At 92, Long-Awaited Recognition

At age 92, Yvette Anavi of Plovdiv, Bulgaria is still quite active and talkative, writing a book on Jewish women to add to the several she has already published. And at age 92, she has finally received acknowledgement of her persecution during WWII in the form of a payment from the Holocaust Victim Compensation Fund (HVCF), a Claims Conference program established in 2011 following negotiations with Germany.

Born in Plovdiv, Yvette’s early years passed happily in an economically comfortable family of intellectuals. After graduating high school in 1938, Yvette was able to begin studying at the University of Strasbourg. Back in Bulgaria for a visit when war broke out, she arranged to continue her studies at Sofia University.

Yvette Anavi of Bulgaria is grateful for her HVCF payment

With anti-Jewish legislation beginning in 1941 in Bulgaria, Yvette had to wear a yellow star on her clothing. She endured insults such as, “Dogs and Jews don’t need education” when seeking the mandatory police permission to travel to Sofia. The fascist authorities forced Yvette to change the spelling of her family name from Calev to Caleff in order that this name not be misinterpreted as a Bulgarian one.

Yvette and Leon Anavi were married in June 1944, shortly after he had received notice that he was to be sent to a labor camp.

After the war, Yvette and Leon raised two sons and she worked as a librarian at one of Bulgaria’s largest libraries. After the fall of Communism, Yvette published several books on Jewish topics and taught a course on Ladino, the language of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, including by those who made their way to Bulgaria.

In 2011, the Claims Conference launched the HVCF for Nazi victims living in the 10 former Soviet bloc countries that belong to the European Union. However, Nazi victims living today in the other former Soviet bloc countries still remain ineligible for comparable payments. Ironically, those who live, for example, in Ukraine, Russia, or Belarus who need it the most are the very ones to whom payment and recognition are denied. As we are flooded with stories like Yvette’s — people for whom the acknowledgment has been far too long in coming but for whom it is of paramount importance — we are strengthened in our resolve to secure a measure of justice for those Holocaust victims who are still unrecognized.

“Coming of Age in the Holocaust”: Connecting students to history

On May 21, 1942, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the sudden sound of gunshots woke the Kransnostawski family just before dawn. Soldiers broke into Meir’s house and forced everyone out onto the street and marched them, along with many neighbors, to a nearby gathering point.

While everyone waited in the courtyard, the Nazis slowly removed the young people and the elderly people from the crowd. Meir watched the Nazis take his mother, grandmother, and siblings. He feared that they would soon be murdered. Finally, with all his relatives gone except his father, Meir wondered whether it was worth trying to stay alive.

This is the story of 13-year-old Meir Kransnostawski, a  child survivor profiled in “Coming of Age in the Holocaust, Coming of Age Now,”  an educational website to help middle- and high-school students create personal connections to history through the experiences of people their own age. The website was developed by New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in partnership with Israel’s Beit Lohamei Haghetaot, the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum. The website was supported by a Claims Conference grant.

The website includes stories of 12 Holocaust survivors and one about growing up in pre-state Palestine during the same period. Each story reflects unique, individual experiences, and as a group, they provide a library of resources for learning about the Holocaust through personal narratives.

All of those profiled were between 9 and 13 years old when the Nazis invaded.

“By connecting them to stories of people their own age who faced terrible challenges, students not only learn the history but start to reflect on their own identities and responsibilities to their families and communities and consider their own coming of age as they look at these terrible challenges faced by people during the Holocaust,” said Liz Edelstein, the museum’s director of education.

“Coming of Age” has existed as a printed curriculum for several years, but the website offers teachers and students advantages such as interactive timelines and videos, which help students connect to the survivors in ways that reading their stories would not. “It allows for more images, related artifacts, and links to related sites,” Liz said.

More than 160 teachers from the U.S., Canada, Israel, Hungary, Germany, and England have registered so far. “The rate at which teachers are signing up and the broad diversity of schools and geographic areas indicates to me that there is a hunger for this type of material using first-person narratives and first-person stories for what is a very difficult subject for students to learn,” Liz said.

Seventh-grade students at North End Middle School in Waterbury, Connecticut, recently finished reading the story of Pawel Hodys, who was 9 years old when the Nazis invaded his hometown of Lodz, Poland, and sent his family to the Lodz Ghetto. In August 1944, the family was told they were being moved to escape the Allied bombings, but found themselves on a train bound for Auschwitz.

A timeline of Pawel’s experiences intertwined with a general timeline of the Holocaust accompanies his story. The website asks students to think about issues such as the stated reasons for persecution of Jews, conditions in the Lodz Ghetto, how ghetto residents tried to maintain their humanity, and the moral dilemmas faced by the ghetto’s Jewish council.  

The students also said they were engaged by the site’s interactivity and videos, and learning how people responded to the Holocaust.

The site recently won the Bronze MUSE Award for Education and Outreach from the American Association of Museums’ Media & Technology Committee. The award is given to projects that include educational content for children or adults, resources for educators, “distance learning” courses, pedagogical training tools, and community outreach. “It moved me to tears,” said one judge, who added that the website creates an amazing learning environment for students.

West Point choir shines

The West Point Jewish Chapel Cadet Choir earlier this month had the honor to perform for President Obama at the White House’s Chanukah party.

Earlier this year, the talented choir performed at West Point’s annual Day of Remembrance, during a lecture co-sponsored by the Claims Conference, in honor of the Holocaust and its victims. We’ve posted this video of their moving rendition of “Eli, Eli.”

Gift to Holocaust education is a gift to the world

Yad Vashem stands in Israel not only as a memorial to the Nazis’ victims, but also as a reminder of the responsibility shared by all of us to guard against something like the Holocaust ever happening again.  The Claims Conference has been a long-time partner of Yad Vashem, dating back to the founding of the museum. And so I was very pleased to read a JTA report that U.S. philanthropists Sheldon and Miriam Adelson recently donated $25 million to Yad Vashem for educational seminars and teacher training programs at the museum’s International School for Holocaust Studies.

Sheldon Adelson, considered to be one of the world’s richest men, is chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and owner of Israel Hayom, a free daily newspaper in Israel. Combined with a $25 million donation from the couple in 2006, the donation is the largest the museum has received from a private donor. I applaud the Adelsons for their generosity and commitments to education and to preserving the legacy of the Shoah and its victims.

To help protect that legacy, we have organizations such as the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, created in 1998 and charged with garnering international support from political and social leaders for Holocaust education, research, and commemoration. I would like to congratulate Serbia, Ireland, and Slovenia, which were recently approved as new members of the Task Force and will join its 28 other member-countries in its important mission.

The Claims Conference, as well as the United Nations and UNESCO among other organizations, is a permanent international observer of the Task Force.

Serbia is home to almost 800 Nazi victims. Through funding to local Jewish communities there, the Claims Conference provides daily hot meals, homecare, medical programs, and emergency assistance in the country. Ireland and Slovenia, however, are home to only a small handful of survivors and so it is especially gratifying to see their governments involved in promoting international Holocaust education.

The efforts of the Task Force, Yad Vashem, and people like the Adelsons, all contribute to the future of Holocaust education.  We all share in the responsibility to care for elderly Nazi victims, the most vulnerable segment of our community. The Claims Conference continues working hard to provide every Nazi victim with some small measure of justice and to make certain that no Nazi victim anywhere is forgotten.

Shabbat shalom.

A special birthday and the power of memory

I want to wish a very special “happy birthday” to Alice Herz-Sommer, who turned 108 last week. According to JTA, Alice is the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor. A professional pianist since she was a teenager growing up in Prague, Alice was sent to Terezin in 1943 with her husband and young son. There, she played more than 150 concerts. Alice continues to play today, according to JTA. I sincerely wish Alice many more years filled with health and happiness.

Unfortunately, most survivors are not blessed with Alice’s longevity. A close-knit community of survivors in a New York City apartment building has dwindled over the years, leaving the few remaining survivors isolated and out of touch with their new neighbors, according to a New York Times story earlier this week. The building, one of six in Queens built by SelfHelp Community Services – a long-time Claims Conference partner in survivor care – to provide housing for Jewish refugees, is becoming predominantly Chinese, according to the Times.

It is incredibly sad to see this community shrinking, and my heartfelt sympathies go out to the remaining survivors living in the Martin Lande House who are dealing with the changes around them as they lose their friends. Fortunately, the remaining survivors are able to continue living in their homes in dignity, rather than moving into old-age homes. Memories are quite powerful, especially for Holocaust survivors who endured such absolute horrors early in their lives. Such memories can be triggered by the trauma of being taken out of their homes and placed into the confusing and unfamiliar setting of old-age homes, or the most unsuspecting thing, like a name.

Indeed, the name of a carnival ride in Florida has triggered outrage among survivors there. According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the ire is directed toward Frank Zaitshik, owner of a rollercoaster called the Zyklon, German for “cyclone” but also the name of the infamous poison used in the Nazi gas chambers, Zyklon B. After hearing the multitude of complaints, Zaitshik agreed to change the name to something that doesn’t stir up such horrible images.

Unfortunately, this isn’t first time the word has popped up commercially. In 2002, the Germany-based Siemens wanted to use the name for a U.S. line of appliances such as coffeemakers and, stupidly enough, gas ovens.  The trademark request was withdrawn after complaints.

As the number of survivors continues to decrease, our responsibility to carry on their legacies grows. We must tell their stories and ensure that the lessons and memories of the Holocaust and its victims are neither forgotten nor diminished.

Shabbat shalom.

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