Holocaust – Page 30

Meaning of liberation

The Canadian military helped liberate Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps near the end of the Second World War, a fact that was omitted for decades from recorded history.

The experiences of Canadian liberators – and the meaning of the term “liberation” itself – were the subject of the keynote address at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day observance in Vancouver last week.

Prof. Mark Celinscak, a Canadian who teaches at the University of Nebraska Omaha, delivered the address Jan. 18, at a commemoration presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) in partnership with the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre.

photo - Prof. Mark Celinscak — Prof. Mark Celinscak (photo from unomaha.edu)

Celinscak’s book, Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp, was recognized as the best nonfiction book of 2016 by the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature. In his lecture, he explained how he stumbled upon the facts of Canadian involvement in the liberation of Nazi camps.

Researching the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, he encountered multiple conflicting narratives, but none involved Canadians, he said. In archival research, he found references to Canadians encountering Nazi camps and so he consulted leading Canadian military historians, but all assured him there was no Canadian role in the liberation of concentration camps.

Through further research, Celinscak identified a few soldiers who confirmed the Canadian military’s involvement. These connections led to more and, eventually, he had identified 1,000 individual cases of Canadian military personnel who participated in the liberation of Nazi camps. Seven decades after the end of the war, this aspect of history is only now coming to light. The oversight, said Celinscak, was likely due to the general sense of chaos in Europe at the end of the war.

In introducing Celinscak, VHEC executive director Nina Krieger said: “Were it not for the tenacious scholarship of this evening’s presenter, future generations might never have known of the Canadian role in this aspect of the Second World War.”

Celinscak believes his research helps right an omission in the record. He reflected on an incident from 1997, when plans for a new Canadian War Museum included a Holocaust memorial gallery. Controversy ensued, and Senate hearings were held on the appropriateness of including the Holocaust in a museum devoted to Canadian military history.

“Upon conclusion of the hearings, the plan for a Holocaust memorial gallery was promptly abandoned,” Celinscak said. “In the view of many who testified, the Holocaust either had no place in the country’s war museum or it held no direct connection to Canada and its military.”

His research, however, indicates that the Canadian military did indeed have a connection to the Holocaust, as liberating forces.

Celinscak’s local address was related to the exhibition currently being presented at the VHEC, called Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944–45. The exhibition, Celinscak said, reflects “a recent growing body of research that explores how the Canadian government, Canadian organizations and average Canadians responded to the Holocaust.” Celinscak wrote the exhibition’s panels related to Bergen-Belsen, while the overall exhibition was developed by Prof. Richard Menkis and Ronnie Tessler.

Canadians helped liberate camps in the Netherlands and in northern Germany, Celinscak said, though Bergen-Belsen was not taken by military force.

“Simply put, the Allies became involved in Bergen-Belsen because the Germans turned it over to them,” he said. Recognizing that the war was all but lost and that the disease-ridden camp presented a public health hazard to the surrounding German population, a representative from the German army crossed British lines and said that inmates in a nearby concentration camp were ill. The Allies entered Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945.

“In the ensuing days, weeks and months, British and Canadian forces from the surrounding area arrived at Bergen-Belsen to assist, to witness and to document,” said Celinscak. “Clearly, military personnel were unprepared for what they were to find in the camp.”

The “liberation” removed the Nazis from the scene, but life improved slowly for the survivors of the camp.

“The war, of course, still continued,” he said. “As a consequence of that, supplies were limited, personnel were largely unavailable and many resources were occupied elsewhere. Those who remained to work in the camp were left with monumental tasks.”

The victims of Bergen-Belsen continued to die. In the two weeks after the Allies took over, 9,000 people died of disease. The next month, 4,500 inmates succumbed, and another 400 perished the following month.

“In total, approximately 14,000 people died in the camp after its transfer to Allied control,” said Celinscak. “In other words, nearly a quarter of the total number of prisoners still alive when the British and Canadian forces first arrived in the camp ultimately met their demise.… While the situation slowly improved, the conditions in the camp remained grim even weeks after its surrender.”

This reality is partly why Celinscak’s research also focuses on the meaning of the term liberation.

“Liberation was an experience that transformed the lives of both liberators and survivors,” he said, noting that this is another newly emerging field of academic inquiry.

“What does that word mean in relation to the Holocaust?” he asked. “If we consider some popular representations of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, we often see it framed as a jubilant event, one that brought to an end the suffering of the victims of the Holocaust. In films such as Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, in history books and in some museum exhibits, liberation is frequently depicted as a homogenous, joyful moment in time. But how accurate is this portrayal?”

Liberator narratives, he said, “are overflowing with shock, grief, confusion, disgust and rage.” For survivors, life did not turn for the better instantly. Public health considerations meant the camp inmates were effectively quarantined.

“The prisoners remained behind barbed wire,” he said. “Initially, the survivors were not given autonomy to leave the camp whenever they saw fit. Instead, in the weeks – and, for some, in the months and even years that followed – they continued to live behind the barbed wire of these camps. Places like Bergen-Belsen became displaced persons camps. The survivors were still guarded, only by men in different uniforms.”

In extensive interviews with many survivors, Celinscak came to realize the nuance in the concept of liberation.

“Liberation was a highly ambivalent experience,” he said. “They understood that they were no longer prisoners of Nazi Germany, but many would remain in displaced persons camps long after the war, learning that many of their friends and family had not survived what we now refer to as the Holocaust. For both survivor and liberator, they would contend with these experiences for the rest of their lives.”

Phil Levinson, president of the board of the VHEC, welcomed visitors and introduced a procession of Holocaust survivors carrying Yahrzeit candles. David Schaffer led the Mourners’ Kaddish. Councilor Raymond Louie read the proclamation from the City of Vancouver.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was designated by the United Nations in 2005, is officially on Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Pat Johnson is a communications and development consultant to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

New discoveries at Sobibor

The remains of the Sobibór extermination camp. (photo from Israel Antiquities Authority via Ashernet)

In a recent discovery made at the site of former Nazi extermination camp Sobibór – where more than 250,000 Jews were killed – remains were uncovered in what is believed to be the location where victims undressed and their heads were shaved before being sent into the gas chambers. The findings were discovered by Polish archeologist Wojciech Mazurek and Israel Antiquities Authority archeologist Yoram Haimi with their Dutch associate, archeologist Ivar Schute.

The archeological excavations, underway since 2007, are underwritten by the steering committee for the international project to establish a new museum and memorial site in the former German Nazi extermination camp, in coordination with Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research. The extermination camp was located near the village and railway station of Sobibór, in the eastern part of the Lublin district in Poland.

photo - A pendant with the Hebrew words “mazal tov” and the date July 3, 1929, and its opposite side (below) — A pendant with the Hebrew words “mazal tov” and the date July 3, 1929. *(photo from IAA via Ashernet)*

The remains of the building unearthed by the archeologists are located on the “Pathway to Heaven,” the path along which Jewish victims were forced to tread to the gas chambers. The personal items found in the foundations of the building probably fell through the floorboards and remained buried in the ground until they were discovered this past fall.

Among the personal items found in the area were a Star of David necklace, a woman’s watch and a metal charm covered in glass with an etching of the image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments; on the reverse side of the charm is the inscription of the essential Jewish prayer, Shema. Also found was a unique pendant, probably belonging to a child from Frankfurt who was born on July 3, 1929, which bears the words “mazal tov” written in Hebrew on one side and, on the other side, the Hebrew letter hey (God’s name), as well three Stars of David.

photo - The opposite side of the pendant, with the Hebrew letter hey (God's name), as well three Stars of David — The opposite side of the pendant, with the Hebrew letter hey (God’s name), as well three Stars of David. *(photo from IAA via Ashernet)*

Leading experts at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, together with Haimi, revealed in an announcement on Jan. 15 that the pendant discovered in Sobibór bears close resemblance to one owned by Anne Frank, who was murdered in the Holocaust and is well known for the diary she wrote while in hiding in Amsterdam. Through the use of Yad Vashem’s online pan-European deportation database, Transports to Extinction, they were able to ascertain that the pendant might have belonged to a girl by the name of Karoline Cohn. Dr. Joel Zissenwein, director of the Deportations Database Project, found that Cohn, born on July 3, 1929, was deported from Frankfurt to Minsk on Nov. 11, 1941. While it is not known if Cohn survived the harsh conditions in the Minsk ghetto, her pendant reached Sobibór sometime between November 1941 and September 1943, when the ghetto was liquidated and the 2,000 Jewish prisoners interned there were deported to the death camp. There, along the path to the gas chambers of Sobibór, the pendant belonging to 14-year-old Cohn was taken, dropped and remained buried in the ground for more than 70 years.

photo - A metal locket covered by glass with the image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments painted on it. (photos from IAA via Ashernet) — A metal locket covered by glass with the image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments painted on it. *(photo from IAA via Ashernet)*

Additional research reveals that, aside from similarities between the pendants, both Frank and Cohn were born in Frankfurt, suggesting a possible familial connection between them. Researchers are currently trying to locate relatives of the two families to further explore this avenue.

Over the past decade, the archeological excavations at Sobibór under the guidance of Yad Vashem have made several important discoveries, including the foundations of the gas chambers, the original train platform and a large number of personal artifacts belonging to victims. Among the unique items are metal discs attached to charm bracelets typically worn by children. Engraved on the discs was contact information in case the child went missing.

The most recent excavations have uncovered the remains of the building where victims undressed and their heads were shaved, as well as other areas bearing signs of the use of mechanical equipment to dismantle the camp. In one specific location are imprints left in the ground where trees were planted in order to conceal evidence of the camp.

photo - The locket’s opposite side has the Shema printed on it — The locket’s opposite side has the Shema printed on it. (photo from IAA via Ashernet)

Prof. Havi Dreifuss, head of the Centre for Research on the Holocaust in Poland at Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research, said, “These recent findings from the excavations at Sobibór constitute an important contribution to the documentation and commemoration of the Holocaust, and help us to better understand what happened at Sobibór, both in terms of the camp’s function and also from the point of view of the victims.”

photo - The face of a woman's watch — The face of a woman’s watch. *(photo from IAA via Ashernet)*

According to Haimi, “The significance of the research and findings at Sobibór grows with every passing season of excavation. Every time we dig,” he said, “we reveal another part of the camp, find more personal items and expand our knowledge about the camp. In spite of attempts by the Nazis and their collaborators to erase traces of their crimes, as well as the effects of forestation and time, we enhance our understanding of the history previously known to us only through survivor testimonies. In this way, we ensure that the memory of the people killed there will never be forgotten.

“This pendant,” he continued, “demonstrates once again the importance of archeological research of former Nazi death camp sites. The moving story of Karoline Cohn is symbolic of the shared fate of the Jews murdered in the camp. It is important to tell the story, so that we never forget. I wish to thank my Polish partner Wojciech Mazurek and the researchers at Yad Vashem for their dedication to the project, as well as Tel Aviv University for supporting the project, and the Polish-German Foundation who made the excavations possible.”

Relatives of Karoline Cohn, or any member of the public who can assist with details regarding her family or Sophie Kollmann, who filled out Pages of Testimony in April 1978 for Richard Else Cohn and Karoline Cohn, are requested to contact Haimi via email yoramhi@israntique.org.il.

Connecting to a legacy

The inscription in the Tosher Rebbe’s first copy of Kehilat Ya’akov, which recently sold at auction for $4,920 US. (photo from IMP Media Group Ltd.)

Even with the passing of the fourth Tosh Rebbe, Rabbi Meshulam Feish Segal-Lowy II, in 2015, Tosh Chassidut still exists in rural Quebec. The Tosh dynasty was founded in the 1800s and has roots in the Chassidic tradition, tracing their tradition back to the Ba’al Shem Tov.

Last month offered a unique opportunity to connect to the legacy of the Tosher Chassidut. The copy of Kehillat Ya’akov owned and used by the first Tosh Rebbe, Rabbi Meshulam Feish Segal-Lowy I, was available for auction at Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem. It was passed down within his family, and made it to the United States when his great-grandson fled Hungary. At the Nov. 15 auction, the item sold for $4,920 US.

The first Tosher Rebbe was a leading rabbi in the greater Jewish community in Hungary due to his standing in Torah and commitment to helping Jews. A 1966 article in the Canadian Jewish News by Norman Abrahams described the Tosher Rebbe’s dedication to his followers, many of whom were Holocaust survivors who turned to him for guidance: “This great man stays up most of the night fulfiling the many requests for advice and prayer and it is not uncommon to see him eating breakfast, his first meal of the day at five o’clock in the afternoon.”

Born in 1811 in Moravia (part of modern-day Czech Republic), Lowy I gained a reputation for his holiness and ability to perform miracles and became the first Tosh Rebbe, as well as a leading rabbi in Hungary. He received rabbinic ordination from Rebbe David (Spira) of Dynow, one of the leading rabbis of his time.

Although he passed away at 62, the first Tosher Rebbe had enormous impact on Torah Judaism. Lowy I served as rabbi and av beit din (literally, father of the court) of the city of Nyirtass, Hungary, and was known for his commitment to Torah. People came from all over to receive his blessings.

In 1873, a cholera epidemic broke out and killed almost 200,000 people in Hungary alone. The rebbe prayed to be an atonement for the Jews and, after his death, the epidemic did indeed come to an end.

The Tosh dynasty continued after Lowy I’s death, but was almost completely destroyed during the Holocaust. His namesake and great-grandson, Lowy II, was appointed rebbe by the few surviving Chassidim of his father, Rebbe Mordechai Marton Lowy, who was murdered in Auschwitz with most of his extended family.

Lowy II was born in Nyirtass in 1921, managed to survive the Holocaust in the Hungarian Labor Service and was liberated by the Red Army from a camp outside Marghita in October 1944. In 1946, he married Chava Weingarten, a direct descendant of the Noam Elimelech (Rebbe Elimelech Weisblum of Lizhensk). After being appointed rebbe, he set up court in Nyiregyhaza, but, in 1951, fearing the communist government, he ordered his followers to leave Hungary and immigrated to Canada, settling in Montreal.

Committed to maintaining the integrity of the Chassidut that his great-grandfather had started, and concerned about outside influence, in 1963, he decided to move his Chassidim to Boisbriand, Que., a small rural area now known as Kiryas Tosh.

After his death in 2015, Lowy II’s son, Rabbi Elimelech Segal-Lowy, became the next Tosher Rebbe.

The piece of Tosh history that was for sale is also inscribed by the first Tosh Rebbe’s grandson, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Rottenberg, who received it from his father, Rabbi Yehosef HaLevi, author of Bnei Shileshim.

Writing Lives project

This fall, a select number of Langara College students embarked on a project to write the memoirs of local Holocaust survivors, capturing personal stories from the Second World War. The project is called Writing Lives: the Holocaust Survivor Memoir Project.

Writing Lives is an eight-month collaboration between Langara’s English and history departments, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Azrieli Foundation. In the first half, students learn about the history and impact of the Holocaust. In the second half, students are paired with local Holocaust survivors associated with the VHEC.

“Writing Lives provides an opportunity for students to immerse themselves in the history of the Holocaust beyond physical textbooks,” said Rachel Mines, Langara English instructor, and project coordinator. For example, on Nov. 9, students commemorated Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) by lighting candles in memory of the violent anti-Jewish events that took place on Nov. 9 and 10, 1938. The course also regularly features a series of guest speakers from different organizations giving their perspective on the events surrounding the Holocaust.

“I feel grateful for the opportunity to investigate the events and prejudices that served as a catalyst for the Holocaust. With the help of survivors, professors, librarians and fellow students, I am learning that individuals, communities and organizations all have agency when it comes to fighting racism, and how we can work together to prevent such tragedies in the future,” said Lucille Welburn, a peace and conflict studies student who is taking the course.

Robin Macqueen, a Langara instructor and chair of the health sciences division, is auditing the course out of personal interest. He said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to engage with and honor people who survived a time of unimaginable prejudice. I’m getting a lot out of the course, and enjoy being a student again.”

For the VHEC, survivor testimonies are seen as a useful and powerful method for teaching about the Holocaust.

“Holocaust testimony provides a connection with people, culture, persecution and survival,” said Ilona Shulman Sparr, education director for the VHEC. “Eyewitness testimonies have proven to be a powerful and effective teaching tool, which affords a personal connection to the events of the Holocaust as we hear survivors’ accounts of their experiences. Testimonies provide a way for students to connect with survivors’ stories and gain an understanding of events that other sources can’t give them.”

This spring, students will be matched with Holocaust survivors to write their memoirs. The memoirs will be archived at the Azrieli Foundation and the VHEC, with a possibility of being published for public awareness.

Mourning Mom and inherited scars

Marta Fuchs, right, with Ilona Fuchs, 1968, Pasadena, Calif. (photo from Marta Fuchs)

My 98-year-old mother died recently and I’m waiting to feel something. I watched family and friends cry at her funeral and I listened to their outpouring of love and accolades for the remarkable woman my mother was. To a person, they spoke of how loving and generous and talented she was – and yes, that she was also forceful and insistent – how much of an impact she made on them, how they remain in awe of how she survived Auschwitz at great odds, and how she rebuilt her life multiple times with flair, energy and optimism.

I sat there quietly, gripped by cognitive dissonance. The woman everyone knew was all those things they described. She was a resilient survivor, a gifted dressmaker and teacher, a devoted friend, but, with me, her other side overshadowed it all. Early on, as a Jewish child in postwar Hungary, I knew my job was to take care of her emotionally, to mitigate the suffering that happened to her before I was born. I spent a lifetime doing that while also being the brunt of her relentless criticism and control. It often felt as if nothing I did was ever enough, or good enough, though I do recall seeing her happy at times with my outfits and she took pride in my accomplishments. But, regrettably, I am now hard-pressed to recall more than a few positive moments together over the more than six decades of my life with her.

photo - Ilona Engel Fuchs, circa 1950-51, Tokaj, Hungary — Ilona Engel Fuchs, circa 1950-51, Tokaj, Hungary. (photo from Marta Fuchs)

I rarely cried when she would mercilessly pick on me. Depression was more my style. I knew she had to win and I had to surrender in what always felt like a life-and-death struggle for her no matter the issue. From my room, I heard my father echo what I had been pleading with her, “Ilona! She’s almost 50 years old! When are you going to stop dictating what she should do?!” “I am so sorry she treats you like this” he came in to comfort me, adding his perpetual advice, “Don’t pay attention to her and do what you think is best.”

Shortly after Dad passed away, Mom and I came to blows again, and she retorted accusingly, “Your father said I should be nice to you since you are so sensitive.”

Being sensitive was not a value for her, and I understand why. Being sensitive was a luxury she could not afford if she was to survive as a young woman in Auschwitz. In fact, once when we were talking about Auschwitz, she looked at me and stated matter-of-factly, “You would never survive.” Perhaps she’s right, yet we don’t really know until we’re tested. And, at least I can say that, thus far, I have survived her, albeit with scars.

There was a period of two blessed weeks, six years ago, the summer I turned 60, when I had the mother I wished for: kind, calm, appreciative, going with the flow. She had fallen in her doctor’s office after getting a clean bill of health and broke her hip, then suffered a cascade of near-fatal medical complications. My brother and I took turns staying around the clock with her in the hospital and then in rehab, to be her advocate and translator, as she often reverted to her native Hungarian. It was painful to watch her suffer and I did everything I could to alleviate it. But it was also a period of relief, for she was too sick to do battle with me. Once she started recovering, she was back to her true self with me, which for all of us was ironically a good sign.

I did learn a lot from my mother and inherited her creativity and resourcefulness, for which I’m grateful. I do feel good about having been the consummate dutiful daughter despite her wrath, and perhaps I did a public service being her emotional caretaker, which may have enabled her to be shining in the world, making such a positive impact on others. Whatever I inherit from her will, though, mostly feels like reparation payments, for I, like many children of Holocaust survivors, remain collateral damage.

Remarkably, despite our battles, my mother and I never stopped loving each other and, fortunately, I could always summon enough amnesia to begin each visit anew. As I stare at the dwindling light in the tall, blue shiva candle graced with a simple Star of David, I am coming to accept that it’s OK that I am not filled with the same sorrow and boundless reservoir of love I felt when my father passed. I felt sorry for Mom, I loved her, I admired her, I wrote books and articles about her, and I did as much as I could for her. And, what I am most grateful for is that with my own kids I have the kind of warm and supportive relationship I wish I could have had with her. May she rest in peace and may her memory be for a blessing.

Marta Fuchs, MLS, MFT, is a professional speaker, psychotherapist and author of Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter’s Tribute. She was born in Hungary to Holocaust survivor parents and escaped with her family in the wake of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Her website is martafuchs.com.

Fairy tale reimagined

Taylor Pardell as Gretel and Pascale Spinney as Hansel in Vancouver Opera’s adaptation of the classic fairy tale. (photo by Emily Cooper)

While Vancouver Opera is presenting the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel Nov. 24-Dec. 11, cast member Leah Giselle Field is living one of her dreams.

Field first moved to Vancouver from Calgary – where her parents had moved from Montreal the year before she was born – for an undergraduate degree in opera at the University of British Columbia. “I left for a two-year master’s program in Ontario and then came back for my doctorate,” she told the Independent. “I came back to Vancouver several times during those years away, so I feel like I’ve been a Vancouver resident for the last 14 years.”

In fact, her connection to Vancouver goes back even further.

“Vancouver has always felt a little bit like home,” she said. “After the war, surviving members of my maternal grandfather’s family moved to Canada. My grandparents settled in Montreal, and my grandfather’s sisters settled in Toronto and Vancouver…. Growing up in Calgary, my family would take road trips to Vancouver over spring break and in the summers, and the time we spent with my great-aunt and my mother’s cousins’ families was formative. Friends of theirs have been part of family events and celebrations for decades, and it’s always fun to catch up during holidays. I’ve been part of the Congregation Beth Israel High Holiday Choir for the past few years and enjoy catching up with my BI family each fall.”

Her professional experience includes appearing “in the title roles of Carmen and Julius Caesar, and as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, the Principessa in Suor Angelica, and Jennie in Maurice Sendak and Oliver Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Pop!” notes her bio. “She is a past winner in the Western Canada District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a 2015 semi-finalist in the Marcello Giordani Foundation International Vocal Competition.”

photo - Jewish community member Leah Giselle Field plays Gertrude, the siblings’ mother — Jewish community member Leah Giselle Field plays Gertrude, the siblings’ mother. *(photo from Leah Giselle Field)*

In Hansel and Gretel, Field, who is a mezzo-soprano, plays Gertrude, the mother. All of the principal singers in the show, including Field, are 2016-2017 participants in Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program.

“My experience with Vancouver Opera so far has really been a dream come true,” Field said. “I still have moments of disbelief that I get to do this every day, that I have the opportunity to work and learn with such wonderful colleagues within an organization that treats its singers with so much respect. The eight of us in the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program [YAP] have become really dear friends – we had ‘YAPsgiving’ together last month (because Thanksgiving fell between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I brought matzah ball soup, round challah with raisins, apples and honey, and honey cake) – and our bass-baritone always says, ‘Goodnight, family,’ on his way out the door.

“Being part of this production of Hansel and Gretel has been amazing…. We have exciting, fresh perspectives from the director, conductor and designers to work with, the stage management team has been incredible, and the performers are so caring and supportive. It has been exciting every day – seeing the show come together is such a thrilling experience.”

Vancouver Opera is billing their Hansel and Gretel as a “family-friendly production” for ages 6-plus.

“There are all sorts of factors that make this production more family-friendly than our standard conception of ‘opera,’” explained Field. “First, the subject matter is familiar: anyone who has heard the Grimm story – about the brother and sister lost in the forest who find a house made of sweets and outsmart the witch who lives there – already knows the foundation of our story.

“We’re also performing an updated translation of the original libretto, so audiences will be hearing our story in English. [And] Hansel and Gretel is … an opera that involves child performers – we have a chorus of 14 children,” she said.

“Beyond the traditionally family-friendly elements of the opera, we have the most incredible design concept enhancing our production. This is a larger-than-life, technicolor world that brings to mind the dream world Maurice Sendak’s protagonist Max imagines in Where the Wild Things Are. This show is a co-production with the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, so costume pieces, the set, hand-held puppets and multi-operator puppet costumes help create this realm of ‘everyday spectacular.’ It’s such a visually rich presentation that audiences of any age will be engaged by the complete realm of story they see and hear.”

In addition, the new production has been shortened – it will run approximately two hours and 20 minutes, with one intermission – and the “youthful cast of emerging opera stars” will be conducted by 24-year-old Scottish-born conductor Alexander Prior. The original score by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) has been adapted to suit the relatively small size of the venue – Vancouver Playhouse – and will be performed by “a 14-member ensemble of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, which includes strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, a saxophone and an electric guitar.”

While Field’s focus is classical music, she said she also has some musical theatre, folk, jazz and pop music in her repertoire.

“Some of the music I’ve performed most includes Yiddish songs I learned in elementary school,” she said. “Whenever I can fit it into a program, I try to include ‘Oyfn Pripetchik.’ That’s always been a special song to me. When we learned new songs in Yiddish class, I would sing them over the phone to my grandfather in Montreal. He’d always say, ‘That’s very nice, Ketzeleh,’ but when I sang ‘Oyfn Pripetchik’ to him, he sang along. We had a party for his 90th birthday in 2010, and he got up to sing ‘Oyfn Pripetchik’ again with me then. I’m sorry to say he’s declined significantly in the past few years, but we still manage a sing-along every now and then.”

“Oyfn Pripetchik” is a song about a rabbi teaching his students the alef-bet, and it was written by Mark Warshawsky (1848-1907). In addition to folk songs, Field said that, since elementary school, she has “been interested in music and art suppressed under Nazism.”

“My maternal grandparents are Holocaust survivors and interwar European culture provides a fascinating snapshot of life and art amidst tragedy,” she explained. “Mary Castello, our pianist in the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program, and I are beginning to plan a recital of suppressed music for the new year and hope to present it across the country.

“Jewish-Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick was commissioned by the CBC to write a song cycle for the great Canadian singer, Maureen Forrester,” she continued. “He used the translated text of children’s poems salvaged from Terezin for his cycle ‘I Never Saw Another Butterfly,’ and I had the honor of performing ‘Narrative’ from this cycle with pianist Richard Epp for UBC’s honorary degree conferral ceremony for Elie Wiesel.”

In addition to the recital planned for next year, Field said, “I’m looking forward to Vancouver Opera’s festival in the spring, and getting to play the bad guy in a production of Puccini’s Suor Angelica in Ottawa in February.”

For tickets to Hansel and Gretel, call 604-683-0222 or visit vancouveropera.ca.

Letters connected families

A trove of letters between Jewish children and their parents separated by the Second World War and the Holocaust gives insight into the way families communicate in times of crisis.

Debórah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and director of the Strassler Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Massachusetts, has been studying the letters. On Nov. 1, she delivered the Kristallnacht Commemorative Lecture, an annual event presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in partnership with Congregation Beth Israel.

During the Second World War, postal service between belligerent or occupied countries ceased, but an individual in neutral Switzerland could convey messages between people in countries on either side of the conflict. Largely by happenstance, Elisabeth Luz, a Swiss woman living outside Zurich, helped many Jewish families maintain contact. After Luz, an unmarried woman who became known to many as “Tante Elisabeth,” had forwarded messages for a few families, word of mouth led to unsolicited requests from children who had been sent to presumed safety in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain.

“News about the aunt who forwarded letters spread quickly and Tante Elisabeth gained many nieces and nephews,” said Dwork. “She soon became their counselor and confidant, although nearly none ever met her.”

“Please pardon us that we write you without having permission to do so,” wrote Robert Hess and his brother. “Adolf is 12 years old and I am 14 years. We live in an OSE [Jewish philanthropic organization] home and have been selected for immigration to America. We write to you because we would like to write to our mother and have no other possibility. Please write our mother that she can write us via you. We must ask our mother permission to travel to America.… Can you also send us a photo of her?” The boys provided their address, their mother’s address in Vienna and a photograph of themselves.

“She did not disappoint,” Dwork said of Luz, “and they were included in that transport to America.”

Although she was poor, Luz sent writing paper, envelopes, international reply coupons and reply-paid postcards to the children and parents. She transcribed each letter, believing this would reduce the likelihood of attracting the attention of wartime postal censors, and kept the original. After Luz passed away in 1971, the original letters were discovered by her nephew, who passed them along several years later to Dwork, who has written about children’s experiences in the Holocaust.

At the Kristallnacht commemoration, Dwork shared stories and correspondence of several families, including Wilhelm and Adele Halberstam. In 1939, their daughter Kathe and son-in-law Heinrich Hepner obtained visas for themselves and their three children and eventually made their way to Chile.

“Wilhelm and Adele decided not to emigrate,” Dwork said. “They stayed in Amsterdam with their son Albert. Thus began the parents’ long-distance relationship with their daughter and grandchildren, which depended upon letters.… They sought to weave a web of letters, to hold each other tightly and to assure each other that, notwithstanding the pressures of their radically changed circumstances, their relationships endured.”

Adele Halberstam wrote to her daughter: “I really live from letter to letter.”

As the occupation continued, the parents grew increasingly silent about developments at home, mentioning nothing of the expanding repression they were experiencing, including the imposition of the requirement to wear the yellow star.

“Out of consideration for you, I will not allow my pen to overflow with what fills my heart,” the mother wrote her daughter. “Why should you become as sad as I am?”

Regular mail service between Europe and Chile took longer and longer, then eventually ceased. The family came to rely on the Red Cross, which conveyed messages of 25 words or less. This limited means of communication continued after the Halberstams were deported from Amsterdam to the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork.

“The pattern of Adele’s messages remained consistent,” said Dwork. “Little discussion of the hardship, humiliation or fear and always an emphasis on family ties, love and longing.”

Eventually, some truths could not be withheld. An abrupt Red Cross message told the Hepners of Wilhelm Halberstam’s death by heart attack. Adele and Albert were deported to Auschwitz on Nov. 16, 1943. Adele was murdered on arrival. Albert survived until March 1944.

In another case, a son shared with Luz his fears for his parents’ survival, but did not convey that fear in the letter to his parents. In reply, the mother, writing from the Warsaw ghetto, wrote only of her yearning for her children and not of the horrors she was experiencing.

“Her last letter, written in November 1942, said not a word about the mass deportations to Treblinka that the Germans had just unleashed on the ghetto,” said Dwork.

Luz also helped Hanna Ruth Klopstock, another of the children in the care of OSE, correspond with her mother Frieda and brother Werner in Germany. When the girl had not heard from them in some time, she wrote to Luz expressing her fears.

“Every day I tell myself, today I must certainly get a letter from Mutti. And still nothing. I do not know what to think about this silence,” she wrote. “Maybe the letters have been lost. I hope so.”

The girl’s fears were well-founded, said Dwork. By the end of 1942, Werner had been sent to a forced labor camp in Germany, detailed to heavy agricultural work. The mother wrote to Luz: “I foresee nothing good and must hold myself together.” In the letter, Frieda Klopstock thanks Luz for everything she had done and makes a final request that Luz help and console Hanna Ruth when the inevitable occurs.

“Frieda was deported to Auschwitz six weeks later,” said Dwork. Luz and Hanna Ruth learned this news in a letter from Werner, who himself would follow his mother to the death camp a month later. Luz assumed the worst when a letter to Werner in the labor camp was returned with the address crossed out and the words “Zuruck” and “retour, parti” – return to sender, addressee departed – written on the envelope.

In a shocking twist though, Dwork added: “Remarkably, this is not the last sign of life from Werner.”

A postcard from Werner came some time later.

“Written in block letters,” Dwork said, “his message ran, ‘Dear Tante Elisabeth and dear Hanna Ruth, I inform you today that I am healthy and remain here for the future. Sadly, I have no news from you but I hope you are well. For today, very hearty greetings from Werner.’”

The message was just six lines, Dwork noted, not the full 10 permitted.

“What we know now is that the Nazis, too, recognized the importance of letters,” she said.

In his Nuremberg testimony, a Nazi official described the letter program of the Reich Security Main Office. Jews brought to extermination camps were forced, prior to being murdered, to write postcards that were then mailed at long intervals, in order to make it appear as though these senders were still alive. “And thus,” said Dwork, “letters that seemed a sign of life served as markers of death.”

Dwork’s remarks were preceded by a candlelight procession of survivors of the Holocaust. Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted El Maleh Rachamim, a memorial prayer for the martyrs. Heather Deal, deputy mayor of Vancouver, read a proclamation from the city. Nina Krieger, executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, introduced Deal and the keynote speaker. Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld thanked Dwork and reflected on his own grandparents’ history of relying on letters from Europe to learn the fate of family left behind.

In his opening remarks to the program, Prof. Chris Friedrichs compared the situation of refugees today, who are fortunate, in many cases, to have access to technology that allows instant communication with loved ones left behind, while also acknowledging parallels across time.

“Nothing we say or do can bring back to life the six million Jews who perished, along with so many millions of others, during the darkest six years of the 20th century,” Friedrichs said. “But now, in the 21st century, the world is still full of desperate human beings longing for rescue or hope. There are things we can do to help bring families together, or to help build bridges of contact and connection. What we learn from the past must ever be our guide for the present and the future.”

Pat Johnson is a communications and development consultant for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

The aftermath of war

One of the displays in the exhibit Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944-1945, at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre until March 31. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944-1945, opened on Oct. 16. The exhibit, said Nina Krieger, executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, at the event, “is the first major project of its kind, examining the encounters between Canadians and survivors of the Holocaust and the evidence of Nazi crimes at the end of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath.”

The VHEC commissioned the original research and writing under the direction of Prof. Richard Menkis and Ronnie Tessler, which includes a companion school program. “Students and other visitors will engage with a number of media elements in the exhibit,” said Krieger, giving the example of a tablet with survivor testimony, various interviews and other audio and video material.

The centre also commissioned a comic book by Colin Upton to accompany the exhibition, called Kicking at the Darkness, which will be given to every student participating in the school program, and is available to others for a suggested donation of $5.

Krieger thanked contributors and funders of the exhibition. She then introduced Menkis, an associate professor in the department of history at the University of British Columbia, and Tessler, a documentary photographer and a project consultant and editor for cultural arts groups, who also happened to be the first executive director of the VHEC, in 1990.

“Canada Responds to the Holocaust is a challenging exhibition,” began Menkis. “And it’s challenging, I think, for two reasons. First of all, because liberation is a complex phenomenon. Superficially, one might think, with liberation, of being free and being happy but, in fact, in the words of one of the Dutch survivors, it was, ‘not an undiluted joy’; to be free but then to be trying to look for family and the like. This exhibition very much tries to convey how complex liberation is.

“It is a complex phenomenon for three reasons,” he said. It is complex because, as the liberators (the soldiers) were in Europe, they were moving through new locations and coming up with new experiences. As well, liberation is the interaction between groups, each with their own assumptions and lived realties. And, finally, liberation is complex because of the disbelief at what had happened, and the difficulty in communicating what had been witnessed.

In addition to the voices of some of the survivors, the exhibit follows a number of different Canadians across Europe, including army chaplains, notably Samuel Cass. It also follows the First Canadian Army.

“Only three of the Western Allies had field armies on D-Day: the Americans, the British and the Canadians,” said Menkis. “The First Canadian Army was comprised of two corps,” he explained, but, also, “within the Canadian Army, as was the case with other armies, there were a variety of groups, such as Polish units as part of the Canadian Army, and there were Canadian units who were in, for example, the British army, which is why they are going to figure in Bergen-Belsen.”

The exhibit follows journalists, especially Matthew Halton, but also other CBC and Radio Canada journalists. “Moreover, we look at and follow the reactions of official war artists, official photographers and film crews and, finally, for the postwar period, we look at international agencies, such as the United Nations relief organization and the American Joint Distribution Committee,” said Menkis.

Using maps, archival photographs, news footage and video clips of interviews, Menkis touched on the highlights of the exhibit. He spoke of survivors coming out of hiding, of Canadians’ arrival at Vught, in the Netherlands, a camp that had been abandoned – the cover of Upton’s comic book is of this encounter – and Canadians’ reactions at Westerbork transit camp, also in the Netherlands. While outwardly appearing more well than other survivors, the 900 prisoners at Westerbork had experienced continual fear of being on one of the weekly deportations to an extermination camp.

A number of Canadian soldiers had been at Bergen-Belsen before they arrived at Westerbork, explained Menkis. “The effect of Bergen-Belsen was searing, and it affected, in some complicated ways, how the soldiers and others would view Westerbork,” he said, before sharing a quote from survivors Walter and Sara Lenz: “Shortly after the Canadians arrived it became clear that something was bothering them. They asked a number of questions that made little sense to us at the time, Why were we so well fed? Why were we not sickly, on the verge of death?

“In fact, as cruel as it may sound now, I had the feeling that our liberators were in a sense let down, for as we soon learned, they had steeled themselves for … another Bergen-Belsen.”

Noting that this was not just a view expressed years later, Menkis presented an excerpt of a letter Cass wrote to his wife on April 24, 1945: “I spent a good part of the day with our people [Canadians] at Camp Westerbork.… Everything looks so good on the surface…. With the papers full of the cannibalism of Belsen, it is almost a shock to find a camp where the survivors are all well and the physical surroundings good. But you can’t see the fear that people lived through every moment of their existence, nor can you see the 110,000 Jews who were herded like cattle on the transports.…”

While some people believed that things could return to the way they were before the war, that was not possible. A number of Jews felt they could not stay in Europe; they saw it as a graveyard, with no future. Many Jews looked to Palestine, but not everyone agreed with that. Menkis gave the example of Vancouver aid worker Lottie Levinson, who saw nationalism as the cause of what had happened and couldn’t understand why others would see Zionism as the resolution of the issue. “So, different approaches to what Jewish life would be,” said Menkis.

In the last part of his presentation, Menkis screened a video clip from an interview with war artist Alex Colville, which included some of the images he had drawn at Bergen-Belsen. Menkis also played an audio clip of an interview with Maj.-Gen. Georges Vanier, who went to Buchenwald shortly after its liberation with a group of U.S. congressmen. In his remarks, Vanier – one of the few Canadians who advocated for the acceptance of refugees before the war broke out – specifically referenced Jews as being victims, whereas most reports did not.

Rather than simplify this complex story, Menkis said that he and Tessler “chose to keep as many voices and perspectives as possible. Some of them may be uncomfortable to hear or see, but we wanted to do justice to the bewildering and poignant encounters of the time.”

When Tessler took to the podium, she explained, “The inspiration for Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944-1945, dates back to 2005, the 60th anniversary year of V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day. For that commemoration, Richard and I developed a CD for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre that teachers could use in one classroom session. Compact and tightly constructed, the themes were presented in short, crisp slides characteristic of PowerPoint presentations.

“The CD was a multi-media production – which the exhibition has retained. Along with text in point form, we included photographs, excerpts of articles, newsreels, eyewitness testimonies and art by Canada’s official war artists. Since that time, the 70th anniversary of the Second World War has passed and new research has been published, allowing us to expand and enrich the information that was in the PowerPoint.”

Many steps were required to “keep this complex story coherent,” said Tessler.

“The exhibition began with a year of research in archives across Canada, the Netherlands, Israel, the United States and Britain, and with locating the support material,” she said. “We were fortunate in this phase to have a good working relationship with several researchers and archives in the Netherlands. On the home front, we had access to the VHEC collections, and the assistance of a student intern.

“The next step was to arrange this mass of material into an easily readable and chronological narrative. In whittling down the accumulated information, it was essential not to lose sight of the historical overview. By including testimonies and other media, we could add individual, and sometimes opposing, perspectives on the events being portrayed. By adding photographs, the viewer gains a sense of place and time.

“The exhibition format also allowed us to display material objects,” she said. “For example, the Shalom Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion loaned the V-E Day edition of the Maple Leaf, a newspaper printed for the Canadian Forces, with the word ‘Kaput’ covering the front page. Dr. E.J. Sheppard of Victoria, one of the first soldiers through the gates of Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands, loaned his battle uniform, pocket diary and a topographical map he carried in his tank that day.

“One of the most symbolic and touching objects in the exhibition is the yellow Jood star a newly liberated Jewish prisoner insisted on giving Sheppard in gratitude.

Another moment that gives pause is witnessing the large number of letters reproduced on a pillar in the gallery. Written by individuals and organizations seeking friends and relatives, they are but a smattering of the letters existing in just one archive in Montreal.”

The exhibit also includes “an antisemitic pamphlet printed in the Netherlands, and a 1943 poster ordering those with Jewish blood where, and when, to register with the authorities in The Hague … one of the most haunting objects in the exhibition is a facsimile notebook containing the weekly lists of deportees from Westerbork in the Netherlands to extermination camps in Poland: 100,657 people between July 1942 and September 1944 were, in most cases, sent to their deaths.”

Tessler thanked the many people who helped bring the exhibition to fruition, including Upton, who created the 24-page Kicking at the Darkness with the input of students in Menkis’ UBC course on Jewish identities in graphic narratives, and Canadian war historian Mark Celinscak, on whose research the section on the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was based. She also thanked all the VHEC staff and Public, the design studio that designed the exhibition.

Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944-45, is at the VHEC until March 31.

Festival highlights diversity

Chef Michael Solomonov samples the wonders of the Levinsky Market in Tel Aviv. (photo from israelicuisinefilm.com)

The 28th Vancouver Jewish Film Festival starts next week. New this year is an all-ages weekend of films at Rothstein Theatre, which follows the Nov. 3-10 festival screenings at Fifth Avenue Cinemas. Not new is the diverse selection of thought-provoking offerings.

With the festival opener, In Search of Israeli Cuisine, foodies will get their fix and then some. Guided by Michael Solomonov, the chef-owner of Philadelphia’s Zahav restaurant, the viewer is taken on a global food tour all within the confines of the tiny state of Israel.

Is there even an Israeli cuisine, the film asks. Yes, says food writer Janna Gur. “It’s perhaps a nascent cuisine, a baby cuisine, but a very precocious baby,” she says.

Israeli cuisine, Solomonov says, is made up of “traditions that were brought here and also that were born here.” He asks one market vendor how long he has had a spice shop. The reply: “Four hundred years.”

The food of Israel mirrors the history of the country, particularly its economy. In the years after independence, cuisine was defined by economical, modest recipes that incorporated the agricultural resources of the new state. In the 1980s, when the economy boomed, Israelis traveled more and wanted at home the kinds of flavors they found abroad.

Philosophically, Israeli food developed alongside the new identity the people were creating for themselves and their country. People were ashamed of the past and embarrassed by the foods of their parents. Israel’s “new Jew” was supposed to leave sad history behind and create a new post-galut civilization.

“In Israel, when you say Polish cooking, it’s another way of saying bland, boring, guilt-ridden kind of food,” says Gur.

Yet, the effort to abandon the past was both successful and, thankfully, unsuccessful. Tradition, in fact, integrates change through adaptive cookery. The centrality of Shabbat has defined Jewish and, therefore, Israeli cuisine, because of the necessity of developing recipes that can cook slowly for up to 16 hours. And, even though most Israelis are not religiously observant, Shabbat can still be a sacred family experience. One person explains that watching American TV, where families gather twice a year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, seems foreign, because every Jewish mother wants her daughters and sons with her every Shabbat.

Also unlike in most of North America, the film illustrates mouth-wateringly that a vegetarian in Israel can eat like royalty with endless options.

Politics also intervenes. During the Oslo peace process, Palestinian restaurants flourished in Israel. “Food makes peace,” says an Arab-Israeli chef. But there are also accusations of cultural appropriation.

“They often accuse us of stealing it,” chef Erez Komarovsky says of Israeli cuisine. But food knows no borders, he contends. “Food is not political. Food is what is grown on this land by the people who are living in it. If they are called Palestinians or Israelis, I don’t care. I don’t think the tomato cares.”

“Israeli salad is actually Arabic salad,” Gur admits. “What makes it Israeli is the way we use it.” That means eating it three meals a day and, for instance, stuffing it in pita with schnitzel.

The evidence about what defines Israeli cuisine is not entirely conclusive. Though Komarovsky claims to know.

“The essence of the Israeli taste is lemon juice, olive oil and the liquids from the vegetables,” he says. “And this is the taste that you miss after two or three days when you go abroad.”

– PJ

Liberation after the Holocaust was not unalloyed joy. It was complex, emotional terrain that involved coming to terms with the reality of the extent of the destruction of European Jewish civilization, individual family members and entire communities. This mix of emotions is clearly shown in Magnus Gertten’s documentary Every Face Has a Name.

photo - Hinda Jakubowicz stepping off the ferry in Malmö on April 28, 1945 — Hinda Jakubowicz stepping off the ferry in Malmö on April 28, 1945. (photo from everyfacehasaname.com)

Gertten took a film that was shot of arrivals to Malmo, Sweden, on April 28, 1945, and obtained the list of 1,948 passengers who arrived that day. Then he set out to put names to faces.

Elsie Ragusin was an Italian-American New York girl visiting her grandparents in Italy when the war began and they could not return home. When the Nazis occupied Italy, she and her father were arrested as spies and she became, as she says, the only American girl in Auschwitz.

She looks at her face on the film and says: “There, I’m thinking: ‘Can this be true?’” The smiling people handing out food seemed unreal to her. No one had smiled at them in the camps.

Gertten, a Swede, was moved to make the film when he saw parallels with the faces in footage of refugees arriving in Europe today. “Who are they?” he asks.

Fredzia Marmur, now of Toronto, sees herself on film, at age 9, wearing the same cloth coat she wore when her family left the Lodz ghetto. “There I am again,” she says of a little girl beaming into the camera.

The other women in the screen were together with her in Ravensbruck and, while Marmur admits she didn’t know what was happening, she took a cue from those around her. “I saw that everybody seemed happy, so I decided to be happy too,” she says.

Siblings Bernhard Kempler and Anita Lobel, 8 and 10 in 1995, try to reconstruct their thoughts at the time. Bernhard survived dressed as a girl and the pair stuck together, avoiding all others through their time in hiding and at Ravensbruck.

“It looks to me like I’m somewhere between happy and frightened,” says Bernhard. “A mixture of hope, a mixture of relief, a mixture of ‘Can I trust this?’ and some fear.”

He recalls his reunion with his parents. He was in hospital and the staff gathered around to watch what they expected to be a joyful scene. It wasn’t. His response, he recalls of meeting his parents after years of separation was, “Who are these people?” He suspects his parents wondered, “Who is this child?”

“I didn’t know who I was for a long time after that,” he says.

The film intersperses images from 1945 with those of present-day refugees arriving (some alive, some dead) in Sicily. A small but disturbing 1945 scene is ostensibly happy – women receiving clothes in Sweden – but the camera shows their nakedness, as if, even on liberation, their right to privacy was not granted.

People couldn’t always tell who they were seeing in the film. Judith Popinsky recognized four of the five young women who formed her surrogate family in Auschwitz after their families were murdered on arrival there. Only after some self-convincing did she determine that the fifth woman must be her.

“You encountered so many nameless faces throughout that period in time,” she says. “No one remembers them anymore. They lived anonymously. They were buried anonymously. At least now some of them have their names restored.”

– PJ

In One Rock Three Religions, the rock in question represents the city of Jerusalem. The Temple Mount – which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif – is the literal rock, where the two historical Jewish temples existed and where al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock now stand. The film captures the glory of diversity and the tragedy of division that coexist in the holy city.

photo - Dome of the Rock is indivisible from a human – versus political – perspective — Dome of the Rock is indivisible from a human – versus political – perspective. *(photo from facebook.com/onerockthreereligions)*

Divisibility in a political sense has been mooted several times. The 1947 Partition Resolution saw a Jerusalem under international governance. The city was divided, from 1948 until 1967, with East Jerusalem under Jordanian occupation and West Jerusalem in Israel. However, Kanan Makiya, author of The Rock, insists that, from a human standpoint, it cannot be separated. “How do you cut a rock?” he asks. “Jerusalem belongs to more than one faith. No one person, no one faith can claim it.”

When the Temple Mount was captured by Israel in the 1967 war, some soldiers raised an Israeli flag over the Dome of the Rock. Gen. Moshe Dayan ordered it taken down and handed the keys to the Wakf, the Muslim religious authority. This was both a symbolic and a practical decision, particularly in contrast with the exclusion experienced from 1948 to 1967, when Jews were forbidden from the holiest Jewish sites.

The documentary focuses on the contending claims and assertions of rights. The founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council says he has not seen Jerusalem because he will not stop at checkpoints and be searched “by soldiers that I consider occupiers.”

Some religious Jews say that, because the Temple existed where al-Aqsa Mosque now stands, they should be able to pray there as well as at the Western Wall. A Palestinian diplomat calls this a provocation.

Former Israeli diplomat Dore Gold contends that Palestinian and other Arab leaders frequently incite their followers with allegations that Israel is attempting to undermine or destroy the mosque and its environs. And the film features the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations repeating the incendiary falsehood that the Jews are trying to build the Third Temple in the place of the Dome of the Rock. Some Muslims are quoted denying any Jewish connection to the location.

This sort of denial, recently codified by UNESCO in a resolution that erases Jewish and Christian historical ties to the holy site, is evidence that strength through diversity in a place of such importance is often more wishful thinking than reality.

– PJ

photo - AKA Nadia is far more complex and compelling than you might first assume — AKA Nadia is far more complex and compelling than you might first assume. *(photo from 2teamproductions.com)*

When you read the sentence-long review of AKA Nadia on some sites – “A happily married mother of two seems to have the perfect life, until her hidden past comes to light” – you make a few assumptions. Namely, that the two-hour film is a fairly fast-moving tale of deception and drama. The opening scenes, in which a host of events happens, back this up: lively protagonist Nadia (Netta Shpigelman), a young Arab girl, graduates school in Jerusalem and secretly marries her lover, a PLO activist; they move to England where, fairly quickly, he’s caught by the authorities and she’s left alone, branded a terrorist and with no easy way of returning to Israel.

It’s not until half an hour in that the movie reveals its style – thoughtful and slow-moving, far more complex and compelling than you might first assume. When we were first introduced to Nadia, it was in East Jerusalem in 1987. We’re now reacquainted with her 20 years later, in the city’s west. Having fled England, thanks to a young Jewish woman’s passport, she’s completely (and secretly) rebuilt her life, as a Jew called Maya. And this is where the movie focuses the bulk of its time, perhaps too much time, on her new roles: successful dance choreographer, mother of two and wife to a Jewish official at the Ministry of Justice.

It’s only to be expected that this pleasant middle-class family life shatters when her past catches up with her. And every aspect of the subsequent relationship breakdown is well-acted and artistically produced. You feel for both husband and wife, and of, course, you’re forced to think of the bigger picture, too – religious identity in Israel and the ramifications of being Jewish versus Arab. Even after the movie ends – which it does a little abruptly – you’ll be left contemplating these issues for days.

– RS

My Home doesn’t shy away from its aim: showing how much minorities in Israel are typecast. It starts by stating that minorities (mostly Muslims, Christians, Bedouins and Druze) make up 20% of the population, but are often viewed by the outside world as all being Arabs who resent the Israeli “occupation” and the Jewish “apartheid state.” To show this is far from the case, the documentary follows the work of four people, one from each of the minority groups listed above.

photo - A scene from My Home, in which Muhamed Kabiya undergoes an ID check in Jerusalem — A scene from My Home, in which Muhamed Kabiya undergoes an ID check in Jerusalem. *(photo from ruthfilms.com)*

The result is a slightly disjointed, but incredibly interesting portrayal of people who are all different, but united in their bravery. There’s a Greek Orthodox priest and a Lebanese Christian, both promoting integration by “others” into Israeli society. But the two people who really resonate are Wafa Hussein, a Muslim Zionist and school teacher preaching acceptance of all ethnicities, and Mohammad Ka’abiya, an Israeli Bedouin who prepares Bedouin teenagers in his village for Israel Defence Forces service, having served himself.

The latter two have been labeled traitors by their communities because of their activism, but persist in striving for coexistence. And this is an aspect of the documentary that must be applauded – there is no sugar-coating the discrimination minorities face: “as an Arab, you wake up in the morning and tell yourself, ‘I have a lot to deal with today.’” But, the film ultimately is a heartening look at the complexities, both good and bad, of calling Israel “home.”

– RS

For tickets to the festival, visit vjff.org or call 604-266-0245.

Rebecca Shapiro is associate editor of vivalifestyleandtravel.com, a travel blogger at thethoughtfultraveller.com and a freelance journalist published in Elle Canada, the Guardian, the Huffington Post and more.

Letters offer insights

Prof. Debórah Dwork (photo by Jonathan Edelman)

Nearly two decades ago – and a full half-century after the end of the Second World War – a man in Switzerland cleaning out the apartment of his deceased aunt came across a stash of more than 1,000 letters. The discovery disclosed the aunt’s comparatively simple but valiant acts during the Holocaust and provides new insights into the lives of Jewish children and parents separated during the Holocaust.

The aunt, Elisabeth Luz, was an unmarried Protestant woman living near Zurich who appears to have stumbled into a role as the sole connection between hundreds of divided Jewish families. Because postal service between belligerent nations was restricted during the war, neutral Switzerland provided a potential channel for communication. Through what appears to have been happenstance aided by the compassion of a single devoted individual, thousands of letters made it to their intended recipients – and the record they provide demonstrates what families chose to say, and not say, in furtive missives in times of crisis.

The nephew knew that he had stumbled upon something important. He was familiar with the book Children with a Star by Prof. Debórah Dwork, a definitive study of the experiences of Jewish children under Nazism and the adults who helped them. He contacted Dwork to ask if she would like the letters. Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and founding director of the Strassler Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, in Massachusetts, now possesses the letters and has studied them for years. She will be in Vancouver in just over two weeks to speak at the community’s annual Kristallnacht Commemorative Lecture about what they tell us about families during the Holocaust.

Dwork cannot be certain how Luz came to be the intermediary for hundreds of families.

“From what I can piece together – and this is what I believe is the case – there was a refugee camp, sort of an internment camp, not a concentration camp, for refugees that had been established by the Swiss government in that town,” Dwork said. Luz went to the camp to give voluntary aid, Dwork believes, “to show with her presence that she cared about their plight.”

One of the men in the camp asked Luz whether she would be so kind as to send a letter to his wife.

“From there, it snowballed,” said Dwork. “Some of the letters that I have from the children, for example, say, ‘you don’t know me but Susie told me that you are an auntie who is willing to write to our mothers,’ and so on.”

The parents were mostly in “Greater Germany” – Germany and the areas it occupied. The children had mostly been sent to places thought to be safe, including Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Remarkably, the letters do not end in 1945. In the course of being a conduit between hundreds of parents and their children, Luz became a confidant to many of them – “Tante Elisabeth” – and remained in contact with several who continued their correspondence. The fact that the collection of letters exists at all is due in part to the fact that Luz hand-copied each one, believing that this would be less likely to catch the attention of war-era postal censors. She maintained the originals.

“Parents sent their letter to her, she copied every letter and then sent it on to the children and the children did the same in reverse,” said Dwork.

Some of the children were on the Kindertransport, the effort to transfer Jewish children from Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe to the United Kingdom, while others were sent by their parents to places considered safer for Jewish children.

“There were a number of children who were sent to family members or to friends or to religious organizations by their parents independently, individually,” she said, adding that there is much to be learned from the letters. “It tells us an enormous amount about family, the importance of family and the way in which family members use letters as thread to bind the family together. I think also it tells us about how children absorbed, adjusted, adapted – or did not adjust or adapt – to their ever-changing lives.”

What the letters do not always indicate is the fate of the families who sent them.

“We know a lot about the children who went on the Kindertransport to Britain, because they survived,” said Dwork. Less is known about the children sent to Belgium, the Netherlands and France. “Many of them did not survive as the Germans conquered and occupied those countries,” she said.

Of those who continued corresponding with Luz long after the war, many had lost their parents.

“Because of the relationship that developed between the children and Elisabeth Luz, those who continued to write, by and large, were now young adults whose parents did not survive and she, Elisabeth Luz, was the last tie to their prewar and wartime life,” explained Dwork. “So, she had become their confidant and that’s very important, the way Elisabeth became a confidant to the parents and the children.”

Vancouverites should join her in November not only to hear specifics about the contents of the letters, but also to reflect on some of the broader issues raised by a collection of this sort, which is a focus of Dwork’s academic work.

“The larger question, I think, is how do people keep in contact?” she said. “What do parents in Greater Germany say to their children? And what do children tell their parents about their daily lives?”

While the letters represent voices from the past, they have much to say to people today. “This is a very human story,” said Dwork. “And, as we are looking at refugees today far-flung from one spot to another, it may help us to think about how each one is a member of a family.”

The Kristallnacht Commemorative Lecture takes place Nov. 1, 7 p.m., at Congregation Beth Israel.

Pat Johnson is a communications and development consultant for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. This article first appeared in VHEC’s Zachor.