Tag: Holocaust

Anne Frank exhibit at VHEC till July 31

The Frank family on the Merwedeplein, May 1941.  (photo from AFF BASEL, CH / AFS AMSTERDAM, NL)

Since her diary was first published in 1947, Anne Frank’s story has reached many millions of readers. Her precocious wisdom, her courage and her unswerving faith in the goodness of humanity are humbling. Many young readers encounter Anne’s work at school, as an introduction to their study of the Holocaust. Readers find a focus for their curiosity, grief and raw outrage in the fate of Anne and her family. But how do we ensure that this history truly is for “today”? And how do we help them make sense of a troubled world that has descended into horrifying chaos? These harsh lessons are currently being explored through Anne Frank – A History for Today, currently housed at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

According to Nina Krieger, VHEC’s executive director, this exhibit has seen “unprecedented numbers” of visitors – of all ages and ethnic backgrounds – at the centre’s Sunday openings. There are visitors during the week, of course, as well as school groups who tour the exhibit under the guidance of the centre’s docents. In addition to the training docents receive from VHEC education director Adara Goldberg, this exhibit has been guided by the exhibit’s Amsterdam staff, who traveled to Vancouver to offer their support.

On May 29, the JI accompanied Grade 6 and 7 students from King’s School in Langley as they toured the exhibit with docent Lise Kirchner. Described by their teacher Peter Langbroek as “cogent, clear and informative,” Kirchner moved swiftly between the display boards. Pausing frequently to ask questions, she encouraged the students at every step, reinforcing and building on their answers. What are these children wearing? asked Kirchner, referring to an image of Hitler Youth in uniform. Why did the children have to join this organization? One student replied astutely, “Because they are the next generation.”

The class group also included school parents, who were clearly invested in the day’s lessons. The presence of parents is extremely important, Langbroek explained, because students often need to talk through their reactions later on, not just in class or during the ride home. “It helps to have a facilitator at the dinner table,” he said. This was evident in the comments heard around the display cases, as mothers discussed their own questions. “Would you put your own family at risk?” one mom asked.

In line with the policy of Holocaust education centres worldwide, VHEC recommends their exhibits for children of 10 and up. According to Krieger, “Grade 5 is standard practice for Yad Vashem and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Centre; our community bases its offerings on best pedagogical practice and current research.”

photo - The movable bookcase entrance to the secret annex
The movable bookcase entrance to the secret annex. (photo from Photos Anne Frank House, 2010. Copyright Anne Frank House, photographer Cris Toala Olivares)

When asked about his reasons for bringing his students to the exhibition, Langbroek explained that this is his 27th year in the classroom, and his reasons for doing so were spiritual – his is a Christian school – and personal, as well as professional.

“There are so many life lessons taught in this history,” he said. “By informing youth of this history and showing how bullying is a small-scale version of state-sponsored brutality, we can help train them in God’s righteousness.”

Raised by Dutch parents, Langbroek’s mother saw Jews being arrested and taken away in trucks; two of his uncles took Jews into their homes. An avid reader of Chaim Potok’s work, Langbroek has long been fascinated by “the pockmarked history of pogroms, exiles and forced conversions that took place in the Christian era.” He said he struggles with the atrocities committed in the name of a savior who set himself “the highest moral standard.” He added, “To me, it would only be natural for a Christian to risk his life to hide Jews.”

As well as the photographs and information on the boards, the exhibition room at the VHEC includes a 3-D model of the building and annex where the Franks were hidden. The students were clearly interested in the model and there was much crowding around, leaning in and craning of necks. Here, Kirchner honed in on the Franks’ living conditions, supported by a few trusted friends with shared food rations and occasional treats, like magazines. How do you occupy yourself when you are stuck inside for two years? she asked the students to consider. What about during the Allied bombing raids? Everyone else was hiding underground, in shelters, while Anne was in an attic at the top of a tall building. She couldn’t go down and risk being caught, noted Kirchner, but there were bombs landing all around them.

The exhibition also includes five glass cases housing original artifacts, saved by local Holocaust survivors. These items are particularly valuable, said Krieger. “A document is an eyewitness to the time.”

In a recent article for VHEC’s newsletter, Zachor, Kirchner talks about these donations from local survivors. She says that they help students to develop a personal relationship with Holocaust history. For example, in one case, students are able to see the yellow star worn by Inge Manes before she was hidden in a convent and confirmed as a Catholic. In another case, there is a medal showing that her rescuer was honored by Yad Vashem for bravery. The personal connections formed during these visits are an education that lasts a lifetime. Krieger refers to this as an “ongoing resonance.”

The King’s School students clearly appreciated the artifacts. They were given copies of an identity document belonging to Regina Bulvik. Asked to interpret the information it carried, they learned that she was the sole survivor of the Holocaust in her family, and had traveled to Canada alone, with no papers. At that time, she was still a teenager and was required to have a Jewish sponsor family here before being allowed to immigrate. The students pored over this document, scrutinizing it carefully as they responded to Kirchner’s questions.

photo - nne’s room. After the Frank family took up residence in the secret annex, Anne pasted all sorts of magazine clippings and postcards on the walls of her room
Anne’s room. After the Frank family took up residence in the secret annex, Anne pasted all sorts of magazine clippings and postcards on the walls of her room. (photo from Photos Anne Frank House, 2010. Copyright Anne Frank House, photographer Cris Toala Olivares)

On returning to school, the students’ comments about the exhibit were telling. They spoke about justice, love and kindness. They showed gratitude for their freedoms and their desire to live well with God.

Vanessa contemplated the inner life of the Franks, who “probably felt guilty because their Jewish friends and family were sent to concentration camps while they were hiding and getting help.”

Added Hannah, “I would always wonder, Are my Jewish friends in a labor camp right now or even dead? And what would it be like if I was not a Jew and just a regular German?”

Caleb imagined being in the annex, being afraid to “step on a creaky floor board.” Megan said she’d miss “feeling the sunlight on my back.”

For these students, the exhibition is about prejudice and intolerance. It’s about standing up for – rather than judging or bullying – those we perceive to be different than ourselves. It’s about suffering through harsh lessons and still making dignified, compassionate choices.

Anne Frank – A History for Today is at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 50-950 West 41st Ave., until July 31, Mon-Thurs, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Fri, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Shula Klinger is a freelance writer living in North Vancouver.

Survivor Judith Weiszmann was saved by Raoul Wallenberg

Judith Weiszmann holds an audience of students spellbound at Merivale High School in Ottawa in October 2013. (photo by Jeremy Page)

No matter the audience, Judith Weiszmann has three key messages when she speaks about the Holocaust: always remember the good that one person can do in the world, pay attention to the pockets of antisemitism springing up in some parts of Europe and North America, and remember that living in peace with your neighbors is much better than the alternative.

Judith and her husband Erwin, z”l, both structural engineers who emigrated to Canada after the Hungarian Revolution, were frequent speakers about the Holocaust for schools and service clubs in Winnipeg, where Judith still lives and continues to be an outreach speaker. The families of both Judith and Erwin were saved by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish businessman-turned-diplomat who came to Hungary towards the end of the war and managed to issue thousands of Schutzpasses (a document identifying the bearer as a Swedish citizen rather than as a Jew) to Hungarian Jews who were on the brink of being deported to concentration camps.

image - The Schutzpass of Judith Weiszmann (née Kopstein), which was featured in a stamp issued by Sweden and also one issued by Canada
The Schutzpass of Judith Weiszmann (née Kopstein), which was featured in a stamp issued by Sweden and also one issued by Canada. (image from Judith Weiszmann)

In 2011, the Swedish government issued a stamp commemorating the 100th birthday of Wallenberg. It featured a picture of Wallenberg in the foreground and an image of a Schutzpass in the background, complete with a picture of the 14-year-old bearer of the pass, Judith Kopstein, who later became Judith Weiszmann. Serendipitously, Judith had presented a copy of her Schutzpass to Wallenberg’s half-sister Nina 10 years previously when Nina attended the unveiling of a statue in her brother’s honor in Toronto. Upon returning to Sweden, unbeknown to Judith, Nina framed her Schutzpass and hung it in her home. Years later, the Swedish Postal Services made use of the image and Canada also issued a stamp using the same Schutzpass, never imagining that the young girl pictured in it was still alive. When Canada Post learned that Judith, then 83, was very much alive, and tremendously honored to appear on a Canadian stamp with Wallenberg, they held a special ceremony for her in Toronto to mark the connections.

Since the issuing of the Wallenberg stamps, Judith has received a wide-ranging number of speaking requests – requests she is only too glad to oblige. In her words, they provide her with an opportunity to “bear witness” to the selflessness of Wallenberg and remind her audiences that forces of evil can take root again if we are not vigilant.

In Ottawa, in October 2013, Judith held an audience of students spellbound in the ethnically diverse Merivale High School during both her morning and afternoon presentations. According to teacher Irv Osterer, whose efforts resulted in Judith’s visit, “by the afternoon, word had gone around the school about how important it was for everyone to hear this woman speak. By the afternoon presentation, the kids were almost hanging from the rafters of the auditorium.”

photo - Judith Weiszmann and teacher Irv Osterer, third and fourth from the left, with students from Merivale High School's Jewish Culture Club at the Ottawa's Raoul Wallenberg Park
Judith Weiszmann and teacher Irv Osterer, third and fourth from the left, with students from Merivale High School’s Jewish Culture Club at the Ottawa’s Raoul Wallenberg Park. (photo by Jeremy Page)

Drawing parallels between the fact that she was the age of many of the high school students when she lived through the Holocaust, she inspired the students with messages about the difference one person can make in the world, how hating your neighbor is not a way forward, and about how a better world will come from all of us living side by side in peace. At the conclusion of her remarks, a young woman in a hijab bounded to the front of the theatre to give Judith a spontaneous embrace.

From Ottawa, Judith continued to Toronto, where she spoke to a joint session of B’nai Brith Canada and the Law Society of Upper Canada and to a conference hosted by Canada, the 2013 chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an international body that deals with Holocaust and related educational matters and liaises with several governments, Holocaust researchers and educators.

As a result of the Toronto speaking engagements, in February 2014, Judith had the opportunity to realize a lifelong dream, which was to travel to Wallenberg’s homeland, Sweden. On this occasion, she was the guest of the Canadian government and was asked to speak once more to another conference of the IHRA in which the leadership of the alliance rotated from Canada to England.

The stories she told of how the war affected Hungarian Jews and how Wallenberg’s interventions saved thousands of Jews from the gas chambers no doubt resonated as deeply with the Swedish audience as they did with those in Canada. One of Judith’s most remarkable memories is about the last time anyone in the West actually saw Wallenberg.

Judith’s father, Andor Kopstein, was a senior administrative support to Wallenberg. German was the language in which they communicated. On the final day Wallenberg was seen, they were in Budapest together, as Wallenberg was to travel to Debrecen, a Hungarian city that had already been liberated. In conjunction with the Swedish Red Cross, Wallenberg’s intentions were to purchase food in Debrecen for the general population in Budapest, all of whom had had little access to food. It was widely known that Wallenberg had a considerable amount of gold on his person – funds provided by his own government and the governments of several Allied countries – with which he planned to pay for the food. Wallenberg was about to get into the middle car of a three-car convoy, with Russian military officers in the lead and last cars. Just before the convoy pulled away, Wallenberg said to Judith’s father, in German, “I am not sure if these are my bodyguards or my captors.” Wallenberg was never seen again. A young Judith had watched the exchange, hiding behind an entrance door to her apartment building, and her father repeated Wallenberg’s words to her when the convoy departed.

photo - Canada's Dr. Mario Silva hands the gavel over to the United Kingdom's Sir Andrew Burns
Canada’s Dr. Mario Silva hands the gavel of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) over to the United Kingdom’s Sir Andrew Burns. (photo by Nicole Roberts, British embassy, Berlin)

At the conclusion of the IHRA conference, Judith met with several Hungarian men and women who had moved to Sweden immediately after the war. At the end of the war, Sweden offered the opportunity for Jewish orphans to be brought to its shores. All those who came at that time have remained in Sweden and made their lives there. Other Hungarians came to Sweden after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.

Judith gave one further presentation on her trip: to teachers involved in an educational institution that the Swedish government formed some years ago after hearing about resurgences of antisemitism in Norway and elsewhere in Europe.

The fate of Wallenberg has never been known for certain but was undoubtedly a topic of conversation when Judith had the chance once more to meet his half-sister Nina. Stopping for tea with Nina and several of Nina’s nieces, and with her own daughter Ann, who accompanied her on the trip, Judith told one interviewer that she and Nina were “united in a love for her brother Raoul.”

From Sweden, Judith traveled to Budapest to visit with relatives and speak at the Jewish Club, a sort of unofficial arm of the IHRA. The club receives some modest financial help from the alliance for its efforts to fight antisemitism. Its main activity is to present lectures and other educational presentations to teachers, students and, occasionally, the general public about the Holocaust and antisemitism. As Judith explained to me, “During the communist regime, there was no education about WWII. Today’s reality is that there is whole generation of teachers who have grown up with no background whatsoever on what happened during the war, Hungary’s role in it and the consequences of antisemitism. They cannot teach what they do not themselves know about.”

Judith’s presentation drew about 70 people, 60 of whom were students at the senior high school or university level. Organizers told her that about 55 of the students present were non-Jews, which Judith saw as an expression of interest and open-mindedness, and she remarked that the students asked intelligent questions. Many attendees admitted that they were hearing for the first time about Hungary’s role in the war and about the treatment of Jews and other minorities during that time. At the conclusion of her talk, one non-Jewish young man stood to say that he knew that there were fewer survivors each year and that “we young people have to take over and talk about it.”

Since returning home from Sweden and Hungary, Judith continues to share her messages with groups of students and others in Winnipeg. Now, she also wants to talk about new concerns she has about the rise of antisemitic incidences in Hungary. In her view, after the landslide victory of Hungary’s right-wing party in the country’s national elections on April 6, “things do not look very promising for Hungarian Jews.” She is irritated with plans (proposed by the previous government) to erect a monument suggesting that Hungary was occupied during the Second World War and that any fault lies with the German Nazis. A very feisty Judith Weiszmann is here to say otherwise – however, she is also here to remind us how much good one person can do in the world and that we all have options to work at peaceful coexistence.

Karen Ginsberg, an Ottawa-based writer, considers herself blessed to count Judith as a friend.

Mourning turns to joy

Passover is a traditional time for families to sit down together and celebrate a holiday of freedom and deliverance. It’s a time to catch up and share meaningful moments. For one family torn apart by the Second World War, this Passover held a special significance as they caught up on nearly 70 years of history.

For 65 years, Holocaust survivor Rabbi Gershon Chanowitz said Kaddish for his sister, Asna Mera, who he believed had been murdered by the Nazis in 1942. And, for more than half a century, Asna Mera thought that all of her siblings had perished in the Holocaust, leaving her a lone survivor. But thanks to an incredible turn of events, the children of these survivors have learned of each other’s existence and have been reunited. With a shot-in-the-dark Google search and an implausible email, the long-lost Chanowitz cousins began unearthing a mystery spanning six decades and three continents.

A mysterious email

“About a week ago, my son, Moishe, the Chabad emissary [to St. Maarten], received an email through his Chabad website from someone in Israel searching for any news of his relatives,” said Rabbi Ben Zion Chanowitz, a Chabad emissary in Monticello, N.Y., and the son of Gershon Chanowitz – who passed away this past summer at the age of 91.

An excerpt from the email (grammatically edited) read:

“Shalom. I don’t speak English well…. I am from Vitebsk, Belarus. My name is Sashe Bumginz. My mother’s surname was Chanowitz from the shtetl of Glubokoe in the Vitebsk region. In the war, all of my family perished. I am interested in all information on Chanowitz from Glubokoe.”

“I was skeptical at first,” admitted Chanowitz. “We know all of our relatives, after all.” But then a follow up email “shook everything I knew.” Bumginz sent another email detailing his family history with names, places and dates that matched up exactly with Chanowitz’s. He explained how his mother, who passed away in 2007, survived the war and raised a family. As far as he knew, no other close family survived, but he was always searching for any information he could find on his family history.

Suddenly, the largely American-based Chanowitz family was electrified. Could their father’s sister have survived the war? Could they have cousins they hadn’t known existed?

Bumginz grew up in Soviet Russia and eventually moved to Israel in the early ’90s, where he is currently living in Herzilyah with his wife and two children. When he first arrived in Israel he contacted the Holocaust centre and museum Yad Vashem, as well as other resources over the years, attempting to seek out any information they might have on his mother’s family, but every search reached a dead end.

In March 2014, on Purim, Bumginz was invited by a Chabad co-worker to a farbrengen, a Chassidic gathering to celebrate the holiday. At the farbrengen, Bumginz opened up about his history and mentioned that his family, Chanowitz, has been Chabad for generations. He asked around if anyone knew the name, and one participant mentioned that there were Chabad emissaries with that name and suggested that Bumginz use Google to find them. A short search led to the Chanowitz family of St. Maarten, and the email above was received and then forwarded to Ben Zion Chanowitz.

An email exchange ensued.

“Many of us are excited and emotional about this special family news,” said Rebbetzin Simie Schtrocks, Gershon’s daughter. Schtrocks resides in South Surrey, serving as co-director of the Centre for Judaism, Chabad’s branch serving the Lower Fraser Valley.

“It is mind blowing that after 65 years plus we should now find out that Asna Mera actually did survive, had two children and lived in Vitebsk of all places. How tragic it is that she was unaware that the Lubavitch world had continued to flourish and that she had brothers 6,000 miles away who would have been thrilled to help her.”

As the family digests this news, they are slowly discovering stories explaining the years of misinformation, and uncovering many painful details along the way.

Gershon’s story

In the early 1920s, Gershon Chanowitz was born in the town of Glubokoe, in what was then Poland, a border city that has belonged to Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus in the previous 100 years. He was one of 10 children in a dynastic Chabad Chassidic family. His father, Ben Zion, was a shochet (ritual slaughterer), a follower of the previous Lubavitcher rebbe, and an important figure in the small town of 5,000 Jews.

Gershon was sent at a young age to learn in a yeshivah in Otwock, Poland, and he was there in 1941 after the war broke out. At the advice of the previous Lubavitcher rebbe, he escaped north to Warsaw and then Vilna. He found out about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese ambassador to Kovno, who was signing visas that saved some 2,000 Jewish lives. He obtained visas for three of his siblings, and snuck back to Glubokoe to beg his father to allow him to add his youngest brother, Yisroel, to a forged family passport, allowing him to leave as well. Ben Zion, his wife and the other children stayed behind. Gershon procured visa #1785 for himself, #1836 for his oldest sister Fruma, #1841 for his brother Shmuel Avraham and #2027 for young Yisroel. It was just in time too – the last issued visa was #2039.

The four siblings traveled to Kobe, Japan, and then Shanghai, China, where they resided until they could obtain visas to the United States. During that time, Shmuel Avraham died of an illness in Shanghai. When the war was over, they corresponded with different services seeking any information about their remaining family and discovered that their parents and siblings had been killed. A fifth brother, Chaim, escaped the war, and moved to the newly founded state of Israel and then to America. Eventually, the other three siblings made it to the United States and started rebuilding their lives, establishing the large families that exist today.

When the surviving siblings in the West sought out information on exactly what had happened to their family, they learned that, one day, when the Nazis arrived in town seeking to fill a “death quota,” they went about town killing people. The remaining Chanowitz family barricaded themselves in their house. At one point, they heard desperate banging on the door and 16-year-old Asna Mera, anguished at the thought that it might be a Jew seeking refuge, and despite her family’s protest, answered the door. The German soldier standing there grabbed her and took her away to be killed. The rest of the family was killed a year later in another mass murder.

Gershon and his surviving siblings, Chaim, Yisroel and Fruma, marked their parents’ and siblings’ passing every year, and said Kaddish for them throughout their lives.

Asna Mera’s story

The day that Asna Mera opened the door to the Nazi, she was taken to a soccer field with about 800-900 other Jews. They were then boarded onto trucks to be taken to be executed. On the way, a German commander picked her, and 14 other young beautiful girls, to be taken to a German army base to be among the soldiers. At one point, Asna Mera was with a soldier who had a large knife on his belt. She grabbed the knife and stabbed him to death, running away into the woods.

In the woods, she eventually met up with her 12-year-old brother, Tzvi Hersh, who had also escaped. The two siblings were freezing in the brutal winter and starving. They remembered that their well-respected father had a non-Jewish farmer friend in a nearby town to whom he once gave a large down coat and an expensive ring. They decided to go ask the farmer, who their father had always trusted, for the coat so they could survive. Scared to go together, Tzvi Hersh went first and knocked on the door. The farmer opened the door and grabbed the young boy, tied him up and gave him to the police in exchange for a 10-kilogram bag of flour. Tzvi Hersh was hanged that day.

Asna Mera miraculously survived the war, thinking she was a lone survivor. In her attempts to find her siblings, she traced them to Vilna but then their trails disappeared. She never found out what happened to them. At age 39, she married and moved to Vitebsk, which at that point was a part of Soviet Russia. She had two sons, one Simeon/Ben Zion, named after her father, and another, Sashe/Sholom Ber. Despite communism’s harsh shadow, she raised them as religious Jews.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Sashe moved to Israel. Asna Mera once visited in the early 2000s, and went to Yad Vashem herself, where she again tried to seek out more information to no avail.

After the war, Asna Mera discovered the heartbreaking news that the day after she killed the German soldier, the Nazis returned to Glubokoe and killed 150 people in retaliation. She suffered under the shadow of this horrific event all her life.

“She had very little happiness in life,” said Sashe. “She went through so much during the war.” And, when her oldest son Ben Zion was brutally killed while serving in the Russian army (he was thrown off a train by his comrades), she was devastated anew. “She was always quiet and withdrawn and broken.”

“We all wish she at least had happiness,” said Schtroks upon learning the news. “And she still did from her surviving son, passing down the family tradition and maintaining a legacy. We are just sad that although my father and his siblings tried so hard to find missing relatives, they did not find her in time to help her and ameliorate her situation.”

A family reunited

Despite the painful history that they learned along the way, the Chanowitz and Bumginz family are overjoyed at the discovery of one another, and eagerly looked forward to an emotional meeting in person after the Passover holiday. Benson, the son of Yisroel Chanowitz, was the first one of the family to meet Sashe during the intermediate days of Passover last week.

Rabbi Ben Zion Chanowitz recalled a story of his father during his yeshivah years in Poland right before the war, when he had the unique opportunity to observe the Passover seder of the previous Lubavitcher rebbe.

“A Chassid at the table asked the rebbe how we can be celebrating the holiday of freedom while we are still in exile – suffering under the threat of communist Russia and Nazi Germany. The rebbe sagely replied that ‘The redemption in Egypt showed us that you can leave, even if you are in the deepest exile.’”

This year, as Jewish families all over the world gathered to retell the miracles of old, they had a biblical obligation to feel “like they themselves left Egypt.” As they relived their family history, both the darkest moments and the miraculous survival, the Chanowitz and Bumginz families celebrated the miracle of redemption like never before.

– This article was originally published on lubavitch.com and is reprinted with permission.

The message is universal

Six designs have been unveiled for a Canadian National Holocaust Monument to be constructed in Ottawa. The designs vary wildly, including a proposal by the renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, who designed Berlin’s Jewish Museum. Libeskind and his colleague Gail Lord propose a structure in the form of an elongated Star of David. Five other shortlisted design concepts are also under review by Heritage Canada.

These are powerfully moving proposals, each with a unique interpretation of memory and loss. Construction on the final design is anticipated to begin this year, with inauguration of the memorial in 2015. It will sit near the centre of the nation’s capital, opposite the Canadian War Museum.

A reasonable question might be why Canada is inaugurating a memorial to a tragic event on another continent. As a country, we continue to struggle with aspects of our own difficult history of conquest, violence, repression and victimization. Why a Holocaust memorial in our capital?

Here’s why: as a member of the Allied nations confronting Hitler’s Germany, Canada played a role in bringing the Nazi regime and the Holocaust to an end, albeit regrettably late. We also have some penance to do, having been one of the countries – including all Western countries except the Dominican Republic – that bears some responsibility for the Holocaust, having closed our doors to the desperate Jews of Europe.

But there is another, more important reason for a Canadian Holocaust memorial. We must remind ourselves that, while the Holocaust was unique in its intent and scope, it carries universal messages and lessons for future generations about the dangers of totalitarianism, intolerance, extreme nationalism and racialism, the perversion of science and myriad other lessons still inadequately assimilated. Above all, while the Holocaust was particular in its genocidal intent toward Jews, it was not as particular in its Germanness. While the instigators of the atrocities were German, they found enthusiastic supporters, to varying degrees, in every country they invaded – and even in places they didn’t, including Canada. And some Germans were among the bravest enemies of Nazism.

There are so many lessons to be learned from every aspect of the Holocaust that we may never do more than scratch the surface of how it happened, why people behaved as they did, what it means and how future such atrocities can be prevented. But we hasten understanding and the potential for learning vital lessons if we acknowledge that the Holocaust was perpetrated, above all, by human beings against other human beings. If we isolate the Holocaust as something that is uniquely German – or European – we lose the opportunity to understand that, at root, it was perpetrated by human beings with motivations not at all exclusive to a single nationality, time or place.  This is what makes Ottawa an ideal location for a Holocaust memorial.