Where You Go, I Will Go

Katrina. 21. I am not throwing away my shot.

[borderlinereminders]

Please stop attacking the past versions of you. They were doing their best at the time and they got you here. It’s amazing how much progress you’ve made and how much you’ve grown but please don’t think your past self lacked worth in any way.

[desolation-moonlight]

So… is this when I come back to this app?

[voicevisarchive]

From the Director - Winter 2019

I first heard about the firing of part-time editor Bill McGraw by Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly last Friday afternoon. The reason for McGraw’s dismissal was the article he wrote and published as editor of The Dearborn Historian, a quarterly magazine covering local history published by the Dearborn Historical Commission.

The article, “Henry Ford and ‘The International Jew’”, presents an honest and historically accurate portrait of Henry Ford, whose antisemitism is both well-known and well-documented. In addition to firing McGraw, O’Reilly, whose office manages the budget for the historical commission, halted the distribution of the magazine to its subscribers via mail.

In response to this, my colleagues and from the history discipline and I signed and sent the following letter to Mayor O’Reilly:

Dear Mayor O’Reilly:

We are writing to protest the decision to fire Bill McGraw from his post as part-time editor of The Dearborn Historian and to suppress the circulation of the most recent issue of that publication, which featured an article by McGraw on Ford’s use of The Dearborn Independent as a vehicle for his antisemitism. We believe that these decisions reflect a troubling refusal to come to terms with an important past episode in Dearborn’s history.

Henry Ford was an antisemite. About that, the historical record leaves no doubt. He held repugnant and fabulist beliefs about the role played by Jews in world finance and politics. He sought to use his wealth and power to promote his prejudices and to spread falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Jews in the United States and abroad. He did this at a time when Nazism and fascism were on the rise, and the costs of furthering hatred of Jews were unimaginably high.

You have defended your decision to suppress McGraw’s article by stating that “by presenting information from 100 years ago that included hateful messages — without a compelling reason directly linked to events in Dearborn today — this edition of The Historian could become a distraction from our continuing messages of inclusion and respect.”

This statement reflects an unfortunate misunderstanding of the role history does, and should, play in the present. It is a fiction to believe that McGraw’s article brings to light an unfortunate and forgotten history with no importance in the present. Henry Ford’s ideas have never really gone away. The book The International Jew, into which antisemitic materials from Ford’s Independent were repackaged, circulated widely at the time, and also continues to be read and used today. In his article McGraw documents some of the nasty afterlife of Ford’s antisemitism on white supremacist websites.

When we require our public discourse to stay silent on the missteps of those we revere in the past, we make impossible an honest moral reckoning with the present. Part of being a welcoming community must be honesty about the injustices of our past. The suppression of this history and the retaliation against Bill McGraw sends a message that our community will stay silent on matters of injustice when they are inconvenient or unpleasant. Indeed, there could be no more compelling reason to revisit the history of Ford’s antisemitism. Given these facts, we hope that you will reconsider your decision.

Normally, I choose not to use the Voice/Vision Archive as a platform for voicing or endorsing a point of view or opinion, though I myself have spoken out publicly against implementing BDS resolutions at UM-Dearborn Faculty Congress meetings and on occasion have added my name to letters in support of recognizing on-going genocides. In both cases, I did so as an individual faculty member, not as a representative of the Voice/Vision Archive.

This, I think, follows very much in the spirit of the archive’s founder, Sid Bolkosky. Though he was passionate about many things, Sid never used the archive as a vehicle for making political statements or endorsing causes. Instead, he saw the archive as a way to collect, preserve and disseminate a small part of the historical record of the Holocaust for teaching, learning and research purposes.

Sid always said, “the interviews speak for themselves” and with that I agree wholeheartedly, but in the case of Mayor O’Reilly’s attempt to censor or whitewash part of Henry Ford’s legacy, I felt, and I think that Sid would agree, that it was incumbent upon the archive to speak out in this instance.

They say that “all politics is local” and in this case local politics require a local response. I am very proud, though sad to have to, to put the archive’s name behind the effort.

[voicevisarchive]

Why I Remember: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017

They say that if we had one moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, we would be silent for almost eleven and a half years - and that would only be the silence in remembrance of the Jewish victims of the Shoah. If we include the non-Jewish victims, the Poles, Germans, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, asocials, intelligentsia, mentally and physically disabled, and many others… We would be silent for more than twenty years.

A majority of these people had done nothing wrong, aside from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most were not criminals, although the leaders of the Third Reich labeled them as such. They were regular people. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. They were teachers, doctors, lawyers, bakers, homemakers, businessmen, and farmers. Yet they were swept up in the storm of Nazi Germany, without a clue of their fate until it was right in front of them. And we remember them by saying, “Never Again.”

To say “Never Again” regarding the Holocaust seems like a no-brainer. Of course we would not let a government persecute millions of people, forcing them into hard labor and inhumane conditions, let alone into gas chambers or in front of firing squads.

Today, a repeat of the Holocaust - or something like it, on that large of a scale - feels just about impossible. We have media - especially the social kind - to thank for that. I don’t know anyone who would sit by silently and livestream their neighbors being rounded up and put on trains to an unknown destination. Or at least I hope we wouldn’t. Maybe that is where I see the problem with saying, “Never Again.” We say it with such ease and hope, but is it really true? Did we mean “Never Again” when we watched Rwanda on TV?

Am I certain that my neighbors, coworkers, and classmates would stand up for me, if I was the next to be persecuted? Am I sure they would not allow me to be taken away and lost to the pages of history? Again, I hope so. I hope that we have come far enough and our world is filled with enough global citizens to not let something as atrocious and tragic as the Holocaust occur again. I would love nothing more to say I know that to be true. But how can I know that when a majority of newscasts focus on negativity, violence, and hatred? How can I trust that when there are people who wish bad things upon others, simply because they do not agree on something? As Martin Niemöller’s poem goes….

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Perhaps this is why I believe the messages of the Holocaust and its survivors are so important. While those men and women whose entire families were taken away from them would have every right to be bitter and spiteful, almost all of their memoirs or oral histories are filled with forgiveness, compassion, and - like Anne Frank wrote in her diary - a belief that people are still good. Eva Kor forgave Dr. Josef Mengele for his experiments on her and her twin sister, even though she didn’t have to. Some may say this is naive, because why should people who were by all accounts twisted and horrible be forgiven? Why should we believe that people are still good when they can commit such crimes against humanity?

Survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us that there is more strength in forgiveness and compassion than in hatred and violence. Elie Wiesel tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. To be a bystander is sometimes worse than being a perpetrator. To ignore the crime can be as bad as committing it. To be silent is unacceptable.

As I remember the Holocaust today, I remember not only the victims who perished, but those who went on to live and give a voice for those who were silenced by the terror of the Third Reich. We cannot have a moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, and perhaps we should not. Why? Because they would not want us to be silent. They would want us to speak and speak loudly for those who are unable to be heard themselves.

(Photo credit and author: Katrina Stack, B.A. History from University of Michigan-Dearborn, Social Media Manager at the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive)

[voicevisarchive]

Today is #GivingBlueday, an annual day of giving on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. In the spirit of generosity and thankfulness, we ask you to give back with a donation to the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive to help us continue to preserve the memory of Holocaust Survivors in their oral testimonies that we hold so dear. Please click the link below to donate! We appreciate everyone’s generous gifts that help us on our mission to continue to make “Never Again” a reality.

https://leadersandbest.umich.edu/find/#!/give/basket/fund/575226

[voicevisarchive]

Why I Remember: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017

They say that if we had one moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, we would be silent for almost eleven and a half years - and that would only be the silence in remembrance of the Jewish victims of the Shoah. If we include the non-Jewish victims, the Poles, Germans, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, asocials, intelligentsia, mentally and physically disabled, and many others… We would be silent for more than twenty years.

A majority of these people had done nothing wrong, aside from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most were not criminals, although the leaders of the Third Reich labeled them as such. They were regular people. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. They were teachers, doctors, lawyers, bakers, homemakers, businessmen, and farmers. Yet they were swept up in the storm of Nazi Germany, without a clue of their fate until it was right in front of them. And we remember them by saying, “Never Again.”

To say “Never Again” regarding the Holocaust seems like a no-brainer. Of course we would not let a government persecute millions of people, forcing them into hard labor and inhumane conditions, let alone into gas chambers or in front of firing squads.

Today, a repeat of the Holocaust - or something like it, on that large of a scale - feels just about impossible. We have media - especially the social kind - to thank for that. I don’t know anyone who would sit by silently and livestream their neighbors being rounded up and put on trains to an unknown destination. Or at least I hope we wouldn’t. Maybe that is where I see the problem with saying, “Never Again.” We say it with such ease and hope, but is it really true? Did we mean “Never Again” when we watched Rwanda on TV?

Am I certain that my neighbors, coworkers, and classmates would stand up for me, if I was the next to be persecuted? Am I sure they would not allow me to be taken away and lost to the pages of history? Again, I hope so. I hope that we have come far enough and our world is filled with enough global citizens to not let something as atrocious and tragic as the Holocaust occur again. I would love nothing more to say I know that to be true. But how can I know that when a majority of newscasts focus on negativity, violence, and hatred? How can I trust that when there are people who wish bad things upon others, simply because they do not agree on something? As Martin Niemöller’s poem goes….

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Perhaps this is why I believe the messages of the Holocaust and its survivors are so important. While those men and women whose entire families were taken away from them would have every right to be bitter and spiteful, almost all of their memoirs or oral histories are filled with forgiveness, compassion, and - like Anne Frank wrote in her diary - a belief that people are still good. Eva Kor forgave Dr. Josef Mengele for his experiments on her and her twin sister, even though she didn’t have to. Some may say this is naive, because why should people who were by all accounts twisted and horrible be forgiven? Why should we believe that people are still good when they can commit such crimes against humanity?

Survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us that there is more strength in forgiveness and compassion than in hatred and violence. Elie Wiesel tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. To be a bystander is sometimes worse than being a perpetrator. To ignore the crime can be as bad as committing it. To be silent is unacceptable.

As I remember the Holocaust today, I remember not only the victims who perished, but those who went on to live and give a voice for those who were silenced by the terror of the Third Reich. We cannot have a moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, and perhaps we should not. Why? Because they would not want us to be silent. They would want us to speak and speak loudly for those who are unable to be heard themselves.

(Photo credit and author: Katrina Stack, B.A. History from University of Michigan-Dearborn, Social Media Manager at the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive)

[voicevisarchive]

Why I Remember: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017

They say that if we had one moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, we would be silent for almost eleven and a half years - and that would only be the silence in remembrance of the Jewish victims of the Shoah. If we include the non-Jewish victims, the Poles, Germans, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, asocials, intelligentsia, mentally and physically disabled, and many others… We would be silent for more than twenty years.

A majority of these people had done nothing wrong, aside from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most were not criminals, although the leaders of the Third Reich labeled them as such. They were regular people. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. They were teachers, doctors, lawyers, bakers, homemakers, businessmen, and farmers. Yet they were swept up in the storm of Nazi Germany, without a clue of their fate until it was right in front of them. And we remember them by saying, “Never Again.”

To say “Never Again” regarding the Holocaust seems like a no-brainer. Of course we would not let a government persecute millions of people, forcing them into hard labor and inhumane conditions, let alone into gas chambers or in front of firing squads.

Today, a repeat of the Holocaust - or something like it, on that large of a scale - feels just about impossible. We have media - especially the social kind - to thank for that. I don’t know anyone who would sit by silently and livestream their neighbors being rounded up and put on trains to an unknown destination. Or at least I hope we wouldn’t. Maybe that is where I see the problem with saying, “Never Again.” We say it with such ease and hope, but is it really true? Did we mean “Never Again” when we watched Rwanda on TV?

Am I certain that my neighbors, coworkers, and classmates would stand up for me, if I was the next to be persecuted? Am I sure they would not allow me to be taken away and lost to the pages of history? Again, I hope so. I hope that we have come far enough and our world is filled with enough global citizens to not let something as atrocious and tragic as the Holocaust occur again. I would love nothing more to say I know that to be true. But how can I know that when a majority of newscasts focus on negativity, violence, and hatred? How can I trust that when there are people who wish bad things upon others, simply because they do not agree on something? As Martin Niemöller’s poem goes….

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Perhaps this is why I believe the messages of the Holocaust and its survivors are so important. While those men and women whose entire families were taken away from them would have every right to be bitter and spiteful, almost all of their memoirs or oral histories are filled with forgiveness, compassion, and - like Anne Frank wrote in her diary - a belief that people are still good. Eva Kor forgave Dr. Josef Mengele for his experiments on her and her twin sister, even though she didn’t have to. Some may say this is naive, because why should people who were by all accounts twisted and horrible be forgiven? Why should we believe that people are still good when they can commit such crimes against humanity?

Survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us that there is more strength in forgiveness and compassion than in hatred and violence. Elie Wiesel tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. To be a bystander is sometimes worse than being a perpetrator. To ignore the crime can be as bad as committing it. To be silent is unacceptable.

As I remember the Holocaust today, I remember not only the victims who perished, but those who went on to live and give a voice for those who were silenced by the terror of the Third Reich. We cannot have a moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, and perhaps we should not. Why? Because they would not want us to be silent. They would want us to speak and speak loudly for those who are unable to be heard themselves.

(Photo credit and author: Katrina Stack, B.A. History from University of Michigan-Dearborn, Social Media Manager at the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive)

[voicevisarchive]

From the Director - August 2017

In early July, I attended the international education conference, “Awareness-Responsibility-Future at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. The three-day conference consisted of numerous panel presentations covering topics ranging from modern representations and reception of Auschwitz, carriers of memory and new technologies and visits to memorial sites as exceptional educational experiences.  

The opening day sessions featured three outstanding panels featuring Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywinski, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Yehuda Bauer, Deborah Lipstadt, Rabbi Irving Greenberg and Nicholas Wachsmann. The panel, “’Difficult Returns…’—the Auschwitz Museum in Reminiscences of Survivors,” was especially interesting. Consisting of five Holocaust survivors (Halina Birenbaum, Dr. Janina Iwanska, Professor Zbigniew Kaczkowski, Roman Kent and Marian Turski), the panel addressed numerous issues revolving around survivor memory and the camp. 

My presentation, which was part of the panel, “Witnesses to History as Memory Depositories” explored the first impressions of the camp of Hungarian Holocaust survivors with an eye towards the formation of a type of spatial memory that manifests itself in oral history interviews. Since the paper exclusively uses Voice/Vision interviews as primary sources, presenting it at this conference helped promote the archive to a wider audience.

Overall it was one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended. The staff of the museum were gracious hosts and the attendees were some of the nicest people I’ve met. Their geniality and encouragement made me realize, once again, that we, as Holocaust scholars and educators are all in this together.

Prior to arriving in Poland for the conference, I visited Hamburg, Germany for five days as the guest of a good friend and colleague who works at the Nord-Ost Institute at the University of Hamburg. In addition to meeting with the Directors of the Nord-Ost Institute and the Institute for the History of German Jews, my colleague arranged private tours of the Neuengamme concentration camp and the Bullenhuser Damm School Memorial. 

Located a few miles to the south east of Hamburg, Neuengamme was opened as a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen by the SS on the site of an abandoned brick factory in December 1938. After the outbreak of the war in September 1939, the camp was expanded and by the spring of 1940, had become its own concentration camp, KL Neuengamme.Between 1938 and 1945, approximately 105,000 prisoners; both Jews and non-Jews, were incarcerated in Neuengamme, where over 14,000 perished from overwork, malnutrition, disease or execution. 

To be honest, I knew virtually nothing about Neuengamme before I went there. I’d certainly heard of it and knew it was a major concentration camp, but I was surprised at how large it was. Much of it remains, including the brick factory, the remains of the Strafkommando (punishment brigade) holding block and some of the small-scale tracks that were used to haul bricks in carts, like you would see in a mine. The original barracks have all been torn down, but their foundations remain and they’ve been filled with what must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of stones and shards or red brick. There is also exists some permanent structures that house a research institute, an archive and some nicely put together exhibitions.

In addition to the material remains of the camp, there is a kind of hall of remembrance to the victims, as well as a large obelisk and sculpture that serve as the primary memorial, though there are several smaller memorials to individual victims of the camp as well.

Bullenhuser Damm School Memorial located in an industrial suburb of the city. In 1944, the school was closed and it was converted into a sub-camp of Neuengamme. In April 1945, 20 Jewish children and 30 Soviet prisoners of war were hanged in the building. The victims, all subjects of medical experiments in Neuengamme, were murdered in attempt to hide the crime by killing the witnesses. At this point I’ve seen a lot of camps and memorials, but this was especially sad and disturbing.

The street sign pointing to the Neuengamme memorial site.

Entrance to Neuengamme memorial site

The obelisk at Neuengamme.

Statue at the base of the obelisk at Neuengamme

Neuengamme Barracks

Neuengamme Boxcar

Plaque at Bullenhuser Damm

Bullenhuser Damm School

Except of testimony of Johann Frahm describing the murder of the children at Bullenhuser Damm

[voicevisarchive]

Sad News - Passing of Abe Pasternak

Abe Pasternak, long-time volunteer at the Voice/Vision Archive and Holocaust survivor passed away on June 16, 2017. 

Abe was first interviewed for the archive by Professor Sidney Bolkosky in 1981. Several subsequent interviews and years later, Abe and Sid became close friends. Although Abe always said to Sid, “You’re the professor. Why do ask me?” I can only imagine that Sid learned as much from Abe as Abe did from Sid. We all did.

By the time I began working as the archive’s curator, Abe was a regular volunteer there, proof-reading and annotating interview transcripts, translating several languages including Hebrew, Yiddish, Hungarian and German, and helping identify and spell camps and ghetto names. 

On my first day of work at the archive I was handed a VHS copy of Abe’s 1984 interview by one of the librarians who had been working on the project. They told me I should watch the interview since I would be working closely with Abe and that he had kind of a rough exterior. Watching his interview would explain why but not too worry too much, he was, underneath that facade, a very nice guy. I watched. I thought I understood. Not so much.

A week or two after starting my job and watching the tape, I met Abe. I had never met a Holocaust survivor before and that, coupled with warnings of his curt demeanor, made me more than a bit nervous and I didn’t know what to say to Abe for the first few weeks. At the time, I was thirty years old and not even technically an ABD.  I really knew nothing about anything (though I certainly thought I did!) and Abe intimidated the heck out of me.

One day however, I came across an interview that required spelling a Hebrew phrase and I meekly peered into Abe’s tiny work space and asked him, “Abe, how do you spell this?” Expecting a reply like, “They hired you and you don’t even know how to spell this simple thing?” I was surprised to not only get the answer, but also an explication on the finer points of the Hebrew language. From that point on, I was an Abe fan. I lost my maternal grandfather when I was 14 years old and I never really got to know my paternal one until I was a bit older, so Abe was kind of a later-in-life surrogate grandfather for me, though I am not sure if he thought of himself that way. He taught me the basics of reading the Torah and he and his wife, Geri, bought my son a dreidel when they heard he was studying Judaism in school. He often brought me corned beef on rye from one of the best kosher delis around and when he found out that I liked swiss on my corned beef, he got it for me, even though he had to explain to the owner that it wasn’t for him. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Abe after I finished my Ph.D. He walked in and said, “Jamie, congratulations.” And offered his hand. I got up from my desk, we shook hands and Abe said, “Now pull up your pants and fix you shirt, you’re a professor now. You need to look like a big macher and doer!” At his funeral, Abe’s son, Martin gave a wonderful eulogy, noting that he especially liked a “a shirt with a stiff collar and a tight crease in his trousers.” Abe was certainly a “snazzy” dresser and I often fall back on his black turtle neck with sport coat “look” whenever I feel the need to look like a professor and don’t want to wear a tie. 

In 2005 the archive moved into a large office suite and Abe had his own desk, computer and a nice space to work in. He would come in and get right to work, swapping his Gorilla Glue ballcap–underneath was his ever-present yarmulke–for a pair of headphones. (what Abe called his “ears”).

Right about that time we had some extra money in the budget to hire student assistants to help with the interviews. Due to how the space was set up, the students and Abe worked next to each other and over the years each of students and Abe became close. At the time, Abe was in his eighties and here he was, making what, I think, were meaningful connections with people 60 years younger than him. 

By now, the corned beef sandwiches had been replaced by these wonderful, bialy-like onion rolls and we would all be happily chowing them down while Abe joked and asked whichever student was working at the time to go online and check his stocks for him. Abe also liked a good stock and I am sure he passed on quite a few good tips to the students in exchange for their help!  I took some students who participated in 2015 Poland Study Abroad trip to visit Abe after we returned home. On the trip, the students had visited many Holocaust related sites of memory in Poland, including Auschwitz and I think this made them extra nervous about meeting Abe. Unknown to us, Abe ordered kosher pizza for us and had his care-giver bake chocolate chip cookies and over pizza and cookies, their nervousness was replaced, I think, by enjoyment as Abe talked with them about what they saw and experienced, but he also took the time to tell them some of his favorite jokes. It was a great visit for all of us in many ways and I was happy that they had an opportunity to meet Abe.

It’s difficult to measure the impact Abe had as a Holocaust survivor. To be sure, Abe was a SURVIVOR. It was a major part of his life and he never shied away from it. Over the years, he spoke to thousands of people, maybe more, and although I’d seen him speak to small university classes and seminars, I never got the opportunity to see him engage large audiences of secondary school students—something he did often before I met him. I did however, get to see the results of these talks when Abe brought in his collection of thank-you letters sent to him by hundreds of these students over the years. Clearly, he made an impact on them. I am proud to say that the archive now houses many of them in its small document collection. Abe’s Holocaust experiences—or more precisely his memories of them, especially of Auschwitz—have been the focus of numerous studies on Holocaust survivor memory, trauma and oral history. His interview figures prominently in several major works on the topic and I’ve shown his interview to my Holocaust classes and used numerous passages from it in presentations and papers. I once gave a paper at a conference on media that featured a segment of his interview and not surprisingly, another participant on the panel used the same exact clip in their presentation. In addition to the four interviews Sid Bolkosky conducted with him for the Voice/Vision Archive, he was also interviewed Shoah Visual History Foundation. Copies of the video-taped Voice/Vision interviews are also available at the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. so to say that Abe’s “testimony” has had a major impact on the field of Holocaust studies and education would be an understatement.  It’s important to remember however, that Abe was just Abe. He was a father, husband and grandfather. He proudly served in the US army after immigrating here after the war. He was a successful businessman who volunteered for several charitable organizations and was delivering “Meals on Wheels” to senior citizens well into his 80s. I’m not sure if he saw the irony in that, but I sure did. So, yes, there was Abe Pasternak, Holocaust survivor, but there was also Abe Pasternak the person. Certainly, both were concomitant but also separate. It’s important to remember that. Not only about Abe, but about other survivors as well. Sid Bolkosky summed this dichotomy up best in an article about chaos and order in oral history testimony, saying that: 

When Abe read Lawrence Langer’s interpretation of his own words, a brilliant analysis in which Langer contrasted Abe with Hamlet, Antigone and Ahab, Abe asked ‘Who is that anyway? It’s not me. I couldn’t understand where that came from. What are you guys doing to us? What are you turning us into?’ 

Sid acknowledges that Abe said this “affectionally and proudly…but [with] a reluctance to intellectualize his…experience [that] lurks beneath his questions.” Sitting here thinking, the phrase that I couldn’t decipher and which broke the ice between Abe and I was, “"Zachor V'al Tishkach” which means, “Remember. Do not forget.”

[voicevisarchive]

Remembering Dr. Sidney M. Bolkosky

“We think of our loved ones whom death has recently taken from us, those who died at this season in years past, and those whom we have drawn into our hearts with our own.” Sidney M. Bolkosky (Feb. 1, 1944-June 14, 2013) Professor of History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, interviewed Holocaust survivors. His interviews are at the heart of the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, and we certainly would not be here without his work. “May their memories be for blessing.”

[voicevisarchive]

Why I Remember: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017

They say that if we had one moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, we would be silent for almost eleven and a half years - and that would only be the silence in remembrance of the Jewish victims of the Shoah. If we include the non-Jewish victims, the Poles, Germans, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, asocials, intelligentsia, mentally and physically disabled, and many others… We would be silent for more than twenty years.

A majority of these people had done nothing wrong, aside from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most were not criminals, although the leaders of the Third Reich labeled them as such. They were regular people. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. They were teachers, doctors, lawyers, bakers, homemakers, businessmen, and farmers. Yet they were swept up in the storm of Nazi Germany, without a clue of their fate until it was right in front of them. And we remember them by saying, “Never Again.”

To say “Never Again” regarding the Holocaust seems like a no-brainer. Of course we would not let a government persecute millions of people, forcing them into hard labor and inhumane conditions, let alone into gas chambers or in front of firing squads.

Today, a repeat of the Holocaust - or something like it, on that large of a scale - feels just about impossible. We have media - especially the social kind - to thank for that. I don’t know anyone who would sit by silently and livestream their neighbors being rounded up and put on trains to an unknown destination. Or at least I hope we wouldn’t. Maybe that is where I see the problem with saying, “Never Again.” We say it with such ease and hope, but is it really true? Did we mean “Never Again” when we watched Rwanda on TV?

Am I certain that my neighbors, coworkers, and classmates would stand up for me, if I was the next to be persecuted? Am I sure they would not allow me to be taken away and lost to the pages of history? Again, I hope so. I hope that we have come far enough and our world is filled with enough global citizens to not let something as atrocious and tragic as the Holocaust occur again. I would love nothing more to say I know that to be true. But how can I know that when a majority of newscasts focus on negativity, violence, and hatred? How can I trust that when there are people who wish bad things upon others, simply because they do not agree on something? As Martin Niemöller’s poem goes….

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Perhaps this is why I believe the messages of the Holocaust and its survivors are so important. While those men and women whose entire families were taken away from them would have every right to be bitter and spiteful, almost all of their memoirs or oral histories are filled with forgiveness, compassion, and - like Anne Frank wrote in her diary - a belief that people are still good. Eva Kor forgave Dr. Josef Mengele for his experiments on her and her twin sister, even though she didn’t have to. Some may say this is naive, because why should people who were by all accounts twisted and horrible be forgiven? Why should we believe that people are still good when they can commit such crimes against humanity?

Survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us that there is more strength in forgiveness and compassion than in hatred and violence. Elie Wiesel tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. To be a bystander is sometimes worse than being a perpetrator. To ignore the crime can be as bad as committing it. To be silent is unacceptable.

As I remember the Holocaust today, I remember not only the victims who perished, but those who went on to live and give a voice for those who were silenced by the terror of the Third Reich. We cannot have a moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, and perhaps we should not. Why? Because they would not want us to be silent. They would want us to speak and speak loudly for those who are unable to be heard themselves.

(Photo credit and author: Katrina Stack, B.A. History from University of Michigan-Dearborn, Social Media Manager at the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive)

[voicevisarchive]

From the Director: A Past that Will Still Not Pass?

Dr. Jamie L. Wraight, February 2017

On January 27, 2017, the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. As I scrolled through the social media posts of fellow Holocaust scholars and Holocaust organizations throughout the world, I was overwhelmed by the number of posts about the event. So much so that when I sat down to write something for the Voice/Vision Archive, I found myself struggling to add anything meaningful to what others had already expressed.

My inability was magnified by the political news of day, which also dominated social media. Both the President’s executive order on immigration and the Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day evoked strong responses since each touched upon, either directly or indirectly, Holocaust-related issues. After working through my own range of emotions about all of this and still hoping to add my voice (albeit late) to the discussion, I was reminded of the Historikerstreit, or Historian’s Debate, which raged in the German popular press and academia in the late 1980s.

The debate began on June 6, 1986, when German historian Ernst Nolte published his infamous, but now largely forgotten outside of the dusty halls of academia, “The Past That Will Not Pass: A Speech that Could be Written and not Delivered,” in the Frankfurther Allgeimeine Zeitung.  In the piece, he asked, given the time that had passed since the fall of the Third Reich (41 years at the time of his article appeared), whether it was possible to historicize—that is place them into “normal” flow of history—the crimes of the Third Reich, especially the Holocaust (1). In arguing that it was time to try normalize the Nazi past, Nolte focused on three main themes (2).

First, given the particularly violent nature of the Twentieth Century, which had already seen tens of millions killed through genocide and war by 1939 and which would see tens of millions more killed between 1945 and the mid-1980s, was it possible to compare the Holocaust to other instances of genocide and mass killing?

Second, in asking the above, Nolte focused especially on the crimes of Stalinist Russia and his comparison between the crimes committed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union centered on the question of the whether the Holocaust was a reaction to “Bolshevik atrocities” committed during the Russian Revolution and the Stalinist regime (3). In other words, did Hitler, whose worldview was shaped by hatred for “Judeo-Bolshevism,” launch the Second World War and the Holocaust as a defensive measure against an impending Communist takeover of, and subsequent genocidal purge of non-communists living in Germany?

Finally, Nolte asked that if the above was true, what implications did this comparison have morally, historically, and ethically for the study of the Holocaust? (4)

Nolte didn’t ask this question in a political, historical, or international vacuum. By 1986, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union had been ongoing for nearly 40 years. During that period, it had heated and cooled and both sides managed to avoid direct confrontation, relying instead on proxy wars, the deterrent of global thermo-nuclear war, and the formation of a bi-polar world pitting “east” against “west”.

At the heart of this bi-polar world, stood the former nation of Germany, now split between East and West, allied with the east and west, respectively, and both sides carried out policies designed to normalize their new German allies. Part and parcel of this was the tendency to whitewash the crimes of the Holocaust, especially in West Germany, where:  

Forgetfulness, however–the treachery of memory–became a strategic ally in the postwar holy crusade against the Soviet Union, as West Germany became a symbol of miraculous transformation to democracy and a bulwark against Soviet aggression. Russians became “Nazis”; Germans became freedom-loving allies. Active memory of the Nazi past was considered a needless complication in the struggle to win the Cold War (5).

This became apparent in May 1985, when President Ronald Reagan conducted his ill-advised visit to the German military cemetery at Bitburg, which contained the graves of not only ordinary German soldiers, but also the graves of members of the Waffen SS, which had carried out numerous atrocities during the war.

It was in this milieu that Nolte’s article appeared, and much like Reagan’s Bitburg visit, it sparked a huge controversy. German academics from both the left and the right weighed in and the rhetoric often became heated and desultory. As it usually goes with these types of academic debates, no clear winner ever emerged (though it appeared as that Nolte’s detractors had gotten the better of him, especially his attempt to directly equate the crimes of Hitler with the crimes of Stalin). Eventually the debate died out and when I first heard of it in the early 1990s, it had already become a subject of academic pedagogy for budding German historians.

In many ways, the events of this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, as well as their coverage on social media, made it clear to me that even now, seventy-two years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Holocaust still matters. We, as a society, still wrestle with the many thorny issues involved in interpreting, remembering and memorializing the Holocaust. These issues—the uniqueness and comparability of the Holocaust, the nature of evil, the role of bystanders and the failure of rescue—are the same issues that have been raised time and time again since the end of the war. It is, as Nolte stated, A Past That Will Not Pass.

Ernst Nolte, “The Past That Will Not Pass: A Speech that Could be Written and not Delivered,” Frankfurther Allgeimeine Zeitung. 6 June, 1986. In James Knowlton and Truett Cates, Forever in the Shadow of Hitler?: Original Documents of The Historikerstreit, the Controversy Concerning the Singularity of the Holocaust. (Prometheus Books, 1993), 18-23. 

Heuser, Beatrice, “The Historikerstreit”: Uniqueness and Comparability of the Holocaust, German History, 6:1 (1988: Apr.) p.69.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Edward T. Linnenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum (New York: Viking Books, 1995), 5.

Photos:  Elke Wetzig “Visit by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to Bitburg military cemetery 1985, protester,” (5 May 1985), Wikipedia.

[desolation-moonlight]

Things have changed so much, but I know it's for the better.

[miss-pavlichenko]

Actual picture of me and Speirs in “Points”

[nostorybook]

Visit Original Link

Stay hungry, stay free, and do the best you can.

[voicevisarchive]

Why I Remember: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017

They say that if we had one moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, we would be silent for almost eleven and a half years - and that would only be the silence in remembrance of the Jewish victims of the Shoah. If we include the non-Jewish victims, the Poles, Germans, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, asocials, intelligentsia, mentally and physically disabled, and many others… We would be silent for more than twenty years.

A majority of these people had done nothing wrong, aside from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most were not criminals, although the leaders of the Third Reich labeled them as such. They were regular people. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. They were teachers, doctors, lawyers, bakers, homemakers, businessmen, and farmers. Yet they were swept up in the storm of Nazi Germany, without a clue of their fate until it was right in front of them. And we remember them by saying, “Never Again.”

To say “Never Again” regarding the Holocaust seems like a no-brainer. Of course we would not let a government persecute millions of people, forcing them into hard labor and inhumane conditions, let alone into gas chambers or in front of firing squads.

Today, a repeat of the Holocaust - or something like it, on that large of a scale - feels just about impossible. We have media - especially the social kind - to thank for that. I don’t know anyone who would sit by silently and livestream their neighbors being rounded up and put on trains to an unknown destination. Or at least I hope we wouldn’t. Maybe that is where I see the problem with saying, “Never Again.” We say it with such ease and hope, but is it really true? Did we mean “Never Again” when we watched Rwanda on TV?

Am I certain that my neighbors, coworkers, and classmates would stand up for me, if I was the next to be persecuted? Am I sure they would not allow me to be taken away and lost to the pages of history? Again, I hope so. I hope that we have come far enough and our world is filled with enough global citizens to not let something as atrocious and tragic as the Holocaust occur again. I would love nothing more to say I know that to be true. But how can I know that when a majority of newscasts focus on negativity, violence, and hatred? How can I trust that when there are people who wish bad things upon others, simply because they do not agree on something? As Martin Niemöller’s poem goes….

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Perhaps this is why I believe the messages of the Holocaust and its survivors are so important. While those men and women whose entire families were taken away from them would have every right to be bitter and spiteful, almost all of their memoirs or oral histories are filled with forgiveness, compassion, and - like Anne Frank wrote in her diary - a belief that people are still good. Eva Kor forgave Dr. Josef Mengele for his experiments on her and her twin sister, even though she didn’t have to. Some may say this is naive, because why should people who were by all accounts twisted and horrible be forgiven? Why should we believe that people are still good when they can commit such crimes against humanity?

Survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us that there is more strength in forgiveness and compassion than in hatred and violence. Elie Wiesel tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. To be a bystander is sometimes worse than being a perpetrator. To ignore the crime can be as bad as committing it. To be silent is unacceptable.

As I remember the Holocaust today, I remember not only the victims who perished, but those who went on to live and give a voice for those who were silenced by the terror of the Third Reich. We cannot have a moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, and perhaps we should not. Why? Because they would not want us to be silent. They would want us to speak and speak loudly for those who are unable to be heard themselves.

(Photo credit and author: Katrina Stack, B.A. History from University of Michigan-Dearborn, Social Media Manager at the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive)

[alicaneiceindigo]

Time for Childhood for you 90s/Early 2000s kids

[celestearooni]

Wtf are kids even doing anymore??

[to-plant-trees-deactivated20170]

I hated those snappy colorful cube sticks! They hurt my fingers tryna get them apart. The blue ones were legit, though, and the rolling boards were super fun (until someone rolled up next to you and pinched your fingers.)

[teachingtoday]

I mean…most of these things still exist