Langara College

Class leads to understanding

This academic year marks the second session of Writing Lives, a two-semester project at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines. Writing Lives is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation. Last fall, students learned about the Holocaust by studying literary and historical texts. In January, students began interviewing local Holocaust survivors and are now in the process of writing the survivors’ memoirs, based on the interviews. Students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. They used their most recent journal entry to reflect on the topic of Multicultural Perspectives. Here are a few excerpts.

It’s been more than half a year since I decided to join the Writing Lives program. The historical context should have been enough motivation for me to join when I first heard of the program about a year ago, but I hesitated. I’d never done a writing project as large or as important as this. I felt that my skills and experience were inadequate in preserving the stories of Holocaust survivors. I still feel that way.

As a child and then later, as a student of history, I regarded my sources as just that: sources. The stories I listened to were filtered, edited for a younger audience. The books and films I read and watched were similarly altered. As I delved into the history and historiography of it all, I had an inkling in the back of my mind that people actually lived through these events, experienced them. But the moment our survivor partner started telling his story, it really struck me that yes, this is real, these are real people.

This project isn’t just a curiosity, an interest – it has become more of a duty. It has been mentioned many times since the program started that it is crucial for these stories to be told, written down and passed on, for time is running out. I never felt the gravity of that responsibility until we heard the history from someone who saw it with his own eyes.

– J.V. Malabrigo

***

Courses like Writing Lives are a reminder of the damage complacency can cause. Without knowledge, without tolerance, we are doomed to walk in circles until our hatred ends our capacity to recognize each other as human beings. We will fail to recognize that we all bleed, cry, laugh and need each other to survive.

I have learned the beauty of a human story. I have learned what it truly means to be triumphant and what it means to be a survivor. I am learning what it means to achieve true greatness and compassion, despite the lack of it that is shown to so many. I have explored the reality of how complacency may be our true enemy. I have learned that ignorance and acceptance of extremism means turning off our humanity and letting hatred rule minds and hearts alike.

We see history as ancient stories…. Through this class, I understand how to immortalize living, breathing history and to show a history of peace and love coming out of trauma and violence.

– Heather Parks

***

The Writing Lives program has had a significant impact on me. I hope to become an elementary school teacher, specifically teaching a primary grade (kindergarten to Grade 3). Holocaust education may be out of my hands in terms of the curriculum, but there is a major, never-ending lesson that I take away from this experience. I hope to teach my students the importance of embracing and celebrating our differences.

When someone looks different from us, celebrates different holidays, eats different food – whatever the case may be – these are opportunities to learn and to love. If there are things we notice about each other that we don’t understand, there are ways to respectfully ask questions. We will always have differences of views and opinions, but the most important thing to remember is that no single person’s opinion is “proper” or more important than anyone else’s. Our differences make us unique. Our differences are what make the world such an amazing place. If we remember the importance of respect and understanding, we can ensure that we will never see another Holocaust.

– Chelsea Riva

***

My father is Chinese South African. Born in 1965 in Johannesburg, South Africa, he grew up in the final stages of apartheid. This racist system denied people of colour, namely black people, basic human rights and dignity. Laws were based on the race or colour of a person and, while laws were well-defined for most ethnic groups, Chinese people in South Africa were such a small minority that most of their daily lives fell into a legal grey area. In this system, Chinese people were above black people, below white people. Chinese people in some cases would be allowed into white institutions but could be refused service at the discretion of the owner. While Chinese people were given certain privileges, at the end of the day, my family was denied the full rights of humanity. They had to carry identification cards, they were victims of racism and their lives were constructed in fear of punishment from a racist system whose punishment was seemingly random.

My mother is Japanese. Born in 1965 in Hiroshima, Japan, she grew up in a conservative society that often refuses to talk about its violent history of invasion, colonialism and war. This is not to say that my mother herself denies this history, but, in general, Japanese people become uncomfortable when discussing the role of Japan as an invading force in Asia. Numerous Japanese war crimes remain unacknowledged to this day, and even those that have been acknowledged have never reached the same global recognition as the crimes of the Holocaust.

It is unfair to compare separate instances of invasion, imprisonment or murder. The discrimination my father experienced was distinctive and had similarities to the Holocaust, but by no means was it the same. The invading history of my mother’s homeland was horrific, but to compare the actions of the Japanese army and government to those of the Nazis dilutes the complicated issues of Japanese society while disrespecting the unique experience of those terrorized by the Japanese. However, it was with knowledge of these two sides of my family, both Chinese and Japanese, that I took this class.

Taking this class did not change my perspective of the Holocaust. Instead, the Holocaust became more real, more detailed. I came to this class with the utmost respect for what we were studying and with an intense desire to do something that “mattered,” which is a common goal for many people my age. What I didn’t expect was to form such a personal connection with our survivor. I didn’t expect for it to become so real that I would break down crying.

My experience in this class has been enriching in ways that I didn’t expect. I don’t think that I can say this class changed me, but it deepened the ideas of legacy that I held because of my background, and it helped personalize the Holocaust. My family’s history helped me form a deep respect for my elders. Because of them, I learned that there is power in the retelling of stories told with fear, shame and beauty. I have family that comes from the side of both the oppressed and the oppressors, and this informed my perspective and my need to take this class.

– Yukiko Takahashi-Laisut

Reflections on first meeting

This academic year marks the second session of Writing Lives, a two-semester project at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines. Writing Lives is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation. Last fall, students learned about the Holocaust by studying literary and historical texts. In January, students began interviewing local Holocaust survivors and will write their memoirs on the basis of the interviews. Students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. Students used their most recent journal entry to reflect on their first meetings with the survivor with whom they are partnered. Here are a few excerpts.

Prior to meeting our survivor partner, one of our group members spoke to him on the phone, and she described him as a person “who doesn’t let anything past him.” It seems he’d tested her on her ability to say the word “Holocaust” without shuddering an apology.

It is clear that our partner refuses to spend his time telling his story to anyone who cannot handle it. On one hand, his attitude is a comfort; I believe we will be able to show him that not only are we unafraid to hear his story, but also that we care deeply about helping him tell it authentically. On the other hand, this adds to the building anxiety about our interviews and our worries about writing the memoir. Producing a memoir that our survivor is 100% proud of is my biggest goal and also my biggest fear. I feel that telling the story of another person’s life is a tremendously huge responsibility, and I do not take it lightly.

– Chelsea Riva

We actually met D. before our first meeting: he came to our class to give a talk last semester. Our first interview was arranged at his home, and D. was as warm and friendly as before. So was his wife, and they took good care of us. They helped us with our coats and insisted that we did not have to take our shoes off. D. said we must have walked a long way, and it was the shoes that kept us walking comfortably; therefore, we should not take them off. I immediately recalled what Primo Levi wrote in his book Survival in Auschwitz. Yes, shoes are of the utmost importance, and D. has experienced that. However, we quickly realized that the house was immaculately clean, and so was the light beige carpet that we were stepping on with our shoes! Anyway, while I was worrying about the carpet, the meeting began.

– Bonnie Pun

When I first met D.S., I was apprehensive. The culmination of the past four-and-a-half months was finally at hand, and I was set to be the lead interviewer for our group – not a task that fell lightly on my shoulders.

Moira and he came into the room and she introduced him (she had met him previously). D.S. smiled so widely that his eyes crinkled, and he shook each of our hands in turn. When we were done, D.S. said a few words about himself and then quickly launched into a very compressed, detailed story about his life.

We had been expecting a more casual, getting-to-know-you first interview, and none of us had been expecting to take in such a massive amount of information – although, in hindsight, I’m glad we did. At the end of the interview, after D.S. had given us advice about meeting deadlines and making sure we had enough time to edit and rework parts of his story, we breathed a sigh of relief – it had gone well.

The opportunity to have a question-and-answer session with a person who has survived such great personal trauma is incredible. D.S. is a wonderful storyteller, and the interviews so far have been a continuously rewarding experience.

– Susan Scott

Some of the stories that D.S. shared with us at that first meeting were hard to absorb. I think I didn’t really want to understand what he was saying, as a way of protecting myself, so I wouldn’t show I was affected while I was in the room with him. It was only after I listened to the recorded interview that I could even start to imagine the events that he had endured. It sunk into me that this was a real thing that had happened to a real man, one who sat in front of me, ready to share his pain and perseverance with us. For that, I am grateful and honoured.

What D.S., the other survivors, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, the Azrieli Foundation and Langara College are doing through the Writing Lives program is so immensely important – something I have come to understand on a new level after that meeting. I think the point is to affect others in the way that this one meeting affected me. It’s to try and understand people’s suffering as best we can, though we will never feel their pain, and to use that understanding to become better people, and not be complicit in others’ suffering in the future.

– Moira Henry

Survivor’s talk inspires

“There are as many Holocaust stories as there are Holocaust survivors,” said David Ehrlich, a survivor outreach speaker of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, to open his afternoon talk at Langara College. On Oct. 31, a class of 20 students and several faculty members and guests heard Ehrlich – a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz who immigrated to Canada via Paris in the late 1940s – tell his personal story.

This class is part of a program called Writing Lives: The Holocaust Survivor Memoir Project. In the first term, its students produce research papers on prewar European Jewish communities like the one that Ehrlich called home; in the second term, they will interview survivor-partners and together write memoirs of the survivors’ experiences.

Ehrlich is an evocative speaker. He spoke lovingly of his family home in Transylvania (now part of Romania). “We had a three-room home, and we were middle-class. But we had no running water and no electricity, not for another 20 years,” he said. “Kids don’t know any better. I thought that we had it well: chicken on Friday night, bread on the table, it was wonderful!”

But he also told of his experience with antisemitic violence, the hard choices made by families who tried to avoid a Nazi roundup, and life in Auschwitz. He silenced the room when he spoke of stepping off a train boxcar at Auschwitz: “I’ll never forget the view when the sliding doors opened, or the noise that the doors made,” he said.

The students – who in this term’s research papers attempt to imaginatively reconstruct Jewish life before the Second World War’s devastation – responded with questions about Ehrlich’s journey to Canada. He spoke of the family that he made in Canada: a wife and three sons. He made his story accessible to the audience of all ages.

The students admired Ehrlich and a bond was formed during his talk, which was about an hour long. When he finished speaking, there was a respectful silence, and no student seemed willing to be the first to break it. Teachers from Langara began the question-and-answer session and, once the ice was broken, the students filled the remaining time with questions. Ehrlich in turn shared relevant wisdom for Writing Lives’ participants.

“You are educated and smart,” he told them. “There comes a time where you’ve got to learn to put up with people who are different because you have to get along. Start practising by getting along with your fellow students.”

Indeed, Writing Lives features groups in which students collaborate on research and, ultimately, on memoirs with the course’s survivor-partners. These collaborations require empathy. Ehrlich conducted himself as an exemplar of empathy, stating, “I can’t hold the grandchildren of Nazi-era Germans accountable for the Holocaust,” and the students’ response to his talk suggests that they, too, understand empathy’s importance. The course thus offers an excellent venue for students’ development of collaborative skills and of compassion. It provides a space in which students can grow closer together.

The afternoon also contained humour and reference to contemporary subjects. Ehrlich joked that he was now willing to use various German-made appliances and recalled that the heavy rainfall during a roundup of Hungarian Jews paled in comparison to Vancouver’s weather. Ehrlich also demonstrated strong knowledge of news and politics by interspersing references to American and Canadian current events into his remarks. He shared his general optimism about the post-Holocaust situation, stating, “After three or four generations, the Germans are coming clean; they are behaving like good nations do. It’s the only country in the world where you cannot say that the Holocaust didn’t exist.” He added, “We in Canada are very lucky – multicultural – and there’s no way that one minority group could be persecuted as in the Holocaust.”

His audience appreciated his graceful, optimistic tone. One enthusiastic student baked dozens of cupcakes to celebrate Ehrlich’s recent birthday.

Ehrlich’s talk will guide Writing Lives’ students through the remainder of the program. They will respond to it in one of their weekly written submissions, and the experience of interacting with a Holocaust survivor foreshadows the interviews that they will conduct in early 2018. They could not have asked for a better guide.

William Chernoff is a student in the Writing Lives program. Coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines, the two-semester program is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation.

The Holocaust in literature

This academic year marks the second session of Writing Lives, a two-semester project at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines. Writing Lives is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation. This fall, students are learning about the Holocaust by studying literary and historical texts. In January, students will begin interviewing local Holocaust survivors and will write their memoirs on the basis of the interviews. Students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. Many students used their most recent journal entry to reflect on the value of literature in transmitting Holocaust memory. Here are a few excerpts.

The role of literature in preserving history is controversial but important. Understandably, there are people who are reluctant or even vehemently opposed to recording the Holocaust through the lens of art, concerned that the act of rewriting events in a fictional context may undermine the significance of the tragedy. Others may worry that historical inaccuracies are inevitable in these artistic works, thus doing a disservice to the victims and betraying their memories.

I would argue otherwise: that literature and historical facts can and should build upon one another, used to educate and not obscure. For me, reading our history textbook this semester has not always been easy, but reading the short story A Ghetto Dog by Isaiah Spiegel took the experience to a different level. Such is the power of narrative. As Menachem Kaiser wrote in his article “The Holocaust’s uneasy relationship with literature” (The Atlantic, Dec. 28, 2010), “literature affects us in ways that even the most brutal history cannot.” Literature makes the event close, immediate and personal. It’s hard for me to imagine being a Jew in Second World War Europe, but personal accounts and narratives come close to letting us immerse ourselves in the tragedy.

– Athina Leung

In his article “The Holocaust’s uneasy relationship with literature,” Kaiser argues that Holocaust literature is an important part of history. It can provide the emotional connection that reading facts cannot. It is a window to understand what people felt without having to experience the ordeal that the characters or author went through. Literature has the power to move the human heart. Facts are important, but they do not give the reader the ability to connect with history in ways that a more emotional and personal experience can provide.

– Tina Macaspac

I found the assigned reading, “The Holocaust’s uneasy relationship with literature,” to be incredibly relevant and thought-provoking. This article discusses the various difficulties associated with Holocaust literature, including the opinion by some historians that the only valid way to recount the Holocaust is through historical facts and memoirs. I agree that acquiring factual knowledge about the Holocaust is integral, and that reading historical documents is essential. However, I find myself disagreeing with the perspective that Holocaust literature is distasteful or discrediting to the Holocaust. Rather, literature provides an alternative, more emotional perspective that one cannot acquire from reading a fact-based history textbook. This week, for example, we read the short story A Ghetto Dog, which narrates the tale of the Jewish widow Anna and her dog Nicky. While I was aware of the facts (in this case, Jews being rounded up by Nazi troops) from a historical perspective, the story emphasized the feelings of helplessness and exhaustion that Holocaust victims and survivors felt. It touched a part of me in a way that facts and statistics could not.

– Emma Proctor

In A Ghetto Dog, the widow Anna and her dog Nicky are persecuted under the Nazi regime and forced to move into a ghetto. It is very clear from the beginning that Nicky is extremely important to Anna, and that he is her last remaining tie, not only to her deceased husband, but to her home.

The Nazis took livestock and any useful animals away from the Jewish people in order to make a profit. The livestock had value, which is why they were kept alive. People’s dogs, however, were not valuable to the Nazis, and that is one reason the dogs were killed.

Another reason was psychological. To the Nazis, it was important to wound people emotionally in order to conquer them. In the story, there were Jewish children dragging their dogs on ropes and leashes, bringing their pets, beloved family members, to be put to death. Dogs were part of a support system and, as with Anna, were reminders of home. To kill these dogs was to kill hope of return. The deaths of dogs were a stern reminder that just as easily as they could kill animals, Nazis could kill humans.

– Yukiko Takahashi-Lai

Writing Lives begins anew

This fall, students are learning about the Holocaust by studying literary and historical texts. They are using the resources of the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library to help them write detailed research projects on prewar Jewish communities in Europe. In January, students will begin interviewing local Holocaust survivors and then write the survivors’ memoirs on the basis of the interviews. Students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. Many students used their first journal entry to reflect on how the course material is changing their perceptions of current events. Here are some excerpts.

I have learned that a racist interaction between a person of colour and a white person is not only between those two specific people. In that interaction is embedded an entire history of racism. A racist society supports white and racist ideology in a way that has historically privileged white people and embeds power in a racist interaction. The social conditions in a racist society psychologically prime the person of colour to strategize in certain ways during interactions they may perceive as dangerous.

Similarly (I realize now), Jews were emotionally and psychologically primed by their history of using appeasement as a successful, non-violent form of survival-as-resistance. This history surely psychologically primed the German oppressors to see the Jews as appropriate targets for their unprecedented scapegoating and the ensuing genocide.

This is one of the few times so far that a concept I have learned as an undergrad is beginning to take hold in my mind, tangibly changing the way I think and interpret information. I am learning to more broadly apply what I have learned about oppression and resistance. My evolving thought process gives me hope that I will in my life have a greater understanding of such dynamics and that I will contribute to the effort to understand, influence and mitigate, or even transform, dynamics between people of power and vulnerable populations.

– April Curry

Learning about the origins of Nazi Germany, the slow and steady rise to power of Hitler and his party, and the various influences that led to the Holocaust has been enlightening, in a troubling way, of course. One of the scariest eye-openers about what I have learned recently is just how human this chain of events was. A hurt and angry nation was ready to find anything and anyone to take their frustrations out on. It’s scary how this chain of events makes sense in retrospect. Yet it’s also disturbing how little thought I gave to this chain of events; they were things that happened, so I left it at that. But there is so much insight to be gained from reading into this history. Learning the history of the Holocaust and the build-up to it has given me a sense of awareness. I feel much more enlightened thanks to learning this history.

– Clayton Dott

There has been much focus on Hitler’s personal pathology (his lack of self-esteem, sense of being an outsider, etc.) to explain his primal role in the Holocaust. Problematically, this view assumes that Hitler’s racist system of values and beliefs arose outside of the environment he lived in. It is clear, however, that antisemitism, a racist ideology, existed long before his time. Furthermore, restricting the discourse to individual pathology denies the connection between Nazi violence and antisemitism, as though “lone wolves,” driven by individual malice, had committed the crimes. For example, the claim that “without Hitler, no Holocaust” denies the incessant influence of historical antisemitism and other dominant ideologies, such as Aryan supremacy and nationalism. Moreover, placing an emphasis on personal characteristics fails to take into account structural oppression. Fascist and authoritarian leaders may be charismatic, but the popular support they garner relies heavily on their ability to create a sociopolitical framework that allows for organized and systematic coercion and manufacture of consent, achieved by subjecting people to and satiating them with dogmatic education and media propaganda.

– Marc Perez

As the class explored the factors that contributed to the prejudice and antisemitism that led to the Holocaust, I was confronted with the reality of the deep and painful cost that the fear of disconnection and abandonment has on our society. Research has shown that the human need for belonging, connection and community is in fact one of the precipitating causes of racism. It is strange and uncomfortable to step away from my generally positive understanding of connection and find that belonging can be built on the loyalty earned by excluding others. In fact, the act of ostracizing and dehumanizing others can help form a shared identity and sense of belonging.

In what ways do I meet my own needs for belonging when I fail to speak up after a racist joke is told or someone is scolded for not speaking English to their own peer group in the line at Starbucks? We have to ask ourselves, what does it mean when people like myself, with so much social privilege, fail to disrupt these sorts of racist attacks? In this way, am I not complicit in the propagation of intolerance and social isolation in my own community?

– L. Ann Thomas

Students pen survivors’ memoirs

Dr. Peter Suedfeld, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia, spoke on behalf of the survivors who participated. (photo by Jennifer Oehler)

Emotions were high at a graduation event where survivors of the Holocaust and Langara College students who wrote their memoirs shared their reflections on the experience.

Writing Lives was a two-semester course and a partnership between Langara College, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Azrieli Foundation. In the first semester, students learned about the history of European Jewish culture and the Holocaust. In the second term, groups of three students were teamed with a Holocaust survivor. Students interviewed the survivor, transcribed their recollections and wrote their memoirs, which were presented at the closing event April 20.

“These memoirs will be given to the survivors as gifts for themselves and their families, but they will also be archived and they may possibly be published, and they will also serve as legacies for the survivors, their families and perhaps the research community in general,” said Dr. Rachel Mines, an English instructor at Langara and coordinator of the Writing Lives project. “I’m also the daughter of survivors, so I know how important it is that the stories get told and kept as a legacy for the families and the children and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and also for the community at large, which I think is something that this particular program has succeeded in very well.”

Dr. Peter Suedfeld, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia, spoke on behalf of the survivors who participated.

“I have been interviewed a number of times by different people, of different levels of experience. So, when I was asked if I was willing to be interviewed by some students from Langara, I thought, ‘Oh well,’” Suedfeld said to laughter. “It’s not going to be very interesting. They are probably amateurs who don’t really know what they’re doing.”

He was pleasantly surprised, he said.

“My expectations were not fulfilled at all,” he said. “They had fresh points of view, they had interesting ideas about the Holocaust, they had interesting questions – not the kind of routine things that I’ve gone through before with more professional interviewers who tend to ask the same questions the same ways. Some of the questions made me think about my own experiences in ways that I never had before…. The interviews were always interesting and lively, occasionally funny, sometimes a bit frustrating and rarely, but once in awhile, irritating. But, all in all, a very positive experience and I expect that most of my cohort probably had similar experiences, and I certainly hope that the students did as well.”

Frieda Krickan, speaking on behalf of the students in the program, saw Writing Lives as an opportunity to honour the survivors, deepen her knowledge of Holocaust history and serve her Jewish community.

“This class has been so much more than that in so many ways,” she said. “It’s been a life-changing experience and I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of it. This class has taught me the importance of personal perspectives and historical documentation. Memoirs put a more human face on history and they memorialize what our survivors have been through and create empathy that historical facts and figures just cannot…. These survivors represent living history. These memoirs are a way of honouring survivors and making sure that history will never forget them…. You cannot get that sort of visceral emotion and intense human connection from a book or documentary. This is a living, breathing human being in front of you opening up about their most intimate and painful memories. It is an experience I will never forget.”

photo - Frieda Krickan, speaking on behalf of the students in the program, saw Writing Lives as an opportunity to honour the survivors, deepen her knowledge of Holocaust history and serve her Jewish community — Frieda Krickan, speaking on behalf of the students in the program, saw Writing Lives as an opportunity to honour the survivors, deepen her knowledge of Holocaust history and serve her Jewish community. (photo by Jennifer Oehler)

She added: “I came out of this class with something I did not expect: hope. Amidst all their personal accounts of suffering and loss, our survivors still managed to impart upon us the importance of hope. I don’t know if I’ve ever had such a life-affirming experience as talking to these survivors.”

Gene Homel, an instructor in liberal studies at the B.C. Institute of Technology who taught part of the Writing Lives course, said evidence-based and factual history are important at a time when the veracity of events past and present are being called into question.

The collection and preservation of eyewitness accounts is what makes the Writing Lives project so valuable, said Ilona Shulman Spaar, education director at the VHEC.

“Some students told me that they would never forget the personal encounters that they had with their interviewees and that they will always carry them close to their hearts. Some even mentioned that this program was life-changing for them,” she said. “Some of the survivors shared with me that they greatly appreciated being part of this program. For them, too, it was a unique experience, as most of them never gave interviews to this extent or in such depth.”

Robbie Waisman, one of the survivor participants, said the greatest fear that Holocaust survivors have is what’s going to happen after they are gone.

“What you are doing gives us hope that it’s going to be remembered, to make this a better world,” he said. “So thank you.”

Serge Vanry, another survivor participant, said it was an experience that he hadn’t expected.

“I started out wanting to do this, but feeling uneasy about somehow getting involved in the past, a past that has been put away quite a bit,” he told the audience. “I was talking about events that I had forgotten, things that were difficult, things that were hard to live with and things that can haunt you. As I was looking back at the past, I started to discover a lot of things that I had forgotten – events, situations that really had disappeared for me.”

Turning to the students, he said: “You did extremely well and I am really thankful and I’ve really appreciated what you’ve done for me, for the things that I don’t want to forget, the things that need to be told again for me and for my family.”

Other survivors who participated in Writing Lives were Alex Buckman, Amalia Boe-Fishman, Jannushka Jakobouvitch and Mark Elster. Excerpts from student-participants’ journals have run in previous issues of the Independent (search “Writing Lives” at jewishindependent.ca).

Mines thanked the Azrieli Foundation, for expertise and materials that made Writing Lives possible, and the VHEC, “which has been crucial, essential, absolutely indispensable in supporting Writing Lives … through liaising with survivors, making their library available for research and as an interview room and, generally, just being generous in terms of their time, their advice, expertise and not to mention moral support.”

Mines added that she hoped this pilot project of Writing Lives would become an ongoing program and, in the days following the closing ceremony, she received the news that Writing Lives will indeed run again, starting in the fall semester.

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

The importance of memoirs

This is the third of a three-part series on Writing Lives, a two-semester project at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines, in which second-year students are teamed up with local Holocaust survivors to interview them and write memoirs of their experiences before, during and after the Holocaust. The course is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation. As part of their course work, students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. This week’s journal is entitled “The Importance of Memoir.” Here are some excerpts.

Our survivor has repeatedly stated that he and his peers greatly fear that, once they are gone, no one will remember what they went through. Survivors worry that, once they are no longer here as living testaments, their suffering and the people they lost will be forgotten. Our class, and other projects like it, is working to ensure that does not happen.

We must preserve the experiences of Holocaust survivors in written form so that, once they are no longer physically here, their story will be. We are not only archiving personal anecdotes, we are putting a human face on history. Facts are important for historical validity, but personal perspectives are essential in creating empathy. This program is chronicling history in such a way as to touch people and make them care about what happened to the Jewish people (and others) during the Holocaust. Empathy is one of the greatest tools in breaking down intolerance. Once we see the humanity in others, it becomes harder to hold onto prejudice and hatred.

Now, more than ever, it is vital to create this historic empathy. Prejudice and persecution are becoming ever more prevalent in our society, and it is up to us as a nation to halt such hatred. It is essential to remind the world what can happen when hatred is met with social apathy. These memoirs are a documentation of the horrors that unchecked hatred can lead to. I believe in the power of memoirs, the power of living history. I am honoured to be a part of such an important project at such a crucial time.

– Frieda Krickan

***

The first time I interviewed a Holocaust survivor, I was nervous, and rightfully so. My interview partner and I had been preparing for months before our first meeting but, nonetheless, when our interviewee arrived, I was so star-struck that I briefly lost my aptitude with the English language altogether. All I could manage to say was multiple renditions of the same sentence, thanking him again and again for his time and for agreeing to meet us.

Our interviewee, R., was gracious and didn’t miss a beat. He chimed in every time by thanking us in return just for listening and told us on multiple occasions, “I am so grateful for what you are doing. This is very important to make sure that the Holocaust never happens again.” His response surprised me but, the more I listened, the more I realized that this project meant more to him than just sharing his story; it was his personal call to tikkun olam, to repair the world the best that he can.

I learned that every Holocaust survivor’s greatest fear is not what you would expect. It is not death camps or gas chambers – instead, R. told us that their greatest fear is that no one will remember their stories when they are no longer alive to tell them. They are afraid that, with today’s ugly resurgence of antisemitism, everything they endured will be meaningless in the face of a society that cannot wait to forget. In a world that wants us to keep silent, it is every survivor’s hope that we raise our voices – that we proclaim the truth until our breath runs out. Our sacred duty is to empower the ones who can no longer empower themselves, and the key to making sure history never repeats itself is to tell their stories.

– Zoe Mandell

***

During this course, my group members and I spent a concentrated amount of time with a child survivor of the Holocaust. Time and time again, he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Nazi regime…. His story is inspiring, heroic, terrifying at times, and very emotional. He tells his story with such grace, in such detail, that we could clearly visualize in our minds what he had experienced.

I have heard many stories of those who survived, and the stories they tell of those they lost. I have learned what it was like for a child survivor from Paris, a teenage survivor from Amsterdam and an adult survivor from Warsaw. I have heard the stories of their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters: how they watched their father get shot, or saw their mother walk toward her certain death, or said goodbye to a brother they knew they’d never see again. Telling their stories, writing their stories, is not only a therapeutic technique, but a preventative one. It is important for those who survived to tell as many stories as they can, not to let the memory of their loved ones perish like they did during that awful time in history. It is important to tell the story of their loved ones to keep their memory alive in as many beating hearts as possible. And it is important to tell the stories of the Holocaust, for both survivors and those who perished, to stand up and say, “We survived. We won’t forget. Never forget. And never let it happen again.”

– Marni Weinstein

***

During and after each interview my group conducted with R., he thanked us multiple times. He thanked us for taking the time to listen to his story, for writing his memoir, and even for sharing parts of our lives with him. Every time he thanked us I was taken aback: why was he thanking us for listening to him, when we were the lucky ones? We were being given the opportunity not only to listen to a Holocaust survivor speak but to write a memoir that would continue his legacy throughout time. At first, I struggled with his gratitude; I was almost uncomfortable with how genuinely thankful he was that we were spending time with him and listening to his story. Yet no matter what I said, he was grateful.

It took me quite awhile to grasp exactly why R. felt the need to continually express his gratitude. In fact, R. did not grow up in a world that accepted the events of the Holocaust as facts and wanted to learn more about it. He grew up in a world where no one wished to speak about the Holocaust and its events were contested. He did not conceal his experiences only because they were too painful to revisit, but also because no one wanted to listen.

Not only did those affected by the Holocaust lose their families, their homes, their childhoods and years of their lives, but in many cases they lost their voices. For years, the world refused to listen and, because of that, we lost many valuable stories. Memoirs are important not only because they give survivors the opportunity to share their stories, but because, on a very small level, they begin to give a voice back to the voiceless. Although we can’t bring those survivors back and prove to them there are people who care and will listen, we can make sure the survivors who are still alive do not go unheard.

– Lucy Bogle

Student’s first meeting with survivor

Writing Lives is an initiative at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines, in which second-year students are teamed up with local Holocaust survivors to interview them and write memoirs of their lives before, during and after the Holocaust. Langara students earn English or history credits towards a diploma or degree, but, more importantly, they get the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom setting, in the community. The course is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation.

In the first term, students learned about the Holocaust through examining literary and historical texts. They wrote a research project on prewar Jewish communities, using resources from the VHEC and Waldman libraries, and they had the opportunity to meet with and learn from two of the VHEC’s outreach speakers, Alex Buckman and Lillian Boraks-Nemetz. This term, with guidance from Kit Krieger and other guest speakers, students have learned strategies for planning and conducting interviews with Holocaust survivors and, in mid-January, they began to record survivors’ testimonies. The following is an essay by one of the students.

I found a quiet corner of the library and took a deep breath. This was the moment; it was all happening now. I was about to call my survivor, code name “Chester.” I say “my survivor” as if he were a possession. I don’t “own”’ him … and yet, in a very short period of time, I will have to “own” his story. I will be responsible for taking his experiences and shaping them into a lasting memoir.

This was the moment of truth: the first phone call. It was now or never. I slowly dialed and had a look around – no one within earshot. I put my cellphone up to my ear, my palm sweaty with nervousness. It began to ring. I gulped. It rang again. “Oh no,” I thought. “It would be just my luck that he’s not home and I have to leave an awkward message, and what sort of first impression will that be?…”

“Hello?”

“Hi, uh, hello. Hi. Um, my name is Ashley and I’m calling from Langara College about the Writing Lives project. May I speak to Chester?”

“Oh, sorry dear, Chester’s not here right now. Why don’t you text him?”

“OK, sure,” I said with a smile. I was expecting a hard-of-hearing senior citizen and, in true 2017 style, I was being instructed to text instead. I took down the phone number and finished the call.

Gulp. Another deep breath. Time to text.

I punched in the number and wrote an introductory message to “my survivor.” I said that I’d call in the morning for a formal introduction. I nervously hit send.

I then spent the next 74 minutes checking my phone to see if I’d received a response. Eventually, it did come: “We will talk then.”

Relief. It had begun. This journey, this process.

The next morning, Chester and I spoke briefly. I told him a bit about the program and asked if he had any questions. The phone call went well. Chester seemed to have a comfortable style, a compassion and understanding that put me at ease; there were sprinkles of humour amid logistical details. Though the call was short, I immediately felt better about what lay ahead.

The following Saturday was our first meeting in person. My group and I met up early so that we were all on the same page and fully prepared for what was about to transpire. We sat across from each other in a small meeting room on the main floor of the school’s library. We were excited, nervous, tense, curious. We were all in agreement that we didn’t really know what to expect and that we’d do our best to tackle things as they came and we’d support each other as much as possible. I felt lucky to have such encouragement.

The time came; it was 10 minutes to the scheduled interview. I grabbed my phone and headed out of the library and down the hall. Chester and I had decided to meet by the Starbucks, which is close to the library entrance. Even though I was early, I wasn’t surprised when I saw a person with a head of greyish-white hair seated near the coffee shop. “That has to be him,” I thought to myself. As I approached, he turned around and I was greeted by the welcoming face of Chester.

We exchanged pleasantries and made our way to the meeting room in the library. I think we both may have been a little nervous, but there was also a sense of mutual understanding – a consensus that we were about to do something important: something private and meaningful, potentially for both of us, particularly for the survivor.

“First off, do you have any questions?” I began once we were all settled. One of my group members sat to my right, ready to take notes and provide support. Chester sat across from the two of us, but diagonally across the square table, so we were all huddled around its corner, quite close to each other.

“Well …” and we were off! The next hour flew by. The purpose of the first meeting was for introductions and initial questions to be sorted. We also asked for a brief overview of Chester’s story, a sort of condensed version of his life. In learning the scope of his journey, we’d be able to better shape questions and structure further interviews. Chester was incredibly giving and kind. And what a storyteller! Sure, we bounced around a little, as memories and stories came to mind, but the next interviews could be more structured, more chronologically accurate. This was our introduction, our chance to get a sense of “our survivor,” to learn what he’d been through and how his experiences had shaped him.

I must admit, I was particularly moved by stories regarding Chester’s family. The way he spoke of his mother, in particular, and his children: it was just lovely.

There were a few difficult moments, and that is to be expected. In future interviews, when we will go into greater detail regarding Chester’s life and journey, we now know when certain difficult experiences occurred and will be prepared. Well, as prepared we can be, I suppose, for the emotional moments that are to come.

At the end of our meeting, Chester mentioned that we may not have enough material for a memoir. Such a sweet, humble comment. I couldn’t help but smile.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I believe that we definitely have enough for a book here. You have some wonderful stories.”

And it’s true. The stories of love, survival, adventure, family, travel, loss, connection…. We’ve only begun the interview process, and I’m already moved by the trust that’s been shown. Our survivor is being so generous with his time and his story. I only hope that I can do this project justice.

Theatre arts support

Langara College Foundation’s Langara Studio 58 Legacy Fund campaign reached and exceeded its original $250,000 goal, raising more than $273,000 in support of theatre arts at Langara. Most than 538 individual donors contributed to the success of the campaign, among them 219 Studio 58 alumni and 55 present and former faculty, directors and designers.

“The response from our Studio 58 community was amazing,” said Moira Gookstetter, executive director, Langara College Foundation. “We are humbled by their generosity. With their support, we raised over $136,729, which, when matched by the college, will create an endowment of $273,458.

“We are especially thankful for our volunteer campaign chairs Jane Heyman and Joey Lespérance. They are the real heroes of this campaign. Their enthusiasm, dedication and tireless support have helped to create a foundation that will launch Studio 58 into the future.”

Established to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Langara’s Theatre Arts at Studio 58 program, the Legacy Fund’s mandate is to support the expansion and scope of the program’s productions, training and learning opportunities.

“The remarkable success of the Studio 58 Legacy Fund campaign will mean future generations of students will have access to working on productions beyond the normal scope of Studio 58, will be offered special workshops, and will have the possibility to mentor with professionals,” said Kathryn Shaw, Studio 58 artistic director. “The Legacy Fund will allow Theatre Arts at Studio 58 to remain a leading force in theatre training in Canada. All of this could not have been possible without our caring and generous donors and supporters.”

Langara College’s Studio 58 provides practical, hands-on training for students looking for careers in professional theatre. It offers two streams – acting and production.

Adaptation beneficial

Camille Legg as Romeo, left, and Adelleh Furseth as Juliet share an intimate moment in Studio 58’s Romeo and Juliet. (photo by David Cooper)

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is such a well-known play, done so many times on stage and on screen, it’s hard to imagine an original interpretation, but Studio 58 of Langara College manages to shine new light on this ageless tale.

This production marks the beginning of the studio’s 50th season and director Anita Rochon has incorporated that into her vision of the play, setting it in 1965, the year Studio 58 was born. Music from the 1960s – the catchy tunes of Velvet Underground, Rolling Stones, Turtles and others – permeates the show. Older audience members will recognize their youth in these songs, as well as in the clothing, but these are only frills. The core of the play remains unaltered – the immortal and tragic love story between Romeo and Juliet.

However, there is one profound adjustment to the classical version: Romeo is a girl. Accordingly, the pronouns are switched in the text, and a son becomes a daughter. Other than that, the text is more or less authentic, albeit abridged, for the student performance, and the young actors handle the 500-year-old verses with professional panache.

The change benefits the show. For most people in 21st-century North America, family feuds – to the death, anyway – are the stuff of legend, while parental resistance to their kids’ gay or lesbian inclinations is still all too real. Some experience it firsthand or have friends who did; others are on the parents’ side of the equation or know someone who was. But everyone in the audience could relate to this aspect of Romeo and Juliet’s forbidden love.

Everyone could also feel the wonder, the breathtaking discovery of their first encounter. Highlighted by the expressive and inventive choreography of Jewish community member Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, the first meeting of the lovers felt almost like a ballet, a lyrical and beautiful duet, with the corps providing a counterpoint. The visual echoes from such classical ballets as Giselle or Swan Lake were unmistakable.

On the other hand, the fight scenes by David Bloom, who also happens to be a Jewish community member, were ferocious, with some really scary moments, especially when Mercutio swings a broken bottle at Tybalt. Both young actors, Conor Stinson-O’Gorman (Mercutio) and Kamyar Pazandeh (Tybalt), infuse their stage duel with energy, but all I could think about was, What if someone missteps and hurts his friend? Fortunately, no accidents occurred, and both combatants expired safely.

Of course, the two female stars of the show deserve mention – both acted brilliantly.

Camille Legg, who played Romeo, excelled in her part. Her Romeo was young and naive, a girl on the brink of adulthood, and her wide-eyed innocence made her character’s belief in the power of love plausible. Romeo’s love is radiant and boundless; her grief, all-encompassing.

Adelleh Furseth as Juliet, while strong overall, lacked enough of the child-like nature that I attribute to the character. She portrayed a more mature, more sexy Juliet, more a woman than a girl. At times, she struck me as a character actor or comedian, funny rather than naively exuberant.

The humming chorus during the play’s last scene, the young lovers’ double suicide, was inspired and poignant.

In the director’s notes, Rochon writes: “… there are real people all over the real world who are falling in love as you read this, in spite of all kinds of opposition arising because of their gender, nationality, political affiliation or otherwise. Familiar stories, but each with its own beating heart.”

Romeo and Juliet runs at Studio 58 until Oct. 18. For tickets, visit langara.ca/studio-58.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.