VHEC

“Never again” still resonates?

Left to right: Mia Givon, Lorenzo Tesler-Mabe, Kat Palmer and Erin Aberle-Palm. (screenshot from Kat Palmer)

Holocaust survivors and their descendants were joined by top elected officials and Jewish community leaders in a series of commemorations marking Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, across Canada last week.

In Vancouver, community members gathered together at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver April 27, while scores more watched remotely as the traditional in-person ceremony returned for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

Marcus Brandt, vice-president of the presenting organization, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, welcomed guests and invited Holocaust survivors to light Yahrzeit candles.

“On Yom Hashoah, we join as a community to remember the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust at the hands of Nazi Germany and its co-conspirators between 1933 and 1945,” he said. “It is also a day to pay tribute to the Jewish resistance that took place during the Holocaust.”

This year marks the 79th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which is the most notable of many acts of Jewish resistance to Nazism.

Marsha Lederman, a journalist who is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, spoke of the importance of telling our stories.

“When I was growing up,” she said, “the Holocaust was everywhere and nowhere. As far back as I can remember, there were hints and references. My parents talked about things happening in camp. What was this camp? I knew it wasn’t like the summer camp that I went to. I knew a lot of their friends were also at these camps, but I didn’t know the details.”

At the age of 5, Marsha met a new friend whose home was filled with laughter and extended family.

“One day, when I came home from a visit at my friend’s house, I asked my mother what was really a simple, innocent question,” said Lederman. “She has grandparents, why don’t I? My poor mother. She was caught off guard and her answer was truly horrifying – at least as I remember it, because I know memory is very faulty. But, as I recall, she said I didn’t have grandparents because the Germans hated Jews and they killed them by making them take gas showers.”

This response raised more questions than answers for the young girl, not least of which was: “What did we do to make the Germans hate us so much and do they still hate us? It was a horrible introduction to the details of the tragedy of my family and it taught me another terrible lesson: be careful about asking questions because the answers could be murder.”

As a result, much of Lederman’s Holocaust education was gained “through osmosis, rather than sitting down and asking questions,” she said.

Her father died when Lederman was a young woman and, in a tragic turn of events, her mother died just as Lederman had bought a ticket to visit her in Florida, armed with a recorder to finally ask the questions she had hesitated to broach in earlier years.

“It’s taken me years to try to figure out what I could have learned in an afternoon at my mother’s kitchen table,” she said. “I have no way of knowing these things because I didn’t ask. We need to ask and we need to tell.”

Lederman explores these questions in a book being released this month, titled Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed.

Amalia Boe-Fishman (née de Leeuw) was the featured survivor speaker at the Vancouver event. Born in the Netherlands, she was less than a year old when the Germans invaded her country. Her grandparents were soon transported to Auschwitz and murdered.

In what is an extremely rare phenomenon, Amalia, her parents and her brother all survived the war years because a Dutch Christian resistance fighter, Jan Spiekhout, and his family hid members of the de Leeuw family in a variety of hiding places over the course of years. Amalia’s mother even gave birth to another child in 1944. (That child, as well as Boe-Fishman’s oldest son, are both named Jan in honour of their rescuer.) Their survival was a statistical miracle. The Netherlands had among the lowest Jewish survival rate of any country during the Holocaust. Of 140,000 Dutch Jews in 1939, only 38,000 were alive in 1945.

Boe-Fishman recalled the day Canadian forces liberated the Netherlands – it was one of the only times in three years that she had set foot outdoors.

“It was strange and frightening outside and close to so many strangers,” she said. “The Canadian soldiers came rolling in on their tanks, handing out chocolates, everyone smiling, dancing, waving Dutch flags. Then I was told I could go home to my real family. But who were these strangers? I did not want to leave the family Spiekhout. They were my family. After all, I had not seen my real family for three years.”

In 1961, she traveled to Israel to meet members of her family who had made aliyah before the war and to reconnect with her Jewish identity. There, on the kibbutz she was staying, she met a Canadian, whom she married and they subsequently moved to Vancouver and had three children.

In 2009, Boe-Fishman and her three sons traveled to The Hague for the investiture of Jan Spiekhout and his late parents, Durk and Froukje Spiekhout, as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

“To be together with my children, my brother, and the grown children of the Spiekhout family, this was such a moving event in our lives,” she said.

As part of the Vancouver ceremony, Councilor Sarah Kirby-Yung read a proclamation from the City of Vancouver. Cantor Yaakov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim. Lorenzo Tesler-Mabe, Mia Givon and Kat Palmer, members of the third generation, as well as Erin Aberle-Palm, sang and read poetry, accompanied by Vancouver Symphony Orchestra violinist Andrew James Brown and pianist Wendy Bross Stuart, who was also music director of the program.

The following day, a hybrid in-person and virtual event was held at the British Columbia legislature, featuring Premier John Horgan.

“On Yom Hashoah, we are challenged to ensure the words ‘never again’ are supported by action,” he said. “Over the past few years, there has been an increase in antisemitism in B.C., and the Jewish community is one of the most frequently targeted groups in police-reported hate crimes. That’s why our government will continue working to address racism and discrimination in all its forms.… Today, as we remember and honour those who were lost and those who survived, we must recommit to building a more just and inclusive province, where everyone is safe and the horrors of the past are never repeated.”

Michael Lee, member of the legislature for Vancouver-Langara, spoke on behalf of the B.C. Liberal caucus.

“Every year, we commemorate this day and remember the heroes and the Righteous Among Nations who stood up to oppose the most vile, hateful oppression,” Lee said. “We recognize the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, we make a solemn promise to never forget and never again allow such horrific actions to take place. This is a responsibility that we all must carry with us not only today but every day. It is a responsibility we must be better at upholding, as soldiers at this very moment commit war crimes once again in Europe. We have not done enough. Right here in Canada, we see another year of record rises in antisemitism. We have to do better.”

Lee called on the province to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

MLA Adam Olsen represented the Green party.

“While time distances us from the horrific events, the memories and the stories remain steadfast in our mind and are carried and passed from one generation to the next,” said Olsen. “The Holocaust was an ultimate form of evil, persecution, oppression, genocide, complete disregard for human life, pushed to the most appalling degree…. The Holocaust is a stark reminder of the darkness, the wickedness, that can exist among us. However, it is also important to acknowledge that this is a story of strength, resilience and humanity and, to that, I raise my hands to all of the survivors, the Jewish community, that have ensured that the world knows and hears the stories. As difficult as it is to continue sharing them, we cannot stop hearing them or else we will fall victim to thinking that we have passed that now.”

Rabbi Harry Brechner of Congregation Emanu-El lamented the deaths of Holocaust survivors in the current war in Ukraine, “who died when they were cold, again, and hungry, again, and who died in the face of violence.”

“That never should happen and we all know that,” the rabbi said. “I don’t know how to make those big changes. I’m not a world leader. I’m the leader of a small congregation. But I think we are all leaders of our hearts and if each of us can make that difference, it’s got to have a huge ripple effect.”

Holocaust survivor Leo Vogel said that history records the end of the Holocaust in 1945. “But, for the people who lived through it and survived that horrible blight of human history, for them, 1945 is not when the Holocaust ended,” he said. “It continues to this very day to live in memories and nightmares and ongoing health problems.… The fascist attempt to eradicate the Jewish people must never be forgotten. The memory of the tortured and murdered cannot be shoveled underground as the Nazis did with the ashes. As children in the Holocaust, we were the youngest and, now, in our older years, we are at the tail end of those who can still bear witness.”

Vogel spoke of the unfathomable choice his parents made to hand him over, as a child, to a Christian family for hiding.

“Not long after that deeply painful decision to separate me from them, they were deported to Auschwitz and there they were murdered without ever knowing whether their desperate act to allow me to go into hiding saved my life,” he said. “I get cold chills when I think of the intense agony they went through in making their decision. It would have been their hope, I’m sure, that one day we would once again get together. That day never happened. Their pain must have been overwhelming. Many times, I have wondered what they said to each other and to me the night before they gave me away and, countless times, I have asked myself whether I would have had the strength to do an equal act when my children were young.”

In Ottawa, earlier on April 27, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted his government’s steps in fighting antisemitism, including the creation of a special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, currently held by Irwin Cotler, and proposed legislation to make denying or diminishing the Holocaust a criminal offence.

“Earlier this year, our country and people around the world were shocked and dismayed to see Nazi imagery displayed in our nation’s capital,” the prime minister said, referring to trucker protests in Ottawa. “For the Jewish community, and for all communities, those images were deeply disturbing. Sadly, this wasn’t a standalone instance. Jewish people are encountering threats and violence more and more both online and in person. This troubling resurgence of antisemitism cannot and will not be ignored. The atrocities of the Holocaust cannot be buried in history.… We must make sure that ‘never again’ truly means never again.”

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, picked up on that theme, noting that the term “never again” was “born out of the Jewish experience but was always intended to be universal in its application.”

“How can we witness the atrocities visited on the Rohingya, the Uighurs or the Yazidi and claim the cry of ‘never again’ has meaning?” he asked. “How can we observe the unvarnished aggression against Ukraine and assert we have taken the lessons of the Holocaust to heart?”

He said he derives hope from the fact that Canada seems to have learned the lesson of the MS St. Louis, the ship filled with Jewish refugees that was turned away from Canada and other safe havens in 1939. Now, Canada is a place, he said, “where fleeing Syrian and Iraqi refugees can rebuild their lives, where Afghani women and girls can fulfil their dreams, where displaced, wartorn Ukrainians can find safe harbour.”

“I take great pride that Canada is so committed to Holocaust remembrance and education,” said Michael Levitt, president and chief executive officer of the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, “A major reason is because of the survivors who, after suffering unthinkable adversity in Europe, rebuilt their shattered lives here, in our great country. Their strength, resilience and willingness to share their deeply personal and harrowing stories have been a gift and a source of inspiration to all Canadians.”

Dr. Agnes Klein, a Holocaust survivor, spoke of her family’s wartime experiences. Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Ronen Hoffman, commended Canada on adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism.

A day earlier, at another virtual commemoration from the Montreal Holocaust Museum, Holocaust survivor Max Smart told of his family’s harrowing Holocaust experiences.

Paul Hirschson, consul general of Israel in Montreal, compared the loss of Jewish life, with its incalculable loss of talent, in the Holocaust with the explosion of Jewish talent taking place in this century.

“Jewish talent lost was one of history’s greatest tragedies,” said the diplomat. “The talent emerging is perhaps the most exciting story of the 21st century…. Antisemitism is still widespread, also here in Canada. Montreal, where many survivors found a home, is no exception. We will defeat hate every time. Hatred will never again rob the world of Jewish talent.”

A roadmap to remembering

Alan Twigg, author of Out of Hiding: Holocaust Literature of British Columbia, at the gravesite of Rudolf “Rudi” Vrba, who died in 2006. (photo from JCC Jewish Book Festival)

Fittingly for a man who has dedicated his life’s work to the written word, Alan Twigg has compiled a fascinating bibliography. Out of Hiding: Holocaust Literature of British Columbia is one of two books to be launched in a JCC Jewish Book Festival epilogue event on April 5. The other is Sounds from Silence: Reflections of a Child Holocaust Survivor, Psychiatrist and Teacher by Dr. Robert Krell, to whom Twigg’s book is dedicated.

“More than anyone in Canada, Robert Krell has continuously carried the torches of healing, investigation and discourse about the Shoah since the 1970s to counteract ever-encroaching racism, denial and wilful ignorance,” writes Twigg, whose book is also dedicated to the late publisher and editor Ronald Hatch, who died last November. Hatch and his wife Veronica co-managed Ronsdale Press, which published Out of Hiding.

Among other things, Twigg is the founder of the BC BookWorld newspaper, The Ormsby Review (now called The British Columbia Review), the ABCBookWorld reference site, the Literary Map of BC and the Indigenous Literary Map of BC, as well as many of the province’s literary prizes. He has published 20 books and made seven literary documentaries.

Twigg wrote Out of Hiding with the help of many, including, notably, Yosef Wosk, who wrote the book’s afterword, in which Wosk discusses various kinds of hiding – from one’s mission, from persecution, in dreams, in silence, from truth. Wosk notes that the perpetrators of the Holocaust also tried to hide: “The Nazis engaged in fraud, deception and secrecy on a massive scale,” he writes.

“The secrecy was complete and, to a large extent, effective,” he adds. “The very monstrosity of the crime made it unbelieveable. In fact, the Nazis speculated that the unimaginability of their Aktionen would work in their favour.” But this expectation “was frustrated by the Allied victory. [What remained of] Nazi archives were opened, contemporary Jewish documents were discovered, and facts were ferreted out by courts and scholars. Moreover, by 1942, the Free World had gradually learned the truth, albeit not always complete and precise.”

Wosk concludes, “There is much to remember and even more to know as the Holocaust comes out of hiding.”

And this is one of the reasons Twigg compiled this collection.

“I am not a Jew. I am not a German. I simply believe it is the responsibility of everyone on the planet to know more than just a little about the Holocaust,” begins Twigg in the foreword. “It is our collective responsibility to teach our children – with details – about why the Shoah is unique among the many genocides.”

He points out: “No other political regime has ever systematically murdered at least 1.5 million babies and children.”

As well: “Never before or after has a modern, industrial state mobilized all of its resources to systematically commit murder at least six million times in about eight years (from Kristallnacht in 1938 to 1945) and no other government has established a separate killing ground to murder approximately 50,000 women (at Ravensbruck, north of Berlin).

“No other regime has so thoroughly and consistently degraded its victims,” writes Twigg. “Estimates vary but the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum claims Germans created 980 concentration camps, 30,000 slave labour camps, 1,150 Jewish ghettos, 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps and 500 brothels where women were sex slaves.” And yet, Holocaust education surveys have shown that most people would struggle to name one or two camps, other than perhaps Auschwitz.

Twigg believes that, “if the most-heinous, most-planned and most extensive genocide can be deep-sixed by mankind, all genocides thereafter can be shrugged off as natural – as inevitable as forest fires, plagues, droughts, locusts or tidal waves.” If that happens, he argues, then genocide becomes “someone else’s problem.” As for something the magnitude of the Holocaust, he writes, “Most certainly it can happen again.”

Out of Hiding is an intensely personal project for Twigg. He describes the book as “a roadmap back to places and experiences that must never be forgotten, offering a wide range of perspectives from the Holocaust-related books of British Columbian authors.” In total, he covers some 160 books in four sections. Some authors have written, edited or otherwise helped bring into being more than one memoir, novel, report or study; some of the people discussed are the subjects of the publications, rather than the writer.

Part One features relatively long expositions on Rudolf Vrba, Robert (Robbie) Waisman and Krell.

Twigg considers Vrba – who lived in Vancouver for the last few decades of his life – the “most important author of British Columbia.”

Writes Twigg in Out of Hiding, “Historian Ruth Linn estimates there were about 500-700 attempts to escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau, and most failed. Some 75 of these attempts were made by Jews; only five Jews made it successfully to freedom. The most significant of these five was Rudolf ‘Rudi’ Vrba, the main author of the most authoritative report on the true nature of the concentration camps, co-authored with co-escapee Alfred Wetzler.”

The Vrba-Wetzler Report, dated April 25, 1944, “finally revealed to the Allies the true nature and extent of the Holocaust.”

Twigg provides a biography of Vrba and some of what he learned from him as a friend. He also shares that Vrba, who died in 2006, was buried in a “seldom-visited cemetery, known to few people, where there is only a simple headstone.”

The April 5 event will include a video of Wosk chanting a Jewish blessing for Vrba at the graveside – something that apparently has not been done before.

Both Waisman and Krell are discussed in as much depth as Vrba, from their brief childhoods before the Holocaust through to recent history, sharing some of their writings and accomplishments, giving readers a sense of who they are and why their contributions are so vital.

Part Two offers shorter personal summaries on dozens of authors and publications. This section includes Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Claudia Cornwall, Peter Hay, David Lester, Robert Mermelstein, Heather Pringle, Peter Suedfeld, Mark Zuehlke and many others. It features survivors of the Holocaust, as well as researchers, educators, journalists, graphic artists and editors who have studied the Holocaust, members of the Second or Third Generation, and a few non-Jews.

Part Three features an eclectic mix of 26 writers/artists, including Olga Campbell, Esi Edugyan, Jean Gerber, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Nikolaus Martin, Isa Milman, Norman Ravvin, Colin Upton and others.

Part Four: One Doctor, Two Rabbis comprises three essays. The first is on Dr. Tom Perry, who served with the U.S. Army Medical Corps in the Second World War, and “took a series of rarely seen photos that his widow Claire Perry donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in 1994 along with a five-page letter he wrote to her from ‘somewhere in Germany,’ describing his feelings and impressions of Buchenwald.” The letter is included in this section – and it is a powerful testament, though words don’t capture the horror as much as do his photographs.

The second essay, “Lulek’s Story,” flows from a well-known photo taken by Tim Gidal on July 17, 1945, in a refugee compound near Haifa – front and centre is Israel Meir “Lulek” Lau, holding a Buchenwald banner. Rabbi Meir Lau, who became Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, was the youngest survivor of Buchenwald and his story is moving and inspirational.

Wosk’s afterword rounds out the collection with his thought-provoking reflections on hiding.

“Soon all witnesses will be gone,” concludes Twigg in his author’s statement. “The Holocaust must not be relegated to being merely the psychic preserve of Jews and Germans.”

The double-book launch event is presented with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and takes place at the Rothstein Theatre. Admission is free but registration via jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival/events or at eventbrite.ca is required. To read a discussion of Krell’s Sounds from Silence, visit jewishindependent.ca/a-child-survivor-reflects.

Remembering the Holocaust

Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah light memorial candles to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (screenshot)

Vancouver’s city hall, the Burrard Street Bridge and other landmarks around the city were lit in yellow light Jan. 27, as were buildings across the country, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The commemoration coincided with the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Yellow was chosen, said Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, to reflect the colour of the candles of remembrance being lit globally to mark the day.

“Antisemitism is on the rise around the world,” the mayor said before reading a proclamation on behalf of city council. “Vancouver has the opportunity to join with the Jewish community and all of our residents and Canadians from all walks of life in demonstrating our commitment to stand against antisemitism, hate and genocide.”

Stewart was joined by councilors Sarah Kirby-Yung, Pete Fry and Adriane Carr.

Kirby-Yung spoke of calls from constituents who have had swastikas drawn on their sidewalks or who have come across antisemitic graffiti in local parks.

“I’ve seen firsthand, when you go to work out at the gym or community facility, the need to post security guards, to have them at schools and daycares, at synagogues during times of worship,” Kirby-Yung said. “It takes all of us individually to stand up to discrimination. We need to continue to work together, collectively with our Jewish community, to ensure safety and inclusion for everybody.”

The Vancouver event was sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

Nico Slobinsky, Pacific regional director for CIJA, urged unity.

“Antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem, it affects us all,” he said. “Only by working together and standing up against antisemitism are we going to insulate all Canadians against the threat of hatred and racism in our society.”

Nina Krieger, executive director of the VHEC, noted that education about the Holocaust is at the heart of her agency’s mission.

“This mission is perhaps more urgent than ever as globally and in our own backyard we are encountering a rising tide of Holocaust denial and distortion,” Krieger said. “The latter includes actions or statements that seek to minimize, misrepresent or excuse the Holocaust. These assaults on the memory of the most well-documented genocide in history should raise alarms for all citizens of our diverse society. Online or offline, intentional or not, distortion of the Holocaust perpetuates antisemitism, conspiracy theories, hate speech and distrust of democratic institutions, all of which have reached new heights during the pandemic. Around the world, opponents of public health invoke Nazi policies to systematically persecute and murder Jews and others in order to depict themselves as victims and their governments as persecutors. Such outrageous comparisons are clearly inappropriate and deeply offensive to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.”

Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke of her father’s survival during 34 months in Auschwitz – an unimaginable expanse of time in a place where the average life expectancy was measured in days. (Romney’s experiences, and those of her father, Jacques Lewin, were featured in the April 7, 2017, issue of the Independent: jewishindependent.ca/marking-yom-hashoah.)

photo - Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke at the local commemoration marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 — Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke at the local commemoration marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. *(photo from VHEC)*

Prior to the streamed event, Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary school lit candles of remembrance. King David High School students Liam Greenberg and Sara Bauman ended the ceremony with a musical presentation.

Earlier, another ceremony was livestreamed from the National Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa. Emceed by Lawrence Greenspon, co-chair of the National Holocaust Memorial Committee, the event featured ambassadors and Canadian elected officials and was presented by CIJA, the National Capital Commission, the embassy of Israel in Canada and the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of CIJA, said the day of remembrance is intended to be as much “prospective as it is retrospective.”

“As we remember, we also reaffirm our resolve to combat the hatred that still plagues our world today, perhaps more so than at any time since those dark days of the Shoah,” he said. “There is an urgent imperative to sound an alarm and refuse to let its ring be silenced. Hate is no longer simmering in dark corners, relegated to the discredited margins of civil society. It has, in many respects, increasingly asserted itself in the mainstream public square. It has become normalized.

“Countering hate speech is both a necessary and essential imperative to preventing hate crime,” he said. “So let us resolve, collectively here today and across this great country, to give special meaning to our remembrance by fulfilling the pledge, ‘never again.’”

Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Ronen Hoffman, told the audience that his grandmother’s entire family was murdered in the Shoah. He denounced the misuse of that history.

“Any claim, inference or comparison to the Holocaust that is not in fact the Holocaust only acts as a distortion to the truth of what happened to the victims,” he said. “Invoking any element of the Holocaust in order to advance one’s social or political agenda must be called out as a form of distortion and, indeed, denial.”

Germany’s ambassador to Canada, Sabine Sparwasser, noted that, in addition to the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it was also recently the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where the “Final Solution” was devised.

“No country has a greater responsibility to learn from the past and to protect the future than Germany,” she said. “Remembrance is the only option. This sacred duty is the legacy of those who were murdered and of those who survived the horrors of the Shoah and whose voices have gradually disappeared. The greatest danger of all begins with forgetting, of no longer remembering what we inflict upon one another when we tolerate antisemitism, racism and hatred in our midst.”

Other speakers included Ahmed Hussen, minister of housing and diversity and inclusion; the American ambassador to Canada, David L. Cohen; Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa; Andrea Freedman, president and executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa; and Dr. Agnes Klein, a survivor of the Holocaust.

Enhanced care for survivors

Jewish Family Services (JFS) and Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) have formed a new partnership to serve Greater Vancouver’s Holocaust survivor community.

Beginning last month, JFS is now administering both the socialization and social services Claims Conference grants, which have traditionally been split between the two organizations. This move consolidates the work of managing and reporting the grant within JFS, streamlining the administrative process, while preserving the delivery of socialization programs through the VHEC.

Holocaust survivor socialization programs include four to six events every year, as well as regular group meeting for Russian-speaking and child Holocaust survivors. Preserving the services at the VHEC means that survivors will continue to access these programs without disruption, as well as maintain their ownership over what the programs entail.

This organizational partnership will also include a JFS case manager on-site at the VHEC one day a week, increasing access to JFS social services and resources among the survivor population. Case management and assistance with Claims Conference applications will continue to be available through the VHEC.

Cindy McMillan, JFS director of programs and community partnerships, said, “JFS and VHEC have always had a close working relationship and we’re very excited for this opportunity to enhance supports in the community. It means that our resources can spread more naturally across the survivor population as we work together to ensure Holocaust survivors are able to age at home safely and with dignity.”

“As a museum founded by Holocaust survivors, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre prides itself in being considered a second home to many in our survivor community,” added Nina Krieger, VHEC executive director. “Through strengthening our partnership with JFS, we are very pleased to streamline the administration of survivor services in our community, ensuring that survivors continue to access supports at the VHEC, while enjoying thriving socialization programs such as the child survivor and Russian-speaking survivor groups via the centre.”

The Claims Conference grants are specifically for organizations that assist Jewish victims of Nazism and projects that promote research, education and documentation of the Shoah. Grants are given to social service agencies worldwide that provide vital services for Holocaust survivors, such as home care, food and medicine.

– Courtesy Jewish Family Services and Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

Legacy of the “Ghetto girls”

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, left, interviews author and historian Dr. Judy Batalion at this year’s Kristallnacht commemorative event on Nov. 4. (screenshot)

Jewish girls and young women in Poland were uniquely positioned to play major roles in the resistance to Nazism – and the stories of countless young heroines have been too long overlooked.

This was a key message at the Kristallnacht commemorative event Nov. 4. Held virtually for the second year in a row, it featured Canadian historian Judy Batalion. Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, program and development manager of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, introduced the author and posed questions.

Jewish girls and women were not subject to the irrefutable proof of Jewishness that Jewish men were, said Batalion.

“Women were not circumcised, so they didn’t risk being found out in a pants-drop test,” she said. “If a man on the outside [of the ghettos] was suspected of being Jewish, he would be told at gunpoint to drop his pants, and women didn’t have that physical marker of their Jewishness on their body.”

A secondary reason women could play such an important role in the resistance was that, at that time in Poland, education was mandatory to Grade 8. Many Jewish families sent their sons to Jewish schools or yeshivot. “But, to save on tuition, they sent girls to Polish public schools,” Batalion explained. “In these public schools, girls became more acculturated and … more assimilated women. They were girls and teenagers who had Catholic friends. They were aware of Christian rituals, habits, nuances, behaviour.”

Resistance fighters and underground operatives might have dyed their hair blonde or otherwise altered their outward appearance to pass as Christians. But there was more to it, the author said.

“Gesticulation was very Jewish,” she said. “So one woman had to wear a muff when she went undercover, to control her hands.”

Batalion’s book The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos is the culmination of 12 years of research, which had its beginnings in another project.

Batalion was in the British Library doing research for a performance piece she was working on about Hannah Senesh, a young female hero of the resistance whose story is perhaps among the more well known. Senesh was born in Hungary and had made aliyah to Mandate Palestine in the 1930s, but she returned from that comparatively safe haven to join the fight against the Nazis.

“She joined the Allied forces, became a paratrooper and volunteered to return to Nazi-occupied Europe,” Batalion said of Senesh, who the author first learned about in Grade 5 in Montreal. “She was caught quite early on but legend has it she looked her executioners in the eye when they shot her.

“I grew up with Hannah Senesh as a symbol of Jewish courage,” she said. There were not many books on Senesh at the renowned London library, however. “So, I simply ordered whatever they had. I picked up my stack of books and noticed that one of them was a bit unusual. It was an old book with yellowing pages bound in a worn blue fabric with gold letters and it was in Yiddish.”

Batalion speaks Yiddish, in addition to English, French and Hebrew.

“I flipped through these 200 pages looking for Hannah Senesh, but she was only in the last 10. In front of her [were] dozens of other young Jewish women who defied the Nazis, mainly from the ghettos in Poland.”

The stories featured guns, grenades, espionage. “This was a Yiddish thriller,” she said.

As Batalion soon discovered, it was young Jewish women who were disproportionately represented in some of the most daring acts of resistance of the time.

“These ghetto girls hid revolvers in teddy bears, built elaborate underground bunkers, flirted with Nazis, bought them off with wine and whiskey and shot them,” she said. “They planned uprisings, carried out intelligence missions and were bearers of the truth about what was happening to the Jews. They helped the sick and taught the children, they organized soup kitchens, underground schools and printing presses. They flung Molotov cocktails in ghetto uprisings and blew up Nazi supply trains.

“I had never read anything like this,” said Batalion. “I was astonished and equally baffled. Who were these women? What made them act as they did? Aside from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which I’d heard of, what was the story of Jewish resistance in the Holocaust?… And why had I, who grew up in a survivor family and community, who was so involved in Jewish arts and culture – I even have a PhD in women’s history – how had I never heard this story?”

Thus began a dozen years of research in Poland, Israel, England and across North America, in archives and living rooms, memorial monuments and the streets of former ghettos, she said. “I trod through testimonies, letters, photographs, obscure documentaries and the towns where these heroines were born and raised,” she said.

“Reading through all this material, I was astonished to learn of the scope of the underground,” she said. “Over 90 European ghettos had armed Jewish resistance units … 30,000 Jews enlisted in the partisans. Rescue networks supported 12,000 Jews in hiding in Warsaw alone. Uprisings occurred in ghettos, in labour camps and death camps, all this alongside daily acts of resilience – smuggling food, making art, hiding, hugging a barrack-mate to keep her warm, even telling jokes during transports to relieve fear. Women were at the helm of so many of these personal and organized efforts, women aged 16 to 25. Hundreds of them, possibly even thousands of them.”

The ability to do such things, under unimaginably dangerous conditions, was aided by a social phenomenon that predated the Nazi occupation.

The early 20th century in Poland was a time of extraordinary Jewish intellectual ferment. Making up about 10% of the country’s population, Jews had a profound social infrastructure, including 180 Yiddish newspapers in Warsaw alone. Jewish political movements proliferated – left, right, religious, secular, Zionist and non-Zionist – creating a vibrant discourse and networks of interrelated groups across the country. By the 1930s, almost all Polish Jews were wondering if this was a country where they could continue to thrive, whether they belonged to the country where their ancestors had lived for 1,000 years.

“As part of this identity struggle, 100,000 young Jews were members of Jewish youth movements – that’s a huge proportion,” said Batalion. “These were values-driven groups that were affiliated with these varying political parties and stances.”

For example, when war broke out, Frumka Plotnicka was 24 years old. Her youth movement urged their members to flee east – “That’s also how my grandparents survived,” noted Batalion – but fleeing a crisis did not suit Plotnicka.

“Stunning her comrades in her movement, she was the first to smuggle herself back into Nazi-occupied Poland,” she said. “She went to Warsaw and became a leader in the Warsaw Ghetto. She ran soup kitchens for hundreds of Jews, she organized classes, discussions and performances. She negotiated with German, Polish and Jewish councils, she helped extract Jews from forced labour.

“She covered her Jewish features with a kerchief and makeup and left the ghetto, traveling across Poland, keeping communities connected. She brought with her information, inspiration and books,” Batalion said. “They had a secret printing press. She ran seminars across Nazi-occupied Poland.

“In late 1941, the youth movements acknowledged the truth of the Nazis’ genocidal plans and they transformed from education hubs into these underground militias. Frumka still traveled to disseminate information. Now, it was about mass executions. She was one of the first to smuggle weapons into the Warsaw Ghetto. She had two guns in a sack of potatoes.”

She was killed while firing at Nazis from a bunker in 1943.

While disguised as non-Jews, some of the woman warriors were able to exploit the prejudices of their tormentors.

“Nazi culture was classically sexist,” said Batalion. “They never suspected that a sweet-looking girl had a pocket full of ammunition. Jewish women played to this underestimation. One courier … was once carrying a valise full of contraband material and she was getting on a train and noticed they were checking bags. She was very beautiful and bashed her eyelashes and went up to the Gestapo man and said, ‘My bag is so heavy, can you carry it for me?’ He was being chivalrous, ‘Of course, I’ll carry it for you,’ and he took it on the train for her and, of course, they didn’t check the bag.”

These young Jewish fighters had lost everything and still soldiered on, the author said.

“They knew they wouldn’t topple the German army, yet risked their lives time and time again to fight for justice and liberty,” she said. “Small victories are achievable and necessary for great change. It is through these young women that I learned that not only is trauma passed through generations of Jewish women but so is courage and daring, strength and resilience, passion and compassion.”

Batalion’s book won the 2021 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the Holocaust category and has been optioned for a Steven Spielberg film, for which Batalion is working on the screenplay.

The annual Kristallnacht commemorative lecture is presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in partnership with Congregation Beth Israel, with support from the Robert and Marilyn Krell Endowment of the VHEC, and funded through the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign.

Prior to the keynote address, Holocaust survivors lit candles in their homes. Kennedy Stewart, mayor of Vancouver, offered reflections and Nina Krieger, executive director of the VHEC, read a proclamation from the city. Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld thanked the speaker.

Fox retires from VHEC

Rome Fox has been associated with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre for 25 years. (photo from vhec.org)

Rome Fox has retired as assistant director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. She was recognized at the VHEC annual general meeting Oct. 20 by being named a Life Fellow of the organization.

Fox has been associated with the VHEC for a quarter-century, first as a volunteer, as a member of the board of directors and the executive committee and as co-chair of the annual Yom Hashoah commemorative event. Joining the centre’s staff as a part-time volunteer coordinator, Fox went on to serve as program coordinator, interim education coordinator and acting executive director, while also taking the lead on annual commemorative events.

In her remarks at the AGM, Fox reflected on the people she has met and worked with, emphasizing the Holocaust survivors.

“It has been life-changing and very fulfilling to participate in the growth of such an important and dynamic museum dedicated to Holocaust education and remembrance,” she said. “I’m truly honoured, fortunate and privileged to work with you, our remarkable and resilient Holocaust survivor community, and I cherish the lessons I’ve learned from you. You made a difference not only in my life but in the lives of thousands and thousands of B.C. students, teachers, citizens and government officials.”

Fox also expressed pride at the changes in the organization and the innovative projects, campaigns and commemorative events with which she has been involved.

She said she treasures her relationships with the three executive directors with whom she has served – Nina Krieger, Frieda Miller and Roberta Kremer – and the meaningful work they have done.

“Every day, when you’re working there, you know you’re making a difference somehow, someway,” she told the Independent. “Somebody’s life is being touched. When you hear the remarks of students of the impact of survivors or when they take a workshop, the questions that they ask, you know that kids are starting to get this stuff.”

Both of Fox’s late parents, Sarah and Al Rozenberg, were Holocaust survivors from Poland. Her mother was in the Warsaw Ghetto and worked in a munitions factory. Ultimately, Sarah was sent to Majdanek, while her entire family was sent to Treblinka and murdered. Many of Sarah Rozenberg’s artifacts are in the VHEC’s permanent collections.

Fox knows less about her father’s story, but he was mostly on the run and helping people as they tried to escape Nazi-occupied Poland.

The couple met in a displaced persons camp and moved to Edmonton, where Rome was born.

In a moving testimonial video shared at the annual general meeting, staff, volunteers and survivors paid tribute to Fox.

Robert Krell, founding president of the VHEC, spoke of “the strength you bring to the centre and the comfort and compassion to our survivors through your own personal understanding of our nature and our struggles.”

Frieda Miller, past executive director, said: “If an organization can be said to have a heart, you were that heart. As daughters of survivor parents, we shared that unique bond, one that I think also uniquely equipped us for our work at the centre. But, Rome, what I want you to know is that your contributions were not just valuable but truly fundamental to the VHEC’s remarkable achievements of over a quarter of a century.”

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, a Holocaust survivor, said: “I read somewhere that the sturdiest pillars of human morality are compassion and a sense of justice. In all my interactions with you, I have experienced both. In your work at VHEC, you have been supportive and encouraging, you understood what it means to be a survivor of the Holocaust and have helped to guide us in many ways.”

Wendy Bross Stuart and Ron Stuart, who worked with Fox on the musical components of countless commemorative events, thanked her for years of achievements.

“She’s approachable, kind, competent, committed – she’s got the whole package,” Ron Stuart said. “I think you can get some of those qualities in other individuals but to get the whole package is quite unique.”

Krieger, the current executive director of the VHEC, spoke of the absence Fox’s retirement will leave.

“Although it is nearly impossible for us to imagine the centre without Rome as an integral part of our team, I know that we will continue to ask ourselves: What would Rome do?”

Commemorating the Holocaust

Magdeburg, Germany, 1938. (photo from Bundesarchiv / Bild 146-1970-083-42)

Next month, our community marks the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, the state-sponsored pogrom known as the Night of Broken Glass, which took place on the night of Nov. 9-10, 1938. Hundreds of synagogues were burned, Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed, nearly 100 Jews were killed and 30,000 were sent to concentration camps. The shards of broken window glass seen in front of Jewish-owned stores the next morning gave this event its name.

On Nov. 4, 7 p.m., streaming live via Vimeo, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in partnership with Congregation Beth Israel features keynote speaker Judy Batalion, author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, in conversation with the VHEC’s Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, and a Q&A. Visit vhec.org for details.

On Nov. 9, beginning at 7 p.m., streamed live on Zoom, Victoria Shoah Project hosts a program called Communities Standing Together Against Hate: Lessons from Kristallnacht. Remembrance is essential, however we also must act in tangible ways to protect all peoples. The Shoah Project is inviting political and law enforcement leaders, as well as representatives from the diverse faith communities, to join together at the commemoration to lead the reading of a pledge of mutual respect and support. Join in remembering the past and committing to take action for a better future where we will respect and protect our neighbours, not remain silent in the face of any injustice against any person or group and work towards building bridges leading to unity and shalom. For more information, visit victoriashoahproject.ca.

– Courtesy Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre & Victoria Shoah Project

B.C. observes Yom Hashoah

B.C. Premier John Horgan opened the commemorative event. (screenshot)

A uniquely British Columbian virtual commemoration of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, took place April 8, convened by the Government of British Columbia in partnership with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Pacific Region.

Premier John Horgan opened the event.

“On Yom Hashoah, we remember the six million Jewish lives that were lost during the Holocaust. We also remember and honour the millions who lost their lives or were murdered because of their ethnicity, sexual identity or disability,” said the premier. “Today, we also pay tribute to Holocaust survivors and, as that community grows smaller, it’s all the more important that we work together to carry that message forward – that we will never forget and it will never happen again, especially in light of the ongoing threats of violence and discrimination Jewish people are facing worldwide today.”

Horgan noted an incident in Victoria where a Chabad centre was defaced with antisemitic graffiti a day earlier.

“These are the types of acts we must stand together and fight against with a united voice, regardless of where we come from, regardless of our orientations or ethnicities or our faith. We must stand against antisemitism and racism whenever we see it,” said Horgan. “As we light the candles at Yom Hashoah in remembrance, we must remain vigilant and, as we take action today and honour those who lost their lives and those who have struggled since the Holocaust, we must again remember that we cannot repeat our past.”

Michael Lee, MLA for Vancouver-Langara, also spoke.

“As the living memory of the Holocaust fades, the important act of remembering and coming together each year grows in importance,” he said. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure that we never forget and such a thing never happens again, because, sadly, this is not just about remembering history, but about standing together today against the racism, bigotry and antisemitism that still exists in our world.… As a community, now and every day, we must stand against these acts of hate and bigotry.

“Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are reminded of why it is so important to come together, to reflect and to ensure that the past is not forgotten. We must remember both the parts of this dark, dark history that we must not let be repeated and the acts of heroism that took place amid such tragedy. Even during a period of humanity’s darkest chapters, there was still good in the world, people who risked their lives to hide and save others from the Shoah. Amidst the horrors and atrocities, there were tales of love, hope and bravery, including with the many righteous among nations, people who demonstrated that light can triumph over darkness. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to never forget; remember the victims, the survivors and the heroes; and we pledge to build a better world in their memory.”

Dr. Robert Krell, founding president of the VHEC, lit six memorial candles. The premier lit a seventh candle “to honour the millions of Roma, Slavic, LGBTQ2+ and people with disabilities who lost their lives.”

Krell, speaking on behalf of Holocaust survivors, noted that 1.5 million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were children. An estimated 93% of Jewish children in Europe were murdered, which makes his survival extremely remarkable. The fact that both his parents survived, when more than 80% of Dutch Jews were killed, is additionally miraculous.

screenshot - Dr. Robert Krell spoke on behalf of Holocaust survivors — Dr. Robert Krell spoke on behalf of Holocaust survivors. *(screenshot)*

“I had lost all grandparents, uncles and aunts,” Krell said. “One first cousin remained. The war left its mark and I bear a special responsibility to remember what happened and try to derive lessons from that unfathomable tragedy. The tragedy was unique in its objectives, its focus and its ferocity. Jews were extracted wherever they resided, whether Paris, Prague or Vienna, whether city or countryside or the isles of Rhodes or Corfu. The enemy pursued us and tortured and murdered without mercy, without exception.”

While Dutch citizens remember the Canadian military’s role in liberating that country, Krell also noted Canada’s failure to save European Jews before the war.

Krell also addressed the issue of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism. Around the world, he said, 34 countries have adopted the definition, as has the province of Ontario.

“As a survivor who has been deeply involved in Holocaust remembrance and education, it strikes me as unconscionable not to accept the IHRA definition to assist us all in recognizing the signs and symptoms of the scourge of Jew hatred,” he said.

Yom Hashoah fell the day before the federal New Democratic Party convention that was to consider a resolution rejecting the IHRA definition. The matter never made it to the floor, but another resolution condemning Israel passed by an overwhelming margin.

“It is my hope that we will soon see the provincial government’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” said Krell.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom also took up the issue of the antisemitism definition.

“The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism is, I think, the tool that guides us in our work to combat anti-Jewish sentiments,” he said. “I want to urge our provincial government to join other jurisdictions in embracing the action that is required to combat both historical and contemporary hatred of the Jewish people.”

He added: “When we think of the death of a human being, we mourn the loss of the body and the soul, but, in my work, standing with too many grieving families at graveside, it is not the body that we miss most, that is merely the vessel for the soul, the part of that person that is unique in all the world,” he said. “That’s the part that we fall in love with and are forever changed by. The soul of another leaves an imprint on our heart. So, today, we remember six million murdered Jewish souls, their lives that have been extinguished, their dreams unrealized, their loves and relationships gone forever. We pray that those dear souls are comforted and embraced under the wings of God’s presence and that now, remembered so publicly, will never be forgotten.”

Moskovitz then chanted El Moleh Rachamim and a version of the Mourner’s Kaddish that includes the names of the Nazi death camps.

In addition to the B.C. event, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre also partnered on April 8 with the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto, the Azrieli Foundation, Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, Facing History and Ourselves, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, March of the Living Canada and UIA in a Canada-wide Yom Hashoah online program that included survivor testimony from individuals across the country and a candlelighting ceremony.

A day earlier, the VHEC partnered with the Montreal Holocaust Museum for a virtual program focusing on the importance of remembrance in the intergenerational transmission of memory. Survivors and members of the second and third generations spoke about their experiences. Video recordings of all three events are available at vhec.org.

Shoah education continues

Dr. Claude Romney speaking to students pre-COVID. (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)

For many years, people dedicated to educating about the Holocaust and its moral lessons have been adapting to new realities. The declining number of survivors and the need to preserve their eyewitness testimony has necessitated innovative means of conveying these lessons to successive generations. As a result of these preparations, organizations like the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) have been remarkably prepared to continue their work despite the limitations imposed by a global pandemic.

Dr. Claude Romney has been sharing her wartime experiences with younger audiences for several years. Her father, Dr. Jacques Lewin, was arrested in Paris at the end of 1941 and was among the first prisoners transported to Auschwitz. While Romney and her mother survived the war in southern France, evading numerous close calls, her father survived the most notorious Nazi camp because his skills were useful to the Nazis – he was a doctor who was put into service at the camp. Romney has researched and spoken about the experiences of her father and other “prisoner-doctors.”

Since the pandemic began, Romney has done two virtual presentations to schools and, while she wishes the talks could be in person, she is grateful that the technology exists to allow them to happen at all.

“I personally, and I think the other survivors who continue to talk to students online, have to be grateful both to the [Vancouver] Holocaust Education Centre and, of course, most of all, to the teachers who still get in touch and haven’t given up,” she said. “It’s something which could easily have fallen by the wayside. I think it’s very fortunate that teachers are dedicated enough to continue.”

A year and counting into the pandemic, Romney said the global upheaval could have led to lost opportunities.

“We feel there is some urgency because we’re not getting any younger,” she said. “It’s very important.”

The online events differ, depending on the audience. Some classes that are still meeting in person are set up so that the speaker sees the teacher but not the entire class. When classes are virtual, the speaker is one of many faces on a Zoom call.

“This would never have been possible for students 15 years ago, 10 years ago maybe even,” Romney said. “It makes a big difference because, of course, there are books and articles, but it’s not the same as hearing somebody tell their personal stories.”

While the survivor speakers are talking about their past, the lessons they aim to impart are for the present and future.

“I think it’s vital that the new generations know about what happened because it’s up to them to prevent this kind of thing from happening again,” she said. “And to understand that it’s vital to be tolerant of other people who may be different in some ways because they come from different cultures, different religions. It’s a cautionary tale really.”

Ashley Ross has been teaching a course in genocide studies at Aldergrove Community Secondary School for four years. She can attest that students make connections between the present and the past – and that relevance has been honed more sharply in the past couple of years.

“When I first started teaching it, it was very hard for them to understand the German context of that era,” she said, noting that she was challenged to demonstrate the “slippery slope” of hatred, fear and scapegoating. Sadly, students understand that phenomenon better than just a few years ago. “Right now, they are immediately seeing connections and understanding and seeing it play out in their current world.… More than ever, the lessons of the power of propaganda and the fear and the scapegoating are really resonating in our world. It’s through those historical lessons that we are better equipped to process what we’re currently facing.”

She maintains that the survivor speakers’ virtual events are every bit as powerful on the students as an in-person one. She even sees a benefit in the fact that, when they know they can’t be seen by the speaker, students may be more open with their emotional responses.

“Because the Holocaust survivor is only looking at my face rather than their faces, I find that it’s often more raw for the students. In a large auditorium, it doesn’t have that same personal impact,” said Ross, who has led a student trip to Europe that included a visit to Auschwitz.

Sharing firsthand accounts with young generations puts a human face to a part of history that is enormous in scope and perhaps remote in time from the perspective of a teenager.

“I think there’s a sense of honour to have a direct connection to this history that sometimes feels so far away,” she said. “It’s a reminder that it isn’t so far away. I think it’s really impactful to hear first-person accounts [about] something that can get so bogged down in huge numbers.”

photo - Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar, education director and curator at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre — Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar, education director and curator at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. *(photo from vhec.org)*

Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar, education director and curator at the VHEC, acknowledges that her team did not know what to expect when the pandemic began a year ago. At the same time, the remote delivery of programs and resources that was necessary due to COVID was something for which the centre was already prepared. Not only were Holocaust survivors and other educators delivering virtual talks to student groups in remote parts of British Columbia, a vast digitization process over the past several years has made much of the centre’s collections accessible online, including artifacts, documents, written testimonies and videos.

“In a way, that’s nothing new for us,” she said.

Some research requests saw an uptick as teachers encouraged students to undertake individualized projects – and because the revised provincial curriculum also emphasizes “self-directed learning.”

The VHEC also saw an increase in donations of artifacts and documents. This may be because people are spending more time at home and deciding to clean out attics and closets. Shulman Spaar also thinks people may have a little more time to read the communications they send to supporters, which often include appeals for family records and other items.

Echoing the Aldergrove teacher, Shulman Spaar thinks another factor for increased interest in the VHEC’s programs and resources may be due to current events. Political situations in the United States and around the world, the increased awareness of violence against minority communities and other topics in the news daily underscore the relevance of the organization’s work.

“Ultimately, we are an anti-racism-based Holocaust education centre,” she said. “If you look at what’s going on, it does seem very relevant at the moment.”

There were challenges in rapidly scaling the delivery of virtual programs to more groups. Docents, educators and survivor speakers had to learn the new technologies and adapt their messages to the medium.

Conversely, there have been silver linings. Some survivors who, for health or mobility reasons, could not present their testimonies in person have been able to do so virtually. As capacity has grown for delivering programs remotely, so have requests. The VHEC has welcomed invitations from other provinces, as well as schools in northern British Columbia and other remote parts of the province where survivors are unlikely to visit.

Moreover, said Shulman Spaar, some participants have commented that seeing survivors in their own homes, rather than on a stage, is unexpectedly powerful.

“It’s not the same as an in-person encounter,” she acknowledged, “but, also, hearing the speaker speaking from her or his living room, it’s a different intimate situation that happens. Yes, there is this screen still, but some students and teachers comment how they feel very close and it feels like an intimate encounter rather than being in a big hall and on a stage.

“It’s just different,” she said.

Celebrating good deeds – JMABC @ 50

Then-Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt and members of National Council of Jewish Women in front of the first Mobile Hearing Clinic, outside Vancouver City Hall on June 11, 1984. After raising the funds to build and operate the clinic on a trial basis, NCJW sold it to the provincial health department for the nominal price of $1. They did the same with a second mobile clinic in 1986. (photo from JMABC L.16459)

Passover is one of the foundational stories of Jewish tradition. Around the seder table each year, we learn from our elders the guiding principles of Jewish life: how to be a good person, think of others and pursue justice in the face of persecution.

These same themes can be found in the history of our community locally. The families who laid the foundations of our community, and those who continue to build its future, arrived here from all corners of the world. Mutual aid societies like the Hebrew Free Loan Association (HFLA) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver (preceded by the Jewish Community Chest and the Jewish Fund and Council) have helped welcome and support new arrivals.

The HFLA was established in 1915 by Solomon Weaver and, while it folded in 1936, it was revived in 1979 by the Jewish Family Service Agency under the leadership of Shirley Barnett. Going at first by the name of the Hebrew Assistance Association, the organization was established to aid a new wave of Jewish immigrants arriving from Russia. With initial capital provided by Joe Segal, Jack Diamond, Morris Wosk and Leon Kahn, the association began issuing loans of up to $3,000. To date, the HFLA has granted more than 2,000 loans, giving people “a hand up, not a hand-out.”

Passover also teaches us that we should apply these principles beyond our own community. As it is written in Exodus: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of a stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” This philosophy can be seen as a guiding principle for community groups such as the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).

Founded in 1983 by local survivors of the Holocaust, the Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society for Education and Remembrance was formed with the goal of establishing an anti-racism education centre. This goal was realized in 1994 in the form of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC). Education is central to the mandate of the VHEC and, each year, the centre reaches more than 25,000 students and teachers through exhibits, school programs, teaching materials and professional development initiatives for educators.

Since 1924, the Vancouver section of the NCJW of Canada has been dedicated to social action and human rights. For close to a century, its social justice efforts have taken diverse forms, from pioneering a provincial mobile hearing screening program for preschoolers to championing the cause of Nasrin Sotoudeh – illegally imprisoned in Iran – to recent fundraising and awareness initiatives against human trafficking.

These are just a few of the many organizations and individuals who make real the lessons of Passover each day. It has been inspiring to learn more about these and other people and groups as we at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia collect stories for our upcoming celebration book marking our 50th anniversary.

We invite you to share your story with us and be a part of this milestone publication. Share your family story, recognize someone notable, or sponsor this project. Full information is available at jewishmuseum.ca/fifty-years.