Learning about the Holocaust (part one)

Learning about the Holocaust (part one)

WM

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‘My goal is to warn teenagers of the harm we humans are capable of meting out to each other; what happens when democracy fails and civil society breaks down. I want them to understand the dangers of casual racism, the personal humiliation it inflicts and how the pain is deep and long felt. How, when this particular tribal instinct manifests in extremis, the fallout lasts for generations.’

On November 15th last Oliver Sears visited the library to meet 2 Blue and 3 Green and explain the work that he and Catherine Punch do for Holocaust Awareness Ireland. Art gallery owners by profession, their exhibition The Objects of Love returned to Dublin Castle after the acclaim received last spring. The two form groups travelled there in October as part of a 2

three-stage tour intended to educate students on the Holocaust and the experience of the Jewish community in Ireland. In the process, they

considered

the

different

ways

of

commemorating historical events and assessed how effective these can be, something that’s part of their Junior Cycle syllabus.

Seven students wrote about aspects of that day and related issues. Their articles are collected here, among details of what’s in our library and online that can help the lifelong attempt to take stock of genocide.

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This two-part e-booklet collects articles on the following: History four ways

Zoe Mathews

From your War, to your Peace

Georgie O’Keefe

The Objects of Love

Claire Nulty

Oliver Sears in DGS

William Mulligan

On antisemitism and whether art can be separated from the artist

Olisa Eriobu

Maus: graphic novels as a source

Freddie Green

Crocuses and empathy

Rosie Tyrell

Photos are credited individually when the source or photographer is known. Extracts from books and graphic novels are partial and hopefully appropriate, due to the purpose of the content.

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History Four Ways Last October 20th my form visited the Objects of Love exhibition in Dublin Castle, then the Jewish Museum, including a synagogue, followed by the stolpersteine on Donore Avenue.

On our way, in the traffic on the quays, we saw the famine statues. This was an effective source for learning about this period in history because they were thin and frail, Irish people walking perhaps to their deaths.

It is memorable because of how shocking it was. They are set up in the Dublin docklands near Butt Bridge in 1997. The statues were sculpted by Rowan Gillespie and were made in memory of the refugees to Canada.

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The Objects of Love is an exhibition on a Polish Jewish family, whose grandson Oliver Sears has put together a collection of family photos, documents, and objects, one of which is this gold compact case. It was created so that people wouldn’t be able to pick pocket it as nobody really wants a compact and it's what was used as money if they needed to escape again; coins and money were easily taken but not a gold compact, which could be kept.

Everything in the exhibition was of a timeline of the family through the years, during the Second World War and the antisemitism encountered in several countries.

It also deals with family issues and how his grandparents kept all that happened to them a secret.

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I think that this could be said for a lot of people who were in or were affected by the Holocaust. This exhibition helped show what families went through and encouraged others to do the same as the Sears family has done, to talk about the Holocaust. Though his mother waited till she was fifty-one to talk about what had happened when she was a young child, in letting people know this they may think that it's time to talk about it themselves.

This exhibition put the Holocaust into perspective. Although awful things happened, the family managed to stick together even during drastically demanding times, they always had love for each other.

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With the father missing, thought dead, and two women (her birth mother and a Catholic servant who was minding the child) fighting over who would be best to care for Monika, even though having a Jewish child in those times would be something to hide - that shows the love that a family has for each other.

We had lunch in the grounds of the Chester Beatty library then walked to the Irish Jewish Museum in Portobello. This area used to be the centre of Jewish life in Dublin, before many families moved out to the suburbs. The museum has a traditional set of displays and up a narrow stair opens out to a synagogue. The building was a red brick terrace house which I found most surprising (this was my first time going to a synagogue) I did not realize that a synagogue 11

could just be a room or in this case part of an ordinary street. You would not have known that it was there unless you were looking for it; I did not realise we were at the location until our teachers had lined us up outside it.

Mr. Alkin greeted us, among an amazing collection of artefacts from Irish-Jewish history, which I found interesting because it gave me an idea of what Jewish culture was like in Ireland for that community. There was a diverse range of photographs of Jewish people, an enormous variety of kitchenware, artefacts showing Jewish women's roles in society in history, banners for political organizations that used to be in Ireland.

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(consider why this house of prayer needs CCTV)

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Upstairs in the synagogue they had an ample collection of torahs, also an area that had a bride and groom’s wedding wear and a chuppah or wedding canopy. I thought all these things were nice to look at. Everything that was in the synagogue was in Hebrew including the usual things to find in a synagogue such as an arc, the torah, the pews etc.

This gave me good insight into what a synagogue looks like and what the Jewish religion consists of. The guide was informative on many aspects and taught us about the harvest festival that was on and how they were made of fruits and vegetables.

Another twenty-minute walk on to St. Catherine’s NS on Donore Avenue. In the 1920’s half of the pupils in this Church of Ireland school 16

were Jewish. In front, last July, a German sculptor

Gunter

Demnig

installed

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stolpersteine in the pavement (in the presence of the German ambassador among others).

A stolperstein is a sett-size, ten-centimetre (3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.

They have been placed all over the world since 1992 in places where these victims lived and this was the first time in Ireland they were set up, although the row of houses where these people lived has since been torn down so the six markers are collected together.

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Ettie Steinberg Gluck, her husband Wojiteck and their son Leon, Isaac Shishi, Ephraim Saks and his sister, Jeanne (Lena) Saks are the six Irish victims of the Holocaust, although it’s possible research will uncover more.

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The stolpersteine are one of the best ways for young children to learn about the Holocaust without it being full on. It shows them that people from Ireland were murdered and can be a useful tool for teaching the young about what had happened during the Holocaust. The plaques were very heartfelt and simple.

Ettie

Steinberg

Gluck

went

to

St

Catherine’s NS, and we were lucky enough to go into the class that she used to be in. It has been renovated since, but it still has the same effect.

Ms. Scannell welcomed us in and explained about the Jewish heritage in the neighbourhood.

Ettie Gluck left Ireland when she married her husband, and through being married and moving to Belgium she lost her Irish citizenship.

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When the Nazis were invading, she applied she for a visa to return here and was eventually granted one to land in Belfast. This was sent to her but did not come in time. There was a roundup of Jews and she was taken away and died in a concentration camp. It was shocking and unfortunate for her.

The part of the day I thought I got the most out of was the Objects of Love exhibition in Dublin Castle because I think seeing everything that had happened through a family was most memorable and effective. I thought about the Oliver Sears one longer, thinking about all that had happened to him and his family and I had no questions - I simply was just speechless at how raw it was. The strong emotions that had shown

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through it is why it would be the one I would return to, just so I could take it in again.

In the end, I think that all the places that our class visited gave us a new perspective on the Holocaust and Judaism.

Zoe Matthews (3 Green)

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Another commemoration:

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The sculpted shoes along the Danube, where a fascist Hungarian militia murdered Jewish people between 1943-45, after first telling them to take off their shoes, then shooting them and letting the bodies fall into the river.

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‘From my War, to your Peace.’

by Monika Sears

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Monika Sears had a hugely different childhood to others. She was only a small child when she found out she had to go and look for her father with her mother in Warsaw. Little did she know that war was just beginning, and her father had been shot by Nazis in only the first few days of the invasion.

As a sallow-skinned child with dark brown eyes, recognisably Jewish she couldn’t blend in with the archetypal fair hair and blue eyes of the gentile Poles. She spent so much time in fear.

Now, many years later, she has written this book about her life during the war as a letter to her grandson. It’s a children’s book, but not a fairy tale.

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She saw things that no one, especially a child that young should witness. When she and her mother were staying with a countess they were made get out of their building by Germans as Warsaw was burning. As they were walking, her small friend Bolek, who she was holding onto for dear life, got shot dead. Right in front of her face Monika saw this.

She didn’t understand what had happened and why there was a hole in his stomach. She began to put all his insides back into his stomach as quickly as she could so he could be better again but got pulled along by her mother. She felt anger towards her mother who didn’t understand that she had to go back to help Bolek.

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Monika spent time with different women her mother, her aunt and a sort of servant, confusingly also called aunt. They lived separately while they tried to find a safe place to stay in Warsaw. At the early age she was, Monika always had the fear following her that she would be separated from these aunts Pola and Krysia (who was actually her mother Edyta).

She lived in a basement owned by an antiSemitic countess, where Pola was made sing and dance to improper songs, entertain servants and be rewarded with alcohol.

Monika experienced walking through cities while her surroundings got burnt down and was almost being shot in the head when she was looking out her window. Luckily for Monika the bullet went through her hair still leaving her 29

with a fright of course. Getting no comfort from her aunt Krysia or the countess made Monika feel as if it was her fault. The trauma of fleeing the Warsaw ghetto was replaced by Russian occupation.

When the Germans retreat the family returns to Lodz, then leaves once more. Monika was sworn to secrecy as her mother had sold all their belongings and sentimental items for money, made into a powder compact.

Monika was confused on why she had to keep quiet about this and why Pola, who had cared for her in her mother’s absence, was at the station pleading with her mother to stay. She found out that her mother was paying Pola this whole time to mind her. Pola was begging them to stay as she needed the money.

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Somehow Monika survived all of this. She moved to England after the war with her mother. She grew up, got married and had children. From being to her son’s exhibition myself I’ve got to learn a lot about Monika’s life.

In my opinion, I would say reading her book is more effective than going to the exhibition. I think this as, you’re reading from her point of view so you know it’s all coming from her and you get to see and picture the thoughts she was feeling at a certain time. All her thoughts from the time were when she was a child so I found it was more captivating from that perspective.

Georgie O’Keefe (2 Blue)

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The Objects of Love In this article I am trying to see what I can learn from just the guidebook as I wasn't at the exhibition myself. I prefer to read and look at the photos rather than try to focus while listening.

The Objects of Love exhibition has an accompanying small book to guide visitors. It’s also available as an audioguide on SoundCloud, read by the author, but I read it normally. It is an exhibition about the story of a Jewish family before, during and after World War II, told through photographs and documents from said family. The accompanying text is written by Oliver Sears about his mother and grandmother and their struggle to live in that time.

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Each chapter begins with pictures of photographs

and/or

documents

that correlate to that chapter. The book tells the story of Monika and her mother Edyta. As the story continues Monika and her mother get older in each chapter's pictures. It starts with Monika as a baby, and it is nice to see her grow up as you read.

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A very dramatic moment in the book is when we discover that Edyta had a bad feeling about where a train was taking them, in 1944 from Warsaw after the Uprising. She bribed a guard as they approached a bend and threw her daughter out the train door. On the ground, Monika at first thought she was being gotten rid of, as too much trouble to mind, but then her mother and grandmother jumped too. Years later, she discovered the train was headed to Bergen Belsen or Sachsenhausen concentration camps.

Two photos I found especially significant were: Monika giving her testimony in to the US Shoah Foundation in 1996, which I think is one of the first times she talked about her experience since 35

she survived, half a century later. She waited a long time before feeling able to speak about her experiences.

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The other is the one with Monika outside her parents’ old apartment building in Lodz November 1990. Unfortunately, the women who answered the door wouldn’t let her in because of recent burglaries.

Next year the exhibition will travel to New York City. There will also be a filmed version of walking

through

the

display

rooms,

commentary and photos together.

Claire Nulty (4 Green) holocaustawarenessireland.com A search of the Irish Times website will show a series of articles by Mr. Sears and a short video on the exhibition. There are also audio pieces on Sunday Miscellany, stored on RTE’s website.

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