Sixty-one years ago today
 

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) falls on April 19, for on this date in 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began.

Please take a moment to remember those who did not live to tell their stories and the lessons the world must never forget.

- Jake

Thank you for posting this, I never realized they had this day. May we also take a moment to remember those who did live to tell their stories and remind us everyday how blessed we are and to never forget and never let something of this magnitude occur again.

i'm afraid Rwanda's case showed us that no lesson has been learned. :shrug:

I wasn't aware there was a day either. Thanks for posting this.

I just bought Schindler's List on DVD, so I think I will watch that.

Rob

I usually read a Holocaust memoir each year at this time and go to hear a speaker. I'll hear one speaker on Tuesday. On Sunday night I heard a woman who escaped Germany with her family. For those of you who don't know, eventually all ports except one closed their doors to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Some ships were actually sent back to Germany for cetain death. The one port that permitted Jews? Believe it or not, Shanghai. This woman described her experience in detail, including what it was like when the Japanese invaded and occupied.

- Jake

I love this quote from Gerda Weissman Klein's All But My Life:
"Happy in my new life, I have penned the last sentence of the past. I have written my story, with tears and with love, in the hope that my children, safely asleep in their cribs, should not awake from a nightmare and find it to be reality."

- Jake

Jake, have you ever read Night by Elie Wiesel?

Yeah, many years ago.
The seventh grade teacher in my department requires students to read it. I'm not letting it happen next year. Seventh grade is too young. Watching the film Escape From Sobibor is also nixxed as far as I'm concerned. Save these for ninth grade. Eighth graders are visiting the National Holocaust Museum this week.

I heard Wiesel speak the night I moved to Texas. I heard Gerda speak later that year, and she is the best I've heard. Her bio is my favorite.

- Jake

We didn't watch Escape From Sobibor until 10th grade and that was the same year in which Wiesel's book was on my summer reading list. Seventh grade isn't really age appropriate for the content of the book, I agree.

As many times as i've been to DC, i've yet to go to the Holocaust Museum. The last time I was down there, they opened up a September 11th section in the Smithsonian and I had a difficult time with that so I don't know how i'd fair at the Holocaust Museum although I definately should make it a point to go there one of these days.

Our English and History departments did a Holocaust unit last year. I read Night for 9th grade English. It was pretty depressing, and isn't for 7th graders. Never had to watch Escape From Sobibor though. We watched a movie called Life Is Beautiful (I think that was the title) instead, and it was pretty good (and kind of funny). We did on the other hand have to watch some disgusting concentration camp footage (narrated in French :confused: ) in History class :distress: ...

I feel lame. All I've seen is Schindler's List and that telemovie about the Nuremberg trials with Alec Baldwin which I actually found to be very well done.
And I saw that 'Survivor' episode of CYW recently, too. Does that make me evil? I feel all guilty now. LD's humour is always a guilty pleasure I find.

thoughts
 

Jake: good for not having the kids read "Night" is is a bit much even in 9th grade, when I read it. I did see Schindlers List though in school, a good movie, one that I am glad I saw, but will not likely watch again for many more years. I remember my 10th grade history teacher passed around picture of the people experiments done on holocaust victims, those gave me nightmares for a few weeks, not something I ever needed to see in life. BTW great quote.

I have the opportunity to study there or at Yad Vashem this summer, but I'm still deciding.

- Jake

LIB won the Oscar for foreign film that year. I don't think it's the greatest tool for education, but at least it didn't show more than you were ready for.

- Jake