Holocaust – Page 34

The resilience of survivors

Peter Suedfeld and his mother. Taken at Vajdahunyad Castle, Budapest, Hungary, circa 1939/40. (photo from Peter Suedfeld)

Dr. Peter Suedfeld has devoted his life to the study of how human beings adapt to and cope with challenge, stress and danger. Yet it was many years into his work that he acknowledged his choice of academic pursuit may be related to his personal life history as a survivor of the Holocaust.

Suedfeld, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia, will deliver the keynote address at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s community-wide Yom Hashoah commemoration at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on May 4.

Through the years, he has often been asked if his research was influenced by his family’s experience in the Holocaust.

His mother was murdered at Auschwitz; his father survived Mauthausen. Suedfeld was a hidden child in Budapest, living as a Christian in an orphanage run by the International Red Cross.

“My answer always used to be no,” he said, “because my research for a long, long time was fairly straightforward experimental psychology, cognition, perception, memory, things like that.”

But, when he was interviewed for the VHEC’s survivor testimony project, he “put it all together,” he said. “I started to think that maybe there really is a connection, because almost all of my research – not quite all, but most of it – has to do with how people adapt under unusual, extreme, challenging, sometimes traumatic environments and situations.”

His early work focused on sensory deprivation, looking at how removal of external stimuli affects things like cognition, studying astronauts, cosmonauts and people who work in polar research stations.

“I also started looking at people who were under stress because they had to make really important decisions in stressful circumstances, such as political and military leaders,” he said. “I realized that might have had something to do with my own experiences. How do people face unusual, extreme and sometimes dangerous environments – which people who have survived the Holocaust have had to do, including me? But, I want to emphasize that, at the time I was doing this research, I never thought this way. People asked me why I do all these things, and I said something interests me and I do research on it, that’s all, and I have a wide range of interests. But then, I thought maybe this does have something to do with my personal history.”

At the Yom Hashoah event, Suedfeld will reflect on his personal experience, discuss the Holocaust more broadly and then address the issue of the long-term adaptation of survivors of the Holocaust, a topic on which he has conducted a series of studies.

Suedfeld has reviewed the psychological reports written soon after the war about the long-term potential of survivors to survive and thrive.

“In general, what I found is that the early reports of psychologists and psychiatrists about how permanently damaged survivors are were, to put it bluntly, wrong,” he said. “Yes, of course, some people were permanently damaged and some people could never put their life back together again. But there are a lot of people who did put their lives together or build new ones, who were quite resilient and still are, did well in their occupation or in education if they were young when they came here, have family lives that are certainly no less happy than anybody else’s, are proud of their kids and grandkids if they have any, don’t think about the Holocaust all the time, don’t let it ruin their life.”

Many survivors, he said, have some post-traumatic stress, but not post-traumatic stress disorder. “Disorder means it really interferes with normal life,” he said. “And very few have that.”

Reviewing the early literature and knowing what he knows from personal experience and acquaintance with many survivors, Suedfeld is more surprised by the early negative prognoses than by the remarkable resilience of survivors.

“What did surprise me was the negativity of the scientific reports, which overlooked or ignored or never got to see any of the people who were so resilient,” he said. “There is now a substantial and rapidly growing literature showing not only resilience but post-traumatic growth and people’s strength instead of just emphasizing the weakness. And, again, that’s not to deny by any means that there are some people who were so terribly affected that they haven’t recovered, but that is not the norm.”

Suedfeld also cautioned that every experience of survivors is unique.

“We talk about the Shoah as though everybody had pretty much the same experience,” he said. “I want to bring home to people that that is also a mistaken idea, that people experienced very different things, all of which are lumped under the label of Holocaust or Shoah, but that’s an incredibly wide diversity of experiences to which an incredibly wide diversity of people responded in an incredibly wide, diverse way, so you cannot talk about survivors or victims as an undifferentiated lump. They’re not.”

Pat Johnson is a communications and development consultant to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, as well as a member of the Independent’s editorial board. This article first appeared in the VHEC publication Zachor.

Recording testimony

As every year passes, more firsthand accounts of the Holocaust are lost. Carleton University has launched a new initiative to help preserve these important accounts for future generations.

Led by Mina Cohn, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship (CHES) within Carleton University’s Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies, this initiative is hoping to raise $7,500 using Carleton’s Futurefunder crowdfunding platform to record and preserve the testimonies of Ottawa Holocaust survivors as oral histories.

The project will ensure the preservation of Ottawa Holocaust survivors’ accounts and their experiences before, during and after the Holocaust. These recorded testimonies will become a powerful pedagogical tool to be used in any educational institution or setting and will allow Carleton professors and students to explore online the unique power of survivors’ memoirs. The recordings and associated educational materials will form the basis of a special Ottawa-based Holocaust memorial project and will become a public resource freely accessible on the CHES website.

Each survivor has a unique and personal story to tell. These eyewitness accounts unite personal experience with the history of the period in a powerful way, creating a feeling of immediacy to the events, and there is an urgent need to record and preserve survivor accounts before it is too late. CHES is in contact with local Holocaust survivors and is already working with those interested in participating in this project.

The $7,500 to be raised will help cover the cost of producing, editing and arranging a public launch of the video testimonies of Ottawa Holocaust survivors. In the first round, CHES will record up to 10 different survivor testimonies, in a professional studio environment with the help of professional videographers. If sufficient funding is available, it will produce thematic videos on associated topics, such as life before the Holocaust in certain locations, camp experiences, child survivors, Jews in hiding, etc. Recording is scheduled to start in June 2016.

The unedited recording and videotapes will serve as resources for scholars, students, educators and the public, and provide glimpses into the individual lives during the Holocaust that cannot be obtained from documents or written records. Such testimonies are also an excellent resource for the development of anti-racism educational materials.

To learn more, visit futurefunder.carleton.ca/project/ottawa-holocaust-survivors-testimony.

There are lessons to learn

“My principal lesson of the Holocaust is … beware of lessons.” With this warning, renowned Canadian Holocaust scholar Michael R. Marrus, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, has written an essential but also essentially frustrating book, claiming that there is nothing to be “learned” from the study of the Holocaust – Lessons of the Holocaust (University of Toronto Press, 2016).

All the mantras usually marshaled to justify Holocaust studies, such as “never again,” or “who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it” or “evil will triumph when good people do nothing” are bogus, says Marrus. For “history does not speak to the present with … an admonitory voice”: historians are not moralists or mentors, and certainly not preceptors – their mandate is to “handle history with care” and to insist on “getting it right.”

But, if Holocaust studies have nothing to teach us, should we not ask to what end should Holocaust historians and educators “get it right”: and how does a Holocaust scholar’s commitment to “getting it right” differ from that of a botanist’s or a quantum physicist’s or, for that matter, an athlete’s or a bricklayer’s? It is the failure to answer this question that makes Marrus’ book so frustrating.

Marrus’ credentials in Holocaust studies are impeccable. His books on the Holocaust have received prestigious awards; he has served on some extremely important international committees designed to air out crucial Holocaust issues, and has met, and often argued publicly, with some of the world’s most prestigious Holocaust historians, including Raul Hilberg and Elie Wiesel, as well as Hannah Arendt, Emil Fackenheim and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, all of whom he takes issue with in this book for suggesting that the Holocaust can offer lessons.

Marrus’ problem with regarding Holocaust history as a learning project is rooted in his historiography: what can one learn from history when history itself is so subjective? “If one looks hard enough at evidence,” says Marrus, “one can come up with the answer – or the lesson – that one wants.” And, again: history is “continually evolving,” its terrain endlessly “shifting,” exposing “new questions.” In other words, history is inevitably “a matter of interpretation.” (Marrus’ emphasis.) Thus, the lessons that one presumes to deduce from history will inevitably be the lessons that one preemptively wanted to find. As Marrus puts it, “lesson seeking often misshapes what we know about the event itself in order to fit particular causes or objectives.”

Fair enough, when it comes to comparing the Holocaust to “the rape of the environment [or] the harshness of bureaucracy,” but what about the larger, and more relevant, issues of social justice, of our moral duty to future generations, of our sacred duty to remember? Hitler saw carte blanche for his genocidal intentions by asking, “Who remembers the Armenians?” Surely it is crucial that no future Hitler be able to ask, “Who remembers the Jews?”

Marrus is on more solid, if more obvious, ground when he condemns the appropriating of Holocaust history by right-wing politicos in Israel, such as Menachem Begin and Binyamin Netanyahu, who he sees as using Holocaust references to manipulate opinion toward acceptance of their conservative policies. This political exploitation of Holocaust history has “crippled Israel’s capacities to respond imaginatively to questions of national identity and to seize new opportunities in a flawed global community.” Here, Marrus is probably right.

Marrus also condemns, again quite rightly, the enlisting of Holocaust precedents by special interest groups, such as advocates of gun control or those opposing bullying in schools, opponents of gay rights and animal abuse and so on – all anxious to further their causes by referencing the Holocaust and, in so doing, trivializing it.

Most pointedly, and again with some justification, Marrus attacks the thinking of those who would “universalize” the Holocaust, making Holocaust studies “a school for tolerance,” a warning against hate speech, against political apathy or against overly celebrating the actions of the pitifully few Nazi-fighting heroes, such as the leader of the Munich White Rose students,

Sophie Scholl, who was recently voted in Germany fourth among “the most important Germans of all time” – ahead of Bach, Goethe and Einstein. Again, this is an important point, and one that quite rightly occupies a lot of serious thinking in Holocaust studies.

Marrus’ final chapter, a brief 11 pages, is entitled “Lessons of the Holocaust,” and readers may be forgiven for thinking that Marrus is, finally, at the end of his book, going to take a stand.

Not at all. He says here, “we learn a great deal from the history of the Holocaust.” What, exactly? He doesn’t say. And, again, Holocaust studies are “intellectually enriching and facilitate our understanding of the world around us.” How so, and to what end? No answer. “We are wiser” for knowing Holocaust history. How so and, since there are no lessons in it, so what? In this final chapter, Marrus repeats over and over that Holocaust history “deepens appreciation of human reality” and “makes us more mature.” How so, since there’s nothing to be learned from it, on his own terms?

Holocaust educators will, I suspect, find Marrus’ position difficult to accept: they know exactly why they are teaching Holocaust studies – to impress upon (especially) young people the fragility of our human institutions and thereby to arm them against demagoguery. In other words, “never again.”

Demagoguery has been raising its head again in recent months in the United States. It would indeed be encouraging to all teachers of Holocaust studies if they could believe they’ve helped to effectively warn against it, a clear and inarguably important lesson to be learned from the dreadful past century.

Graham Forst, PhD, taught literature and philosophy at Capilano University until his retirement and now teaches in the continuing education department at Simon Fraser University. From 1975 to 2010, he co-chaired the symposium committee of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Refugee policy evolves

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, left, and Dr. Harold Troper. (photo by David Berson)

The current refugee crisis – and Canada’s responses to past crises – was the topic of an interfaith panel recently, which raised issues especially relevant as Passover approaches.

Our Home and Native Land? A Multi-Faith Symposium on Refugee Settlement featured a keynote presentation by Dr. Harold Troper, co-author of None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948. The event, on March 18, also included a panel discussion that featured Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom. Catalina Parra brought a First Nations perspective, Imam Balal Khokhar spoke from a Muslim point of view and Rev. Dr. Richard Topping spoke as a Christian.

Troper recalled being part of a Canadian group that traveled to eastern Germany two decades ago, after the Berlin Wall fell. States in the east of the newly reunified Germany were seeing an upsurge in migration from countries further to the east. A group of Canadians was invited to listen and give advice on Canada’s experience integrating newcomers. At one point, a local official thanked Troper for his comments, but asked, “What do you do with your foreigners?”

Troper expounded on the concept of “new Canadians,” a formulation perhaps unknown in any other country, in which people arriving with the intent of making Canada their home are acknowledged not as foreigners or as migrants, but as people becoming part of our polyglot population already on a path to inclusion.

Of course, Troper acknowledged, this was not always so. None is Too Many, published in 1983, was a seminal book that has had lasting impacts on Canadian views of migration and refugees. The title comes from a quote from an anonymous Canadian immigration official who responded with these words to the question of how many post-Holocaust refugees to admit. The words have been attributed, in some tellings, to F.C. Blair, Canada’s then-director of immigration. However, while this is not provable, Blair’s actions were in line with the words.

Recounting this country’s exclusionary policies toward the desperate Jewish populations of Europe in the prewar period, but also a similar disregard after the war, the book has been held up as an object lesson in how not to respond to people in crisis. Troper said he didn’t know until years later the impact the book had had on one very significant episode in Canadian history.

In 1979, Troper and Abella sent an academic paper that preceded the book to Ron Atkey, Canada’s immigration minister. Atkey was a member of Joe Clark’s cabinet and, though that Progressive Conservative government lasted only nine months, it was during Clark’s term as prime minister that the decision was made to welcome 60,000 Vietnamese refugees, known as “boat people.” Troper said he found out later that the manuscript they sent played a role in the decision.

“We hope Canada will not be found wanting in this refugee crisis the way it was in the previous one,” the authors wrote in a note accompanying the manuscript. They expected no response and they received none. But, several years later, Troper said, Atkey told him that he had read it.

“He told us he was shocked and dismayed when he saw the political parallels between the Vietnamese and Jewish refugee crises,” Troper recalled. “Then and there, Atkey told us, he decided he was not going to go down as the F.C. Blair of the boat people.”

Already predisposed to encourage his cabinet colleagues to take a generous approach, the article stiffened his resolve to stand firm against ministers who disagreed. The government initiated a joint federal-private sponsorship program.

“It today serves as the prototype for Canada’s Syrian refugee program,” said Troper.

Now, as refugees are coming from North Africa, Asia and, most notably, the Middle East, fleeing civil war and ruin in Syria and Iraq, Troper sees parallels between the fears expressed now and those of seven decades ago.

“The fears are not only around the expenses of accommodating these refugees, but that the intake of a population of different race, religion and cultural assumptions and social expectations will destabilize destination countries,” he said.

Not dissimilar, he said, were fears that European Jews might bring socialism, communism, anarchism – even Nazism – with them.

“Foreshadowing the kind of anti-refugee arguments commonly heard today,” Troper said, “reports of persecution were dismissed as exaggerated if not bogus, fabrications designed to justify an end-run around Canadian immigration restrictions. And who were these refugees anyway? Were they really innocent victims? Surely they must have done something to turn their fellow citizens against them. Why make Europe’s problem our problem? And weren’t Jews in Canada already a pesky problem? Do we want more? And who’s to say that communists or even Nazis would not pose as refugees to infiltrate as subversives into Canada? Keeping Canada strong and united meant keeping Jews out.”

Another haunting parallel was the galvanizing photo of the 3-year-old Kurdish child who washed up on a Turkish beach and a photo Troper came across decades ago in his research for None is Too Many while going through archival boxes in the Toronto office of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society. The boxes were filled with prewar letters from European Jewish parents who, knowing that entire families were unlikely to be granted admission to Canada, begged that their children might be taken in by a Canadian family. In each case, a terse response told the desperate parents that Canada was not admitting any Jews but that the request would be held on file in case something changed.

“Going through these files, I came across a letter that impacted me the way I imagine the photo of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi lying facedown in the sand of a Turkish beach impacted on all of us,” he said. “The letter was from a father begging for some shelter for his two daughters. A picture of two smiling children was attached. As I read this letter, my eyes began to tear; you see, I am also the father of two girls. At the time they were 3 and 5 years old. For a split moment, it was as if I was that desperate father, his children were my children and his fears were my fears.”

As part of the panel that followed, Moskovitz spoke of the bread of affliction.

“How inappropriate it might seem to hold up a matzah when we sit around a seder table filled with food, and to think that we are supposed to connect with this when we have so much,” the rabbi told the Independent after the event. “The point is to remind us that there was a time in our lives when we didn’t have so much.

“Each of the faith traditions,” he said, “spoke about that lens of empathy, of remembering historically that we once ate the bread of affliction, that we once didn’t have much and so we have to share with those who do.”

Religious perspectives are critical in this discussion, he added.

“Left to our own devices, society will often do what they think is in [their] own immediate best interest, which is often isolationism – we’re seeing that in the U.S. elections today – and fear of the other,” he said. “The role of religion is to compel us to do what is morally right and good, what is spiritually elevated, what is holy. It’s a religious foundation that is compelling us to love the stranger, because our political reality, especially in the wake of the terrorist attack in Brussels, is telling us to fear the stranger.”

For Jews, he said, the plight of refugees is not a momentary news story.

“This is not just a headline that has come and gone,” said Moskovitz. “Our Passover Haggadah makes it a headline for Jews every year, that we are reminded to see the world through the lens of a refugee every single year. It’s the most observed Jewish holiday in the Jewish calendar – that says something about how important the status of a refugee is in Jewish tradition.”

The multi-faith symposium was organized by the Inter-Religious Studies program at Vancouver School of Theology and facilitated by Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, the program’s director.

Vilna, the place, its people

It is a master storyteller who can make you feel like you’ve met someone you never knew, visited a city to which you’ve never been, make you long for a people, place and culture you’ve never experienced but from a generation, location and language once, twice or thrice removed. Abraham Karpinowitz (1913-2004) is such a writer. And, thanks to local master storyteller and translator Helen Mintz, more of us can now visit Karpinowitz’s Vilna – a city full of colorful characters, both real and not, and share in a small part of their lives.

Vilna My Vilna (Syracuse University Press, 2016) is a collection of 13 short stories and two brief memoirs by Karpinowitz, translated from Yiddish into English by Mintz. For context and a better understanding of Karpinowitz and his work – notably one of the main “characters” in his writing, Vilna – there is a foreword by Justin Cammy, an associate professor of Jewish studies and comparative literature at Smith College in Massachusetts, and an introduction by Mintz. These two scholarly essays are invaluable, but if you’re completely unfamiliar with Karpinowitz, perhaps jump ahead and read a few of the stories before heading back to these parts of the book. It’s kind of a Catch-22, in that their insight enhances the enjoyment of the stories, but the stories enhance the understanding of the analysis and history.

Romantics will appreciate most the linked stories of “The Folklorist” and “Chana-Merka the Fishwife.” In the first tale, Rubinshteyn heads to the Vilna fish market to collect material for YIVO (the Yiddish Scientific Institute) because he knows that, if the “genuine language of the people” is not documented, “it would be a great loss for the culture.” Dedicated to his work, and a dedicated bachelor, he fails to notice that Chana-Merka has fallen in love with him and, once his research is complete, he stops visiting the fish market, much to her – and his – sadness. In the second tale, Chana-Merka heads to YIVO herself to make sure that Max Weinreich, its director, knows from whom all of Rubinshteyn’s material came: she makes lists of curses for Weinreich, such as “May you speak so beautifully that only cats understand you,” and “May you be lucky and go crazy in a more important city than Vilna.”

Weinreich is one of the real people who appear in this collection where fiction and non-fiction meld. Yoysef Giligitsh, a teacher at the Re’al Gymnasium, is another. Most readers will not be able to identify all of these people and, while there will be added realism for those who can, the characters stand on their own. Besides, these people are secondary to the protagonists, who are the fishwives, the prostitutes, the criminals, the poor.

Despite that everyone is trying to eke out an existence, even the criminals follow a moral code. For example, Karpinowitz notes, in “Vilna, Vilna, Our Native City” that the Golden Flag criminal organization’s constitution includes the admonition, “Our members should behave properly and not forget that even though we are who we are, we are still Jews,” and that “[t]here was a directive for the general treasury to provide dowries for poor brides.”

Karpinowitz pokes fun at communism, capitalism, politics in general. His descriptions put readers right into the scene, almost as if they’re standing on the opposite street corner watching events unfold. And he has some wonderful turns of phrase. In “Shibele’s Lottery Ticket,” for example, Sheyndel’s husband goes off to fill the water bucket and never returns: “Sheyndel missed her husband, the shiksa chaser, less than the bucket.”

Or, in one of the two memoirs, “The Tree Beside the Theatre,” Karpinowitz writes about his father’s choice to sell his print shop to run a theatre, “If he’d stayed in the print shop, he’d be a rich man. My mother reminded him of this every time she couldn’t cover expenses. But everything in the print shop, including the machines and the letters, was black, and everything in the theatre was colorful, even the poverty.”

Karpinowitz’s characters have self-dignity and hope. They are not passive, for the most part, but are actively trying to change their situation for the better or to help someone else. Not surprisingly, many of the stories have bleak endings, with the narratives going from charming and/or humorous to horrific, illustrating just how abruptly and brutally this world came to an end.

These stories that turn on a dime are so moving. They emphasize just how little people at the time understood that most of them would soon be murdered. As Karpinowitz writes in “Vilna, Vilna, Our Native City”: “For years, a Jew with blue spectacles stood on Daytshe Street begging, ‘Take me across to the other side.’ His plea was so heartrending that, rather than asking to be taken across the few cobblestones separating Gitke Toybe’s Lane from Yiddishe Street, he sounded like he needed to cross a deep and dangerous abyss. Maybe he was the first Jew in Vilna with a premonition about the Holocaust. Just the name of the street, Daytshe Gas, German Street, drove him from one side to the other. We could all see the little water pump and Yoshe’s kvass stall on the other side of the street, but through his dark spectacles, that Jew saw farther. Fate didn’t take him to the safer side. He ended up in the abyss at Ponar with everyone else.”

Karpinowitz survived the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, having left Vilna in 1937. He briefly returned in 1944 and then, after two years in a displaced persons camp in Cyprus, moved to Israel. Mintz notes that he wrote seven works of fiction, two biographies, a play and five short story collections. He was awarded the Manger Prize (1981), among several other honors.

In the stories of Vilna My Vilna, the geography of the city is integral, and the maps included are useful in situating the action. The glossary is also an essential part of the book: kvass, for example, is a “fermented beverage made from black or regular rye bread.”

Adding even more value to this collection are three illustrations by Yosl Bergner that were in the original 1967 Yiddish publication of Karpinowitz’s Baym Vilner durkhhoyf and the painting “Soutine Street” by Samuel Bak is the cover of Vilna My Vilna. Both artists (and the Pucker Gallery, in the case of Bak’s painting) gave permission for their work to be used at no charge, which is an indication of the translation’s import beyond entertainment.

Mintz’s acknowledgements are many, and that she accepted so much input into the book speaks volumes about her integrity and the quality of her work. “Translating these stories brought me great joy,” she writes. “While never swerving from the truth, Abraham Karpinowitz answered genocide with love: love for his characters and love for his craft as a writer.” With Vilna My Vilna, Mintz adds her love, and that of many others, to ensure that Vilna, its people and its stories will not be forgotten.

Revenge story with humor

Before you get to the fifth page of text, it will become apparent that you haven’t yet encountered a period. Don’t be put off by that. Curt Leviant’s King of Yiddish (Livingston Press, 2015) is a page-turner. It is a comedic tour de force, interspersed with a detective story that will have you following Shmulik Gafni through Poland in an obsessive pursuit. He is hunting the man he witnessed murdering his father and uncle in Kielce, Poland, a pogrom that occurred 14 months after the end of the Second World War.

Shmulik is described as an “overlyfull professor” of Yiddish at the fictional University of Israel in Jerusalem. The pogrom in Kielce is a well-known tragedy that did occur, but Leviant’s fertile imagination weaves an original tapestry from that terrible time and place.

So, where’s the comedy? The humor centres around a basic human failing: men will be men, and Shmulik falls under the spell of Malina, a Polish Catholic linguist determined to become proficient in Yiddish. She also happens to be half Shmulik’s age and is unbelievably beautiful and well built. Malina is his second obsession.

The two stories, solving his father’s murder and getting to the bottom (and the top) of Malina, are interspersed narratives that keep you guessing and entertained. Along the way, the reader encounters a Chassidic un-kosher kidnapping that goes awry (imagine the Marx brothers in black hats) and a bris (kosher or not depending on whether you are Orthodox or Reform) that are grist for Leviant’s mill of linguistic tomfoolery. You meet other academics, letting you in on university rivalries and gossip. Believe it or not, but a cookie with an incredible miniature topping in a Vienna café is an important character in the plot development that might have been written by Kafka, Borges or Nabokov, but it is pure Leviant, plying his considerable art as a fabulist.

Leviant also steps outside the narrative and talks to the reader. At one point, the author says you can skip a chapter. Take my advice: keep reading. As you join Gafni in his quest for justice, you will also find allusions to previous works by Leviant. These, he jokingly attributes to famous Hebrew and Yiddish writers, telling us that other colleagues translated those books. One of these is the Icelandic writer, C. Urtl Eviant, a self-referential invention who also plays a role in King of Yiddish.

Considering all the word play in English, Yiddish and Hebrew, my favorite occurs when a colleague of Shmulik’s is calling 911. He tells the operator he is a linguist with the City University of New York. Propriety in a family publication requires you figure it out for yourself. Revealing any of the other plot twists would spoil the fun.

If you have read Leviant’s other critically acclaimed fiction, you will catch many of the references here. If you haven’t, you may want to back up and read some of his earlier novels. The Yemenite Girl, The Man Who Thought He Was Messiah and Diary of an Adulterous Woman are good places to start. He has produced a body of work that has been widely translated throughout Europe.

John Irving has written that he always composes the last few sentences of his novels before he begins page one. Leviant must have done this with his novel. For those of you who like to look at the end of a book before you begin … please resist. King of Yiddish is a gripping narrative that will fascinate you from the opening paragraph to its surprising last.

Sidney Kessler is a freelance writer in Glen Allen, Va. His most recent articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The old town that Jan built

Zamosc town hall. (photo by Tomasz Zugaj)

If you were rolling in money, what would you do with it? Would you build a town for yourself? That’s what Jan Zamoyski did.

As you approach the town’s main square, you might be inclined to think that someone has fooled with your itinerary. On first glance, it might well appear that somehow you have been detoured from Poland to Italy. Before you stands Zamosc, which can only be described as a stunning example of a planned, late-16th century Renaissance town. Designed by Italian architect Bernardo Morando, it follows the model of the citta ideale, or ideal town.

More than 400 brutal years have passed since the town’s inception. Yet, Zamosc has remarkably withstood the enormous devastation of the Second World War and the utilitarian, unesthetic architecture of the communist era. It largely retains its original layout, a large number of original buildings and fortifications.

Zamosc stands in southeast Poland, 142 miles (228 kilometres) from Warsaw. Zamoyski founded Zamosc on his own property in 1589. He was an intriguing character, an extremely wealthy and educated man who juggled a variety of careers, including in the military and politics. He was a hetman (head of the army) and a chancellor. His taste in things Italian probably began during his student days at the University of Padua.

photo - A statute of Jan Zamoyski, founder of Zamosc — A statute of Jan Zamoyski, founder of Zamosc. *(photo by Tomasz Zugaj)*

While he was an army man, Zamoyski’s focus in establishing Zamosc was seemingly more economic than military. It should be noted, however, that he did not forget to commission an imposing fortress and city ramparts.

Located on the trade route linking western and northern Europe with the Black Sea, Zamoyski envisioned Zamosc as a thriving trade centre. He invited Italian, Turkish and Dutch Jewish merchants to work and live in his new town. His liberal policy toward outsiders was likewise extended to Armenian, Greek and Scottish merchants, and to Ruthenes (Slavs of the Orthodox Church). His outreach to foreigners did not spring as much from liberality, as from a strong desire to see Zamosc succeed. At the time, all of the mentioned ethnic groups had reputations for jump-starting floundering economies.

Zamoyski’s concerns went beyond the economic, though. As an intellectual ruler who was likewise a devout Roman Catholic, he had an academy – located today at Academy and Perec Streets – a high court and a large church, which was originally dedicated to Saint Thomas the Apostle and the resurrection, but was elevated in 1992 to cathedral status, and an imposing palace centrally constructed. Altogether, Zamosc’s buildings reflect the idea that institutions should be in physical harmony with the residents of a town. Just as the organs of the body support the human being, so Zamosc’s institutions were designed to organically mesh with the populace.

As mentioned, when Zamoyski decided to build his town, he imported a skilled Italian architect. It seems clear, however, that the chancellor also considered Morando because of his sensitivity to Polish culture. Morando had already worked in Poland and had gained an appreciation of Polish life.

The 16th-century Great Market Square features colorful arcaded houses characteristic of Morando’s native Padua. These houses, located at the northern end of the square, were designated for the Armenian merchants, hence the street’s name, Ormianski.

photo - The town’s 17th-century synagogue — The town’s 17th-century synagogue. *(photo by Tomasz Zugaj)*

In length and width, the square measures exactly 100 metres. It is here that the two main axes of the old town cross. The 600-metre longitudinal axis runs east to west: from Bastion No. 7 to the Zamoyski Palace. The 400-metre crosswise axis runs north to south, joining the Great Market Square to the two smaller market squares: Solny (this area, translated as the Salt Market, was assigned to Jewish merchants) and Wodny (translated as the Water Market). The original buildings in these smaller markets complemented those of the Great Market.

The town hall in particular was an enormous enterprise, taking nine years to complete (1591-1600). It was meant to draw attention. And, with its fan-shaped double staircase and imposing tower, it certainly achieved this purpose. During the early part of the construction work (1591-1593), Morando also served as the town mayor. His appointment ended before he was able to hang his name on the door of town hall’s mayoral offices.

In 1992, the town of Zamosc became a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hopefully, this award will help to preserve the beauty of this Renaissance town for years to come.

More on Zamosc

From July 11 to July 18, Zamosc is hosting the international folklore festival Eurofolk. About seven international carriers fly regularly between Vancouver and Warsaw.
Famous people who lived in Zamosc include L.L. Zamenhof, founder of Esperanto. He had the revolutionary idea that hatred would disappear if people spoke the same language. A revolutionary who was born in Zamosc was Rosa Luxemburg.
The old town of Zamosc stands largely intact. Humans fared far worse. For instance, the Jewish population, which had comprised almost half the city’s pre-Holocaust population (12,531), has vanished. Those who could, fled from the Nazis. Others were forced into a ghetto. In a series of four deportations, many Jews were sent to Belzec. Others were shot in marches and in roundups. As a reminder of the once-thriving Jewish community, visit the synagogue (9-11 Zamenhofa St.), which has been undergoing an extensive renovation project.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Possibility of a better future

Teens light candles on March of the Living. (photo from March of the Living Canada)

In April 2015, a group of 80 teens, under the guidance of three chaperones and a Holocaust survivor, arrived in Poland for a two-week journey exploring Poland’s tragic events and followed by the joy of celebrating the birth of the Jewish state on Yom Ha’atzmaut.

The mission of March of the Living is to pass the torch of Holocaust memory to new generations. The experience provides young people with an opportunity to bear witness to the Holocaust and to the stories of survivors, so that this important part of our collective history is never forgotten. It is also a unique opportunity to strengthen our children’s Jewish identity and to strengthen their connection to Israel.

The march itself took place on Yom Hashoah, and we marched from Auschwitz to Birkenau with nearly 10,000 other young people. The march commemorates the death marches that the last surviving prisoners were forced to take, where many perished, but a few survived thanks to the liberation by the Allies. It is the most powerful event imaginable, and one that unites all young Jewish and non-Jewish people across the world.

By the end of the trip, these beautiful young people were so open in their expression of their deepest and most profound insights and emotions. They were no longer afraid to show their vulnerability, because the support they received from each other throughout the trip was absolutely unconditional. It was a beautiful experience and a privilege to be a part of.

The commitment to Judaism and Israel that the participants acquire on this trip is so clearly represented in the following statements by March of the Living participant,

Barbie Clark:

“For me, March of the Living created an emotional connection to my tradition, enabling me to understand and appreciate the importance of remembering our history.

“During the trip, we witnessed firsthand the magnitude of mass destruction that occurred during the Holocaust. As we traveled around the country, we were constantly reminded of these horrors in every city, town and community that we visited. At the height of Auschwitz’s productivity, it was able to murder and cremate up to 12,000 Jews a day – a number greater than the mass of us who were able to complete the walk. To realize that every single one of us participating in the march could have been destroyed in the space of one day, defies understanding and description. Also, at Majdanek, we were witness to a horrifying monument containing ashes and bones of … 20,000 Jews killed in the Nazi’s Fall Festival of 1943. This monument is alarmingly large, reiterating the magnitude of what occurred. I found this terrifying and incomprehensible.

“The horrors witnessed in Poland are to be contrasted with what I experienced in Israel,” continued Clark. “While in Israel, I had the unique privilege to witness both Yom Hazikaron – Israel’s Remembrance Day for its soldiers – and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s birthday. On Yom Ha’atzmaut, the entire country is in celebration – the euphoria is palpable. Despite the sadness one is left with after [bearing] witness, I was left with contagious optimism and hope. Hope for a future without enemies; hope for the Jewish people and the Jewish nation surviving despite all previous oppression.

“The entire experience created for me a new sense of being connected to Judaism, in a way I never thought possible…. The trip symbolized for me all [the] adversity, intolerance and persecution of Jewish people, yet at the same time creating a sense of survival and the possibility of a better future, for not just the Jewish people, but for all mankind.”

Charlotte Katzen, co-chair, March of the Living committee, was a chaperone on the 2015 trip. This article was originally published in Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Yachad. More information about March of the Living, click here. For information on the adult program – which is new this year – click here.

Holocaust awareness

The Post-Survivor Exhibit in Mystic Market, one of the busiest spots on campus. (photo by Chorong Kim)

The following remarks have been modified from the original address given during Hillel Victoria’s Second Annual Holocaust Awareness Presentation during Holocaust Awareness Week, which took place at the University of Victoria Jan. 25-29.

When my co-organizer, Dr. Kristin Semmens in the history department at the University of Victoria, and I embarked on planning Holocaust Awareness Week, we decided to put a call out for poster submissions to include in the Post-Survivor Exhibit to be publicly displayed in Mystic Market, one of the busiest spots on campus. The aim was to feature personal stories of post-survivors – UVic students who are descendants of Holocaust survivors – and we welcomed submissions from survivors of other genocides and atrocities. We thought that, between all the Jewish students and the diverse student body, we would be overflowing with submissions and would struggle to select 20 stories to include in the exhibit. As it turned out, our struggle was to get any submissions at all. Why am I sharing with you our experience of failed expectations? Well, it’s quite simple. This has been a learning experience for us, just as much as it has been for the students we approached to participate in the exhibit.

Many of the Jewish students said they knew very little about their grandparents or their survival story, and felt they didn’t have enough to write personal reflections about it. I was coming from the point of the view that you can write about “not having enough to write about” and attribute that to the implications of being a descendant of a survivor and the negative effects of post-Holocaust syndrome (a form of transferable post-traumatic stress disorder). Others didn’t want to share their story in public and recommended that we ask people to submit anonymously; some were too scared to be identified as Jews on campus. Both Kristin and I were not surprised by the reasons we received but, as advocates of Holocaust awareness and education, we thought the students could overcome their fear and disassociation from their family’s past.

photo - Dr. Orly Salama-Alber, left, and Hannah Faber sing “Mi Ha’Ish,” while Cheryl Noon, left, and Kaitlin Findlay light the second candle — Dr. Orly Salama-Alber, left, and Hannah Faber sing “Mi Ha’Ish,” while Cheryl Noon, left, and Kaitlin Findlay light the second candle. *(photo by Chorong Kim)*

As a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland (and today Belarus) on my mother’s side and a granddaughter of interned Japanese-Canadians on my father’s side, I can tell you that there are two types of survivors. Those who talk and those who don’t. My maternal safta (grandmother) spoke about the Holocaust and would tell everyone that the only reason she survived was because of her blond hair and blue eyes, whereas, my other three grandparents chose to never talk about what happened to them. So much so, that my Japanese bachan and gichan (grandmother and grandfather) completely abandoned their Japanese heritage and opted to raise their children with English names and, tragically, my maternal saba (grandfather) couldn’t even recall the names or faces of his murdered first wife and baby girl. That’s how he dealt with his past.

I only know about my histories because I wanted to know about them and I asked questions. That got me thinking, how can I ask students to write about their stories if they haven’t gone through this process of asking yet? And who am I to pressure them to do so? I know now that I may have asked too much of the students. Perhaps we are not as ready as I thought to share our stories, let alone share them collectively as an international community.

I thank the handful of students who did send in poster submissions for their bravery in sharing their stories. Each one was on a different page in their personal journey to coping and understanding their family or nation’s past. Some already knew all the details while others had to ask their families for help in obtaining old photographs and putting all the bits and pieces of their grandparents’ stories together into one cohesive personal reflection. One of my students wrote to me on Facebook, “I just found out a ton of information that I didn’t know before, and I’m still kind of processing it”; another texted me saying that, although they have decided not to submit a story, this has started a personal desire to find out more about their family’s history. Coming to terms with the past is not easy, we all need healing and we all have the right to look to a brighter future.

photo - Carmel Tanaka with, left to right, Dawn Smith, Thomas Laboucan-Avirom and Rachelle Trenholm of the Indigenous Law Students Association — Carmel Tanaka with, left to right, Dawn Smith, Thomas Laboucan-Avirom and Rachelle Trenholm of the Indigenous Law Students Association. *(photo by Chorong Kim)*

This weeklong exhibit and the presentation today have already served their purpose – Holocaust awareness. It was not smooth sailing organizing this event. The Holocaust is a very sensitive subject and everyone has their views on how to approach Holocaust education. I am very moved by the outpouring of support from participating organizations in our very diverse community. May this be an example of collaboration, tolerance, compassion and love towards our ultimate goal: peace on this campus, in our community and around the world.

Traditionally, during Holocaust commemorations, six memorial candles are lit to represent the six million Jewish lives lost in the Holocaust. Today, we have chosen to light seven memorial candles, to be lit by UVic students representing various communities and causes, with our seventh candle symbolizing our hope. Performing “Mi Ha’Ish” is post-doctoral fellow Dr. Orly Salama-Alber, accompanied by Hannah Faber, the volunteer coordinator of UVic’s Jewish Students Association, and the same song that has been incorporated into our gift to Dawn Smith, who performed the First Nations acknowledgement earlier. In English, the lyrics read: “Who desires life, loving each day to see good? Then guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:12-4)

Our first candle will be lit by undergraduate students Shelly Selivanov, Paige Gelfer and Anat Kelerstein and master’s student Keenan Anthony, grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and they will be lighting on behalf of the six million Jews who perished in the Shoah.

Our second candle will be lit by I-witness Field School student Cheryl Noon and history graduate student Kaitlin Findlay on behalf of all other persecuted victims of the Holocaust.

photo - Holocaust educators at UVic, left to right, Dr. Helga Thorson, chair, Germanic and Slavic studies department; history professor Dr. Kristin Semmens; and Dr. Charlotte Schallié, co-chair of the European Studies Program — Holocaust educators at UVic, left to right, Dr. Helga Thorson, chair, Germanic and Slavic studies department; history professor Dr. Kristin Semmens; and Dr. Charlotte Schallié, co-chair of the European Studies Program. (photo by Chorong Kim)

Our third candle will be lit by international students Moe Ezzine and Abbie Urquia, who are members of the African Awareness Club, on behalf of all the victims of genocide, including, but not limited to, the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the Ukrainian genocide and, more recently, the Syrian genocide.

Our fourth candle will be lit by student advocates Lane Foster and Maks Zouboules from the Sexualized Violence Task Force on behalf of all victims of sexualized violence on and off campus.

Our fifth candle will be lit by undergraduate student Nicola Craig Hora and graduate student Lauren Thompson, who are co-designing a teaching unit on the Holocaust for high school students, on behalf of all the children whose lives were cut short and were robbed of their bright futures.

Our sixth candle will be lit by members of the Indigenous Law Students Association, Thomas Laboucan-Avirom and Rachelle Trenholm, on behalf of all victims of residential schools and Japanese internment camps here in Canada.

Our seventh and final candle, our candle of hope, will be lit by Multifaith Services work-study students Olivia Bos and Gabriela Turla, on behalf of all humanity, regardless of their race, religion, creed and sexual orientation.

photo - Team leader Mike Brosselard from Campus Security — Team leader Mike Brosselard from Campus Security. (photo by Chorong Kim)

On stage, between the candles is our broken window. This window is shattered and represents Kristallnacht, the night of Nov. 9, 1938, on which a massive coordinated attack on Jews occurred and swept across Europe, marking the beginning of the Holocaust. This night is otherwise known as the Night of Broken Glass. Throughout this presentation, we will be reclaiming the broken pieces of glass and rebuilding this very window in a communal act of resilience.

The eight window pieces were placed by members or representatives of the following groups: 1) First Nations community; 2) UVic Multifaith Services; 3) Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island; 4) UVic Holocaust educators; 5) Campus Security; 6) student leaders (Jewish Students Association, Indigenous Law Students Association, History Undergraduate Society, Multifaith Services work-study students, Germanic and Slavic studies students, I-witness Field School students, and student advocates from African Awareness Club and Sexualized Violence Task Force); 7) UVic administration (Equity and Human Rights Office); and 8) children of Holocaust survivors and members of the Kristallnacht planning committee.

It takes a community to overcome trauma and rebuild a peaceful future. It also takes a community to prevent trauma from happening in the first place.

Carmel Tanaka is the Hillel BC director at the University of Victoria, a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and an advocate for Holocaust awareness.

March of the Living impact

March of the Living International (MOLI) has published a study examining the effects that the program has had on its participants. The educational program takes, on average, 10,000-20,000 students annually to Poland and Israel with the goal of educating and inspiring future generations to learn from the destruction of the European continent during the Second World War. MOLI accepts applicants from all walks of life and religions, hoping to ensure that not only is the Holocaust not forgotten, but also that it is never repeated.

The report studies the impacts that the program has on its Jewish participants, and highlights the educational and religious changes that the program has inspired since its creation in 1988. Of the population surveyed, most initially signed on to the program in order to better understand their Jewish culture. Many of the participants in the study said that the program has directly impacted them, leading many to visit, study in or move to Israel. Fifty percent of the respondents said that the program caused them to consider moving to Israel later in life.

The study was conducted by Prof. William Helmreich of CUNY Graduate Centre and the Colin Powell School at City College, a sociologist and expert on ethnic identity. “What’s most remarkable about the March is how deeply it impacts participants over a period of many years,” he states. “These include life choices like selecting a mate, moving to Israel and career choices. In addition, it greatly impacts not only on Jewish identity but also on compassion toward other people as well.”

Indeed, 54% of respondents said that the March had made them more tolerant towards other groups. And the effect increases over the years, as 66% of those who attended the March 10 years ago, reported it had made them more tolerant.

The study also found that 86% of the participants asserted the importance in their spouse being Jewish, and 91% in raising their children with some sort of Jewish education; 65% felt the importance of raising their children in a Jewish neighborhood.

Of those surveyed, 90% felt the March instilled in them the importance of reacting to confrontations with antisemitism, and 95% stated the March had strengthened their sense of Jewish identity.

“To think that the March is such a successful program in terms of ensuring and enhancing Jewish identity and in making people realize the importance of engaging as a Jew within their communities and caring for those outside of them, truly illustrates the goals that we had when initially forming the first March so many years ago,” said Dr. Shmuel Rosenman, MOLI chair.

March of the Living brings individuals to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hate. Since the first March in 1988, more than 220,000 participants from 52 countries have marched down the same three-kilometre path leading from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom Hashoah as a silent tribute to all victims of the Holocaust. March of the Living is a partnership between March of the Living International, local MOTL foundations, the Claims Conference, individual donors, private philanthropists and Jewish communities around the world. Visit motl.org.