish refugees to freedom. Most of them held life-saving visas issued by the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes. But events went terribly wrong, and the passengers became trapped on the ship because no country would take them in."

Frank W. Baker - Frank's Media Literacy Clearinghouse website is a nationally recognized media literacy resource website. His journey into Holocaust documentation stems from the opportunity to interview and film two survivors.

• • Stories of Survival - Frank's beautifully done website is devoted to two stories of survival: Bluma Tishgarten and Felix Goldberg - both young Polish Jews caught up in the Holocaust, and includes Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the rise of antisemitism and more.

  • From Nightmare To Freedom: Healing After The Holocaust - Recommended by Frank, authors Lillian and Dennis Judd's autobiography is "a living example of how individual feelings of anger, hatred and intolerance play into behaviors that can lead up to genocides and how powerful the act of forgiveness is in releasing these negative feelings."

  • Then and now: exploring the ‘Dimbleby dispatch’ - Another recommendation by Frank, this website is from the UK's Holocaust Education organization and introduces students to "the now famous radio broadcast by Richard Dimbleby in the days after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by British Forces."

Additional Resources:

Lessons

• • Antisemitism and Religious Intolerance - From Facing History and Ourselves, a collection of lessons and resources designed to help students make "connections between historic debates over religious liberty and contemporary global tensions over faith, identity, citizenship, and immigration."

Videos/Films/Articles

• • Saturday Night Live Seder - "With its glittering assembly of stars, jokes that worked and attendees who could, well, sing, it was the Zoom Seder you wished you had."

  • Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations - From PBS, explores the "recent rise in antisemitism, which is increasing in ways not seen since the 1930s, in the U.S. and Europe." Note: Available only through June 23, 2020.

  • Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War - "Martha and Waitstill Sharp, American Unitarian aide workers, helped thousands of Jews, intellectuals, and children in Prague, Lisbon, and southern France in 1939–1940. "

  • WW2: How did one Englishman save 669 children from the Holocaust? - In 1938, Nicholas Winton was a young stockbroker in London who was keenly aware of the events unfolding on the continent. "Instead of wringing his hands, he headed to Prague and hatched a plan that saved the lives of hundreds of children in the months before the outbreak of World War Two."

  • The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler - Irene Sendler "was part of the Polish underground during World War II and was arrested by the Nazis for saving the lives of nearly 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw ghetto."

  • Unorthodox - A Netflix special about "a Hasidic Jewish woman in Brooklyn who flees to Berlin from an arranged marriage and is taken in by a group of musicians — until her past comes calling."

  • Defiant Requiem - "The little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezín. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezín fought back...with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold onto their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them."

  • Schindler's List -" In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis."

  • Sophie's Choice - Based on Olga Lengyel's Five Chimneys, "Sophie is the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who has found a reason to live with Nathan, a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust."

  • Jojo Rabbit - This award-winning film is the story of a lonely German boy who discovers that his single mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. "Aided only by his imaginary friend -- Adolf Hitler -- Jojo must confront his blind nationalism as World War II continues to rage on."

  • Who Will Write Our History: Documenting Truth in the Warsaw Ghetto - Filmmakers Nancy Spielberg and Roberta Grossman tell this story from the Warsaw Ghetto, where "days after the Nazis sealed 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, a secret band of journalists, scholars and community leaders decided to fight back. Their code name was the Oyneg Shabes, a clandestine group vowing to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda, not with guns but with pen and paper." Here is a link to Nancy Spielberg's trailer.

  • Swing Kids - "A close-knit group of young kids in Nazi Germany listen to banned swing music from the U.S. Soon, dancing and fun lead to more difficult choices, as the Nazis begin tightening their grip on Germany. Each member of the group is forced to face some tough choices about right, wrong, and survival." This recently posted video on the VT News and Media website is another reminder of Hitler Youth groups.

  • The Wave - Based on a true story, video shows "an experiment in a high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany."

  • Teaching the Holocaust - Professor of Jewish education and Holocaust scholar Karen Shawn discusses creating a safe space for students learning about the Holocaust. Note: Karen also publishes PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators.

  • Empowering Young People to Repair the World - TED Talk from Mark Gudgel.

Books

• • Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz - In 1947, Olga Lengyel was one of the first Holocaust survivors to publish an account of the Nazi death camps, describing with unflinching honesty and precision her experiences in Auschwitz and Birkenau. Olga made it her mission to let the world know about the atrocities of Auschwitz in the hopes that such horrors would never befall other societies again. Thirty years later, her vivid exposé of the death camps became one of the haunting testimonies that inspired William Styron’s award-winning novel, Sophie’s Choice. TOLI was founded in honor of Olga's work and legacy.

  • On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate - Sondra Perl is the Senior Program Director of TOLI, US Programs, Professor Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and an award-winning scholar. Her journey in the Holocaust began in 1996, when she was invited to teacher in Austria. Ever since, she has been involved in post-Holocaust dialogue with members of the second and third generations in the United States and in Europe.

  • Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust - Eve Bunting's classic story with a powerful message on the role and danger of bystanders.

  • Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust - Alexandra Zapruder's collection of diaries written by young people, aged twelve to twenty-two years, during the Holocaust. "Some of the writers were refugees, others were in hiding or passing as non-Jews, some were imprisoned in ghettos, and nearly all perished before liberation."

  • I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944 - Poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates of the Terezin Concentration Camp depicting the "daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their hopes and fears, their courage and optimism."

  • Sophie's Choice - Based on Olga Lengyel's Five Chimney's, William Styron’s award-winning novel was also turned into an award-winning movie.

  • Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto - Samuel D. Kassow's book is the basis for the Who Will Write Our History documentary film (Nancy Spielberg & Roberta Grossman).

  • Anti-Antisemitism - The Longest Hatred - Author Robert Wistrich "provides a country-by-country look at antisemitism, from its pagan beginnings to its recent reemergence in Europe."

  • Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland - "Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs.

  • The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler - Irena Sendler, a social worker, was a part of the Polish Underground during WWII. She saved the lives of over 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out the Warsaw Ghetto.

  • Hidden Children: Forgotten Survivors of the Holocaust - Andre Stein "tells the stories of Jewish children who survived the Holocaust through the help of brave adults."

  • The Sunflower - Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal shares responses from 53 people, including theologians, political leaders, genocide survivors and more "on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness."

  • Night - Elie Wiesel's "candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.

  • Bondi's Brother - Irving Roth's riveting account of his life before, during, and after the Holocaust. You can also listen to an interview with Irving on the TOLI website.

  • Man's Search for Meaning - Also a Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankle's descriptions of life in Nazi death camps are mixed with his lessons learned for spiritual survival.

  • Escape from Sobibor - Based on his interviews with 18 survivors, Richard Rashke tells the story of the 1943 mass escape from the German extermination camp at Sobibor, the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination camps. The film below, which stars Alan Arkin, Joanna Pacuła, and Rutger Haue, is in the Public Domain.