The lives and personal testimonies of local Holocaust survivors brought together members of the Riverdale and Jasper communities for the talk Survivors and their Stories in November. The presentation highlighted an ongoing project funded by a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation at the College’s Holocaust Resource Center (HRC), for which students interview and document the lives of local Holocaust survivors on film to preserve their stories and make them available to future generations. The evening talk featured the vivid accounts of two Holocaust survivors, Gisela Glaser and Martin Spett, director of the Survivors’ Speakers Bureau. It was followed by excerpts from the DVDs No Time To Cry: Gisela Glaser’s Holocaust Memories and An Interview with Martin Spett, which were made by past and present students Liz Harris ’08, Chris McShane ’07 and Alex Koveos ’07. Both Spett and Glaser expressed profound gratitude for being able to immigrate to the United States. Both are longtime supporters of the HRC, and Spett has represented the College on numerous occasions. The evening began with the lighting of a candle in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. Dr. Jeff Horn, the director of the HRC, introduced the speakers and explained the project to the audience. Glaser spoke first of the simple pleasures of small city life growing up in Poland with her family and then the sickening fear and dread caused by the Nazis who overran the area. During the roundups of Jews, she and her sisters hid their little brother every day. At night, they brought food to the frightened child, who wept because he wanted so much to live. Nothing they could do would save him or themselves. When at last the family was taken to a concentration camp,
Glaser’s older sister accompanied their brother to the gas chamber rather than let him go alone. Etched in her memory is the proud, loving toss of her sister’s head as she walked to her death. The fifteen-year-old Glaser was put to hard labor in the camp. For the second half of the presentation, Spett used vivid expressionistic paintings to illustrate his story of survival. One painting was of a brilliant yellow house in the ghetto. He recounted the day the Nazis stormed the area and rousted occupants for the concentration camp. His parents knew of an apartment in the yellow house with a hidden room. When they arrived at the door, it was padlocked, so they broke the lock with an axe and entered to find what seemed like a deserted apartment. His mother called out to the unseen inhabitants who pulled them into a hidden chamber. When the Nazis saw the broken lock, they assumed the apartment had already been searched. By such luck, they had a few extra weeks outside the concentration camp. These stories, filmed by students, illustrate the unique aspects of this project, including the opportunity to work with eyewitnesses and utilize communications technology. Furthermore, the Riverdale community and the College have the opportunity to continue to collaborate on something meaningful to both of them. The DVDs will be distributed free of charge to teachers, thanks to financial support from the dean of the school of arts, Dr. Mary Ann O’Donnell; the executive vice president and provost, Dr. Weldon Jackson; and the HRC. The Survivors and their Stories project will continue. Grants are available to qualified Manhattan College students to continue to film interviews with Holocaust survivors, and four local survivors have volunteered to be interviewed.
efforts are collapsing. “These Khartoum sponsored marauders have dehumanized their non-Muslim neighbors and are intent on depriving them of land, resources and their very existence,” said Reeves, who likened the Janjaweed to the Ku Klux Klan. “Thousands of children have been killed. Thousands of women have been abducted and assaulted.” He went on to outline a complicated political situation that has disabled a coherent response from the international community. The Islamic National Front government in Khartoum, which he characterized as “genocidal by force of habit,” is a major supplier of petroleum to China, who in turn supplies its allies with the arms that enable conflict. On the U.N. Security Council, China has steadfastly supported
on campus
Documenting the Stories of Holocaust Survivors
Holocaust survivor Martin Spett’s painting of a yellow house in the ghetto recalls the place where he hid with his family on the day the Nazis invaded his town.
the Khartoum regime throughout the Darfur brutality, as it did during genocidal destruction in the oil regions of southern Sudan. Reeves, along with Justpeace and many others in the international community, intend to apply pressure on China during the upcoming Olympics in Beijing. These Summer Games are being branded the “Genocide Olympics,” as a way of reminding the world of the energy strategies that underwrite the growing prosperity of China. Through his work, Reeves hopes to raise awareness of the violence in Darfur. His astounding statistics and vivid details of this war-ravaged part of the world are sure to be mapped on the conscience of those who hear his story.
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