Simon Trakinski, American Revolutionaries and the Jewish Resistance

“It’s the same to Jews as is to Americans to study the revolutionary war and its heroes right? People put their chest in front of English muskets to build a country, we put our chest in front of German muskets to defend ourselves from annihilation and maybe to prevent the deaths of other Jews.”

—Simon Trakinski

Simon Trakinski fought the Germans during the Vilna Ghetto uprising, escaping afterwards to fight in the all-Jewish Markov partisan brigade. Simon and his brother Bill also worked as spies and saboteurs, gathering information about troop and supply movements, mining roads, and blowing up bridges.

On this July 4th, Simon’s story reminds us that the fight for liberty can take many forms, including espionage, escape, and simply surviving another day. Simon’s story also points out that resistors, revolutionaries and rebels have to deal with unexpected adversaries — including rival partisan groups who, in theory, should have been their allies.

• Simon’s group sometimes fought partisan groups from different countries for control of territory that would be divided up after the war
• The Markov brigade and other Jewish partisans often had to fight antisemitic soldiers who – like the Germans they fought – also saw the war as an opportunity to exterminate Jews
• After the Holocaust, surviving Jews still faced violence from murderously antisemitic locals
• Western countries including the United States set quotas, refusing to help many Jews escape both the continued violence and new forms of anti-Jewish oppression as the Soviet “Iron Curtain” descended on Eastern Europe.

This time, Simon resisted by escaping through Poland to Austria, finally being allowed to immigrate to the United States in 1948. Simon Trakinski passed away on January 2, 2009 surrounded by his loving family at his home in New York.

You can read Simon’s full bio and see him tell more of his story by going to www.jewishpartisans.org/simontbio. (The quote above is from the video titled "Fighting to prevent annihilation", which can be found on his videos page.)

Bill Trakinski, Simon’s brother and fellow partisan. Vilna, 1945.

Family photo, Passover weekend. From left to right, Simon Trakinski, Simon's father Moses, mother Esther, uncle Zev, brother Bill and in the center Simon's grandmother Chaja. Smorgon, Belarus, 1931.

Youth Writing Contest Profile: Josh Gale and his teacher, Robin Stanton

Last week, we posted the reflections and photos of this year's upper division contest winner Leah LeVine and her teacher Jaclyn Guzman (which you can read here). This week, we feature second place winner Josh Gale and his English teacher, Robin Stanton of Solomon Schechter High School in Glen Cove, NY.

From the outset, Josh had a solid idea of what he wanted to write about: Solomon Schechter’s annual trip to Poland – an opportunity for upper-class students to immerse themselves in the history of the Holocaust by visiting museums and monuments such as Auschwitz and the Warsaw ghetto – provided him with the visceral and emotional experience he would use a year later to craft his winning essay.

“Entering JPEF's Youth Writing Contest was very important to me. After having visited Poland last year, I knew that I could use my experience to write an inspirational essay about the female partisans. The essay I wrote has inspired me to use what I know about the Holocaust and partisans to teach people about creating a better tomorrow.”

His teacher Robin is no stranger to JPEF’s Youth Writing Contest – her class at Solomon Schechter produced two upper-division winners in 2010, and has participated every year since. Thanks again to Josh, Robin, and Solomon Schechter High School for participating, and we look forward to reading next year’s student essays!

Youth Writing Contest Profile: Leah LeVine and her teacher, Jaclyn Guzman

This year, hundreds of students from around the world entered our 3rd annual Youth Writing Contest , competing for the honor and a chance to win a Kindle Fire. Starting this week, we will post the reflections (and, if available, photographs) of this year's contest winners. Here, we feature first place Upper Division winner Leah LeVine and her history teacher, Jaclyn Guzman of Kehillah High School in Palo Alto, CA.

Echoing Sonia Orbuch’s memorable statement about dying as a fighter and not as a Jew in the opening of her winning essay, Leah was inspired by “the ideal that one should be willing to fight for one's identity rather than suffer persecution because of it.” She stated “I will embrace this philosophy as I continue my growth as a Jewish woman.” Leah’s essay touched on subjects of gender identity, power of will, and the importance of taking action rather than embracing passivity and apathy.

For Jaclyn Guzman, this was the second year that she encouraged student involvement in the contest and motivated a winning essayist. Last year, Jaclyn taught first-place winner EJ Weiss – another student inspired by Sonia Orbuch’s story. Perhaps her insistence upon a compound, nuanced understanding of history and the importance of personal narratives influenced her her students’ success:

At Kehillah Jewish High School our philosophy is to approach history as a series of woven perspectives. No singular person has the “correct” view of history and everybody has a unique perspective on every situation. Who we are as individuals impacts how we view the world and how we will remember the major events in our past. I encourage our students to participate in the Youth Writing Contest in order to explore the various perspectives and experiences of the Holocaust. The majority of their education of the Holocaust has been the camp experience and the Jewish Partisan Education Foundation has wonderful resources that enable my students to look at the various acts of bravery Jews exhibited during the most horrific time period. Each year the contest provides a different angle to approach the same history: through the lens of a youth, a woman, etc. This pattern is a perfect fit for our curriculum that is geared toward hearing as many voices as possible in evaluating our collective past.

Thanks again to Jaclyn, Leah, and Kehillah High School for participating in the contest, and we look forward to reading their inspiring essays again next year!

Partisans In The Arts: Marcel Marceau (1923-2007)

“It’s good to shut up sometimes.”

— Marcel Marceau

Marcel Marceau, a French-born performance artist, championed the art of pantomime for his generation. Before his prominence as a mime, however, Marceau took part in the French resistance during World War II. He used his talents to help Jewish children escape German-occupied France and his art to provide moments of humor.

Born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg on March 12, 1923, Marceau’s interest in performing pantomime had early roots: as a boy he enjoyed imitating gestures and behaviors. In March 1944, Marceau’s father was deported to Auschwitz, but a teenaged Marcel and his elder brother, Alain, were able to evade capture. Together they adopted the last name Marceau, in reference to a French Revolutionary general, and decided to help the French Resistance. Marcel used his drawing skills to forge identity cards for Jewish children and the brothers Marceau, dressed as boy scouts, led many to the Swiss frontier.

During this time, Marcel began mime acting in order to keep children quiet while they escaped. Later, his talent with body language and illusion came in handy: Marceau claimed that while fighting with the French Resistance he accidentally ran into a unit of German soldiers and, startled, he imitated an advance guard of a much larger French force, successfully persuading the German soldiers to surrender. At the end of the occupation, Marcel used his art to entertain Jewish children who were living under false names in La Maison de Sevres near Paris.

One of Marceau’s performances was seen by a theatrical historian who persuaded him to enroll in the drama school of Charles Dullin and study with Étienne Decroux. As a mime artist, Marceau was acknowledged without peer. His original exercises all became classics: e.g., The Cage and Walking Against the Wind. His oft-used onstage persona, Bip the Clown, became as intertwined with Marceau’s name as The Little Tramp is with Charlie Chaplin’s. Marceau toured all over the world, won countless awards, became a favorite of Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, and appeared in films like Barbarella and Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie. In 1999, New York City even declared March 18 to be “Marcel Marceau Day”.

For Marceau, however, his name’s synonymy with pantomime was bittersweet, as he feared that l’art du silence would be buried along with him. Truthfully, enthusiasm for pantomime has long since lost momentum, although Marceau’s talent went on to inspire many popular performing artists, including Rowan Atkinson and Michael Jackson whose moonwalk was based on Marceau’s “Walking Against the Wind”. Marcel Marceau’s inimitable talent was his ability to express the human condition through his art; and he explains the implication of such a performance: “As we go on in life, torn between light and shadow, encountering injustice, violence, misery, we still have one weapon against despair – to make people laugh through their tears.”

2012 Youth Writing Contest Winners Announced!

We are proud to announce the winners of the Third Annual Youth Writing Contest! From hundreds of entries from around the country - and around the world - three winners in two different age groups have been chosen by a judge panel that includes Jewish partisan William Stern.
This year's contest focused on Jewish partisan women. Students were asked to write about the lessons that can be learned from their experience to inspire people today to make the world a better place. The winning essays discussed topics ranging from bullying to Burma. The first-place winners, along with their teachers, will receive a Kindle Fire.
The winners are:

Lower Division (8th-9th Grades):

1st place:
Breanna, 8th grade, Billinghurst Middle School, NV
2nd place:
Yitzhak, 8th grade, Park East Day School, NY
3rd place:
Micaela, 9th grade, Congregation Ner Tamid, NV

Upper Division (10th-12th Grades):

1st place:
Leah, 10th grade, Kehillah Jewish High School, CA
2nd place:
Joshua, 11th grade, Solomon Schechter High School, NY
3rd place:
Samantha, 10th grade, Duchesne Academy, NE
The winning essays discussed the life lessons of these Jewish Partisans:

Mira Shelub	Vitka Kempner
Hannah Szenes (Senesh)	Roza Robota
Sara Fortis	Marisa Diena
Sonia Orbuch

We want to take the opportunity to thank all of the students who participated in the contest, and all of the administrators, educators and mentors who encouraged their participation. We would also like to thank all the volunteer readers who helped us judge this contest.
These essays were deeply touching and inspiring to all of us here at JPEF: the staff, board members and partisans. We look forward to hosting the contest again next year.
For further information or questions about the contest, please contact outreach@jewishpartisans.org.
This writing contest was made possible by contributions from the Alper, Bedzow, Blaichman, Charatan, Felson, Holm, Kushner, Orbuch, and Wohl families.

Partisans in the Arts: Marko Behar, Bulgarian artist (1914-1973)

Marko Behar, a talented sketch artist and draftsman (among other mediums), provides us with a unique view into Bulgaria during World War II through his drawings. Behar served as the second commissar of a partisan battalion in the framework of Georgi Dimitrov, who was an international symbol of resistance to Nazism at the time. As such, Behar’s sketches, lithographs, and cartoons reflect partisan and underground life. While he drew moving glimpses of Jewish and partisan life at the time, he also featured caricatures of fascism, such as a cartoon aimed at pro-German authorities in Bulgaria.

Partisans in the Winter, 1948
Monotype
Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Behar lived out his days in Bulgaria: he was born in 1914 in Skalitsa, a southeastern town, and passed away in Sofia in 1973. His work has been featured in a number of international exhibitions and has been honored with the Ilia Beshkov prize for drawing. Along with renowned Bulgarian poet, Valeri Petrov, Behar was also one of the founding members and contributors to the popular Bulgarian newspaper Starshel (which translates to “The Hornet”), a weekly publication of humor and satire. His work continues to be exhibited in retrospectives and collections, including a recent (2009) exhibit at the National Gallery of Foreign Art in Sofia.

Clockwise from top left: Race Laws in Bulgaria, 1943, Sofia; A Young Member of the Underground Distributing Leaflets, 1943; Partisans, 1962 (lithograph); Wearing a Jewish Badge, 1943, Sofia.

All materials property of Ghetto Fighters' House, except "Partisans In The Winter", courtesy of the Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem.

Defiance, Our Partisan Heroes: Original Poem Inspired By The Jewish Partisans

We recently received this moving poem from Florida educator Bracha Goffer:

Our Partisan Heroes
Holding On To Traditions

What gave them strength to resist?
Preserving pride, self-worth
Resolving not to surrender
To the last breath on earth

How did they safeguard their spirit?
What kept their spark, their drive?
Heads held high amidst evil
How did they last…stay alive?

Lost all loved and dear-ones
Robbed of all they possessed
They marched to their death…to the ovens…
But faith was never repressed…

Clinging to customs, traditions
Their soul they would not betray
Bodies tormented, shattered
Hearts in silence did pray

*

Unspeakable courage and daring
Ignited revolt with a passion
They joined underground forces
To strike at Nazi oppression

These were our Partisan heroes
Defiant, would not succumb
Resisting surrender, submission
Inspired decades to come

The remnants of staggering slaughter
Climbed-out of ashes and sand
An ancient vision pulled Homeward
To build their beloved Homeland

-Bracha Goffer

Bracha is a poet, composer, and educator, as well as an expert in Gematria and Hebrew. She teaches an ongoing Torah class every Tuesday night in Aventura, highlighting “Women spirituality and significance of Israel”.

Reflections from Prague, Part 3 – Auschwitz/Birkenau: The Heart of the Beast

JPEF Education Manager Jonathan Furst recently returned from a trip to Prague for the ELMLE conference European International School middle-school educators. The trip included a pre-conference tour of the Terezin ghetto, and was followed by a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.

Following the trip to Terezin, I realized that my journey would be incomplete – I would be incomplete – until I went to the heart of the beast: Auschwitz-Birkenau. I arranged to visit a few days after the conference.

The first thing to know about Auschwitz-Birkenau is that it is cold. On the day I went, the temperature was -30˚ Celsius on a windless day. Even in thermals and a heavy coat I was chilled. I took my shoes and gloves off to pray for 20 minutes – days later, my hands were still chapped and my feet felt painfully cold. How anyone survived there at all is beyond my understanding.

Bikenau is one of the most desolate places on earth. 1.1 million people were murdered* – more than a thousand human deaths occurred every day for years. Truly a death machine.

They say that no birds and no animals ever strayed near, and no plants grew there during the Holocaust. And I believe it. The ground is barren – the ruins of barracks (destroyed by the Nazis’ attempt to erase evidence of their crimes) lie behind stretches of 13-foot high barbed wire. Electrified barbed wire: something about that still stuns and enrages me, the mere fact that someone could conceive of it.

My overall reaction, though, wasn’t rage. Or even shock or sadness (although I felt all of those). Unexpectedly, I felt a defiant pride. The Reich that was supposed to last a thousand years didn’t even last twenty. But we still live on, after four thousand years on this earth. “You’re gone,” I thought, “and we are here”.

And even here there was resistance – even the armed kind. Very few people have ever heard of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Revolt, when a group of Jews overcame the guards and destroyed one of the crematoria. (Tiny amounts of gunpowder were smuggled into the Birkenau death camp by women who worked in the munitions factory in Auschwitz). The ruins of the crematoria are simultaneously horrifying and inspiring to see in person.

And then there were the latrines. Dysentery was rampant, yet inmates who were in a constant state of diarrhea were allowed to go to the bathroom only at two or three fixed times of the day, and for no more than a few minutes. The latrine is a vast barn with hundreds of crude holes placed over a trench, side-by-side and back-to-back, to be used by 32,000 people a day. It’s the little details like this that bring the horror home.

The smell must have been asphyxiating. In an attempt to humiliate intellectuals and other ‘troublemakers’, the Germans would assign them the task of cleaning out the filth. But the job of ‘Scheissekommando’ was secretly considered an opportunity instead of a humiliation. Not only could the enslaved workers relieve themselves as often as they needed, but the guards would refuse to go in do to the stench, so this was one of the few places where Jews could talk without being overheard. Here is where the resistance organized and made plans.

Even in the most desperate conditions such as this, one could unearth stories of resistance. Most of them will never be known, but some still survive. To find out more, visit the following links:

• Information about incidents of resistance from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum site.
• Auschwitz resistance at iearn.org.

*Until the end of the communist occupation of Poland, Birkenau was referred to as the place where 1.1 million Poles and other people, including Jews, were killed. Of those murdered at Auschwitz, approximately 75,000 were Polish. One million were Jewish.

All photos and videos taken by Jonathan Furst during his trip. Copyright 2012 JPEF.

Part 1 — Insights from the Prague International Schools Conference
Part 2 — Terezin: Healing Through Art and Storytelling

Ralph Berger Shares His Impressions Of Speaking At Miami-Dade College

Ralph Berger, the editor of With Courage Shall We Fight and the son of Jewish partisans, recently spoke at Miami Dade College as part of Miami’s Holocaust Education Week. He shares his experiences our readers.

---

In February 2012, as part of Miami’s Holocaust Education Week, my brother Al and I were fortunate enough to have been asked to speak about the book we edited, With Courage Shall We Fight: The Memoirs and Poetry of Holocaust Resistance Fighters Frances “Fruma” Gulkowich Berger and Murray “Motke” Berger, which tells the story of our parents’ lives before, during and after WWII. The experience at Miami Dade College was one that neither of us will soon forget.

The College did a great job of publicizing the event. As we walked around campus, we saw posters announcing the event containing not only our pictures and the book cover, but one of the Bielski Brigade as well. The auditorium seated 350 people. We were quite surprised as students and professors kept coming into the room. More and more piled in. Extra chairs had to be brought in and some students wound up sitting on the floor. Unfortunately, some had to be turned away at the door.

As people were walking in, a slide show obtained from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum was playing. One professor then spoke about Jewish resistance during WWII and the Bielski Brigade in particular. He introduced the JPEF film “Intro to the Partisans.” Another professor introduced me and Al and had clearly read the book. He talked about our parents and the roles that they played in the Brigade.

This was one of the most attentive audiences we had ever seen. After our presentations, a professor came up to us and said that the “audience was so focused you could hear the proverbial pin drop.” The highlight for me came when one of the students read a poem of my Mom’s, “The Little Orphan.” He had a thick Spanish accent. Me and Al were “fahrklempt.” I could see my parents smiling.

Many of the students were from Cuba and Puerto Rico. They asked very heartfelt questions after the lectures. Though not Jewish, it was clear that they were engrossed in the story because so many of them could identify with parts of it - the universal story of resistance to oppression, fleeing from persecution and for a better life. I feel so lucky and so privileged to have been given the opportunity to help educate people – not only about the Partisans, but also about this very important chapter in Jewish history.

— Ralph Berger

Paintings by Mieczyslaw Watorski

Dear readers, we need your help! We recently received an email from a Holocaust Center on the East Coast about a duo of paintings someone recently donated to them. The paintings came from a collection of Holocaust artifacts owned by the parents (both survivors) of the donor. The artist’s name is Mieczyslaw Watorski, but little else is known about him, other than that both paintings were the 8th in a series of 8.

The first painting depicts the annihilation of the Krakow Ghetto:

The second painting shows the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:

If you have any info about these paintings or the artist, Watorski, please email us at outreach@jewishpartisans.org.

Writing Contest Extended, Essay Suggestions for Students from Women Activist Think Tank

JPEF's 2012 Youth Writing Contest has been extended until May 10th! Please visit our contest page for more information, including best practices for students and teacher tips with useful ideas for using the contest in the classroom.
Devon Day of Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, CA recently sent us some of their own suggestions to help students choose a focus for the contest. This year’s topic centers on how the stories and life lessons of women partisans can inspire people today to make the world a better place.
Devon teaches Film Analysis to 150 students and is incorporating the contest into her curriculum. She asked a think tank of women activists to help her brainstorm resources and examples her students could use as inspiration in connecting the experiences of women partisans to contemporary subjects. Here are some key contemporary issues that the think tank came up with:

• Modern resistance movements, particularly people resisting and fighting back against genocide
• Contemporary women’s struggles for rights and civil liberties
• Overcoming traditional gender roles (particularly women in the military)
• Resisting/surviving sexual harassment and assault
• Standing up to bullies and bullying
• Risking your safety to helping others in need

Specific examples of such stories include Sunitha Krishnan who saved 11,000 children and women in India’s sex trafficking market and Dolores Huerta who worked with Cesar Chavez to bring rights to farm laborers and their families, and has expanded her foundation to work for gay rights, women’s rights and other causes.
Resources that could help inspire essayists include:

• CNN heroes list — everyday people who stepped up to make a difference
  • Includes a profile of three impressive projects started by young people
• President Obama’s anti-bullying initiative
• Education as a form of resistance, such as Finland’s school reforms

The Youth Writing Contest is a fantastic way to connect teens to the pivotal role the partisans played in history. When learning about the stories of the partisans, educators should encourage students to identify the main ideas and lessons from what they have researched through JPEF’s films and study guides. Then, educators can have their students relate these ideas and lessons to one of the ideas listed above, or other relevant issues in their lives.
We look forward to reading all of the contest entries and wish your students good luck!

Sonia Orbuch Q&A Webcast posted to Youtube

A recording of our recent Q&A webcast with Jewish partisan Sonia Orbuch is now available on Youtube! JPEF Executive Director Mitch Braff interviewed Sonia at her home this Tuesday, with over twenty schools watching the live stream. During the broadcast, students had the opportunity to ask Sonia questions via Facebook, email, and Twitter.

Watch the video below:

JPEF’s Pictures of Resistance Exhibit Opens at UCLA Hillel

Pictures of Resistance, the Wartime Photographs of Jewish Partisan Faye Schulman opened March 15 at the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at UCLA Hillel. The exhibit includes 30 photographs from Schulman, the only known Jewish Partisan Photographer. JPEF Board Member Ada Horwich and her husband Jim hosted a private reception for JPEF’s Los Angeles stakeholders.

JPEF's Executive Director Mitch Braff gives a tour of the
organization's exhibit "Pictures of Resistance."

JPEF’s Executive Director, Mitch Braff, gave a private tour of the exhibit to the guests that included two Jewish partisans, Jeff Gradow and Martin Petrasek. Petrasek, a Jewish partisan from Slovakia who is featured in JPEF’s film “Antisemitism in the Partisans”, was impressed, “I have never seen photographs like this before. They are incredible.” (Petrasek is also the author of “Broken Promise”, which was turned into a feature film that JPEF co-produced in 2009.)

From left to right: JPEF Executive Director Mitch Braff,
Board Member Ada Horwich, Jewish partisan and JPEF
Advisory Board Member Martin Petrasek, and Jim Horwich

The exhibit is on display at UCLA through April 30. A second copy of the exhibit is also on display at the University of Illinois in Springfield, where Braff spoke at a reception for the exhibit on April 9. For more information, click here.

V’he Sheamda - The Promise To Take A Stand

In Jewish schools and homes everywhere, teachers and parents are preparing their children for the Passover holiday and the celebration of the Jewish people’s deliverance from the bondage of slavery. They are encouraging the youngest to recite the ma nishtana (the four questions) and engaging the older students in the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt. The celebration of Passover lends itself to one of the most significant learning experiences a Jewish child can have and one that is forever imprinted in his/her mind and heart.

On Passover, even while we celebrate our freedom from slavery thousands of years ago, we recite v’he sheamda and are reminded, “in every generation there are those who have risen against us to destroy us.” Last week we were brutally reminded of this declaration when Rabbi Jonathan Sandler (z’’l), his two sons Aryeh and Gavriel (z’’l), and a third student, Miriam Monsonego (z’’l) were gunned down as they entered Ozar Ha Torah Jewish Day School in Toulouse, France.

Rabbi Sandler was a devoted Jewish scholar who dedicated his life to instilling a passion for learning and a love for Judaism in every child. He spent several years studying and teaching in Israel and was a fervent advocate for bringing a quality Jewish education to children with learning disabilities. He returned to France a few years ago to teach in the same Jewish day school he attended as a child. In 2010, Rabbi Sandler participated in a seminar on Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem, where he asked penetrating questions and sought innovative ways to approach Holocaust education. Although, one of many participants, Rabbi Sandler left an indelible impression, declaring that his goal as a Jewish educator was to “educate the next generation to act as moral human beings.”

Sadly, there are three Jewish children who will never again ask “Why is this night different from all other nights?” and with the loss of Rabbi Sandler, thousands of others who will not learn the answer to this question under his gentle guidance. In the wake of this knowledge, our responsibility as Jews becomes increasingly clear. We are citizens of free countries and have the right, and therefore the obligation to speak out and to act. It is our duty to defend the vulnerable, challenge the aggressor and protect and promote human rights and human dignity everywhere. As we take up this charge, we draw courage from ancient Jewish heroes like the Maccabees and more recent inspiration from the Jewish partisans, who in the face of insurmountable odds, fought back against the Nazis to save thousands of lives and help bring an end to the Holocaust. We are empowered by the rebellion of those in the Warsaw ghetto, who on the first day of Passover, April 19, 1943, launched an uprising against their attackers that lasted until September – longer than both France and Poland were able to stave off German occupation.

Interfaith rally after the shootings (credit: AFP)

As we begin our own holiday preparations, we mourn for Rabbi Sandler, a lover of our tradition and for his children and students who will never again gather around the Seder table, nor grow to adulthood and experience the fullness of life. We stand together, shaken by an act of hatred and with a renewed awareness that as Jews we must be vigilant in combating antisemitism and tyranny wherever it breeds.

The Exodus from Egypt is widely regarded as one of the most significant events in the history of the Jewish people and Exodus 13:8 commands us to tell the story to our children so that it is passed from generation to generation. In fact the word Haggadah is derived from the verb “to tell.” Recounting the Passover story is the basis for the education of children in each generation to acquire the social and ethical values of the Jewish people. On Friday night, when you sit down at your Seder table and begin to read from the Passover Haggadah not only will you perform a mitzvah (commandment) but you will take the first step in fulfilling Rabbi Sandler’s dream to educate the next generation to act as moral human beings.

Chag Sameach.

-Sheri Pearl

Sheri Pearl is JPEF's Director of Development and holds two degrees in Judaic Studies from UCLA and Brandeis University.

Resource Suggestions for 2012 Days of Remembrance

The theme for this year’s International Holocaust Days of Remembrance (April 15-22) is “Choosing to Act: Stories of Rescue”. The Jewish resistance movement is rife with stories of partisans liberating fellow Jews from work camps and smuggling them out of ghettos. The Jewish partisans fought not only for survival and vengeance, but also to rescue Jews and other victims of Nazi oppression from the horrors of the Holocaust. JPEF offers a variety of resources and study guides that are ideally suited for exploring this theme with your students.

JPEF Resource Directory on Jews Rescuing Jews

Online Courses – jewishpartisans.org/elearning
Note: for classroom use, we recommend selecting chapters ahead of time and skipping “How to Use This in the Classroom”.

• Antisemitism in the Partisans: Survival strategies and interviews with Jewish rescuers
• Teaching with Defiance (includes Educator’s Guide): 1,200 Jews were rescued by the Bielski partisans – includes testimonial from the last surviving Bielski brother

Lessons and Activities – www.jewishpartisans.org/resist

• Jewish Partisans Rescuing Jews: Highly recommended resource on Jewish resistance fighters who save thousands of Jews during the Holocaust
• Putting the Gevurah (Heroism) Back Yom HaShoah: Remembrance and liturgy on Jewish resistance for Holocaust Memorial Day (April 19, 2012).
• Eight Degees of Gevurah: Partisan rescuers and tzedakah as acts of justice through Maimonides’ ladder
• Antisemitism in the Partisans and Tuvia Bielski Study Guide: Stories of successful Jewish rescuers plus historical background

Partisan Webcast: April 17, 2012, 10am PST – www.jewishpartisans.org/webcast

• At the age of 18, Sonia Orbuch joined the fight to bring an end to the Holocaust. Bring her inspiring stories to your students by live videocast and Q&A. Save your spot here!

Additional Resources

• USHMM Days of Remembrance (Home Page and DVD)
• FHO Rescue and Resistance
• Yad VaShem Righteous Among the Nations (Non-Jewish Rescuers Archive)

Reflections from Prague, Part 2 - Terezin: Healing Through Art and Storytelling

JPEF Education Manager Jonathan Furst recently returned from a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, where he attended the 26th European League for Middle Level Education (ELMLE) Conference for European International School middle-school educators. The trip included a pre-conference tour of the Terezin ghetto, and was followed by a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. He shared the following reflections.
Read Part I here.
Read Part III here.
When I saw that there would be a pre-session educators’ tour of Terezin (also known as the National Memorial of Suffering), I was both eager and frightened. Even though I have worked in Holocaust education for more than 5 years, I had yet to visit a concentration camp.

Jonathan leading an impromptu partisan workshop.

A “model” camp used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, Terezin was a place of lies. But it was also the setting for startlingly brave acts of truth-telling. Jewish artists, poets, journalists — even a secret photographer — risked their lives to document the physical and emotional reality of this horrible place. There were many other acts of spiritual, artistic and other resistance, perhaps the best-known documented in I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a book of children’s art from the camp, and the film Brundibar about an opera created in the camp, which helped to both keep spirits up and serve as a coded cry for help.

Room where the opera Brundibar was performed. The Terezin
Judenrat also used it for meetings.

For the first part of the tour, I felt both sadness and shock, but when we stepped into the crematorium, the reality of the horror hit me: the scale of the room, the meticulous engineering of the ovens. I purchased a candle, and was touched when one of the teachers on the tour asked if she could light one with me. However, that was nothing compared to the emotions I experienced when nearly the entire tour said Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead) with me. Words do not describe the feeling of support and compassion from this group of strangers — almost all non-Jewish — who stood with me. It was a transformative experience.
I can not thank our tour leader, Trudi van der Tak of the American School of the Hague in Amsterdam, enough for the sensitivity, depth of knowledge and sense of humanity that she brought to the experience. I am also grateful that she invited me to speak about the Jewish partisans at the end of the tour.
Though we were all somber, it made the experience more bearable for both my fellow educators and for me. And that is one of the most valuable lessons I received: telling the stories is just as healing as hearing them, perhaps even more.
So I highly recommend encouraging your students to share what they learn about Jewish resistance to their family, friends, and anyone else who will listen. We all know that the best way to truly learn something is to teach it. The lessons of the Jewish partisans and the millions of others who engaged in non-violent resistance teach us that resistance is always possible, always worthwhile. Evil can be fought even in the harshest circumstances, and even the smallest acts of defiance make a difference. The world will always need these lessons and people to teach and realize them.
Part 1 — Insights from the Prague International Schools Conference
Part 3 — Auschwitz/Birkenau: The Heart of the Beast

Reflections from Prague, Part 1 - Lessons from Prague

JPEF Education Manager Jonathan Furst recently returned from a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, where he attended the 26th European League for Middle Level Education (ELMLE) Conference for European International School middle-school educators. The trip included a pre-conference tour of the Terezin ghetto, and was followed by a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. He shared the following reflections.

Read Part II here.
Read Part III here.

Part I - Prague

“Question what matters”. When I saw these words on the conference website, I knew it would be worth attending. Doubly so when the 2012 European League for Middle Level Education (ELMLE) conference brochure introduction asked if our thinking is “radical enough” for today’s students.

The International Schools (IS) network represents a true global community – over 6,000 schools and 3 million students in 236 countries*. The students and teachers come from around the world, and there are international schools on every continent. The IS network is an excellent opportunity for new teachers who would like to live abroad, and there are great opportunities for retired teachers or those who would like to travel for a semester through their international substitute program. Most classes are taught in English and one other language (in Europe, generally Spanish or French).

Mindfulness is a key new trend in the International Schools community. Mindfulness in the classroom goes far beyond relaxation techniques to teaching students to be mindful in all their choices.

It is being integrated into nearly every subject – Social Studies, Physical Education (P.E.), Sciences, Language Arts, etc. – to promote ethics, tolerance, critical thinking, standing up to bullying, and more. Interestingly, several teachers said that JPEF’s ethics and leadership materials would fit right in: mindfulness does not mean passivity, and ethical resistance provides examples of proactive, engaged forms of mindfulness.

Mindfulness in the classroom could also help save lives. Kevin Hawkins, Middle-Level Principal at the International School of Prague writes, “according to some research, the onset of recurrent depression is most common in 7th grade” and that, “depression is one illness that has been clinically proven to benefit from treatment by developing a mindfulness practice.”

Other interesting trends include:

• Differentiation – collaborative and learner-directed education, which fits the curriculum to students’ needs and learning styles, is becoming widespread in the International Schools community. Though this may be easier to do when you have a low student/teacher ratio, new technologies such as tablets and even smartphones can make this more feasible for larger classes.
• Electronic Storytelling and Collaboration – it was heartening to see that though there are great new tools for student self-publishing and collaboration, the emphasis is shifting from the tools themselves to the skills needed to use them well. What is the grammar of online communication? How can students select, edit, and sequence different media to create a meaningful narrative? In a collaborative online environment, how can we encourage each student to participate and have his or her personal voice come through? At least eight sessions touched on these issues.

Hidden History

Even in Europe, the history of the Jewish partisans is nearly absent. Outside of the the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, most teachers I talked to had never heard about the Jewish armed Resistance. Even the greater partisan movement, which was instrumental in turning the tide of the war on the Eastern Front, is little-known outside of Eastern Europe.

It was gratifying to find out that not only History and English educators were excited to use our materials, but Math, Science, Spanish, and French teachers as well. Even a couple of P.E. teachers said they would try to find a way to bring the partisans into their classes.

Call for Ideas: Has anyone used – or have ideas for using – the Jewish partisans to help teach any of these subjects? (I suggested that building a zemlyanka would be a good team-building exercise for P.E.)

Send your suggestions to education@jewishpartisans.org and we will share them in our next newsletter. Thanks!

* IS statistics from www.iscresearch.com.

Part 2 — Terezin: Healing Through Art and Storytelling
Part 3 — Auschwitz/Birkenau: The Heart of the Beast

Announcing the Jewish Partisan Webcast - April 17, 2011

We’re happy to announce a rare opportunity to bring Jewish partisan Sonia Orbuch to your classroom or desktop via a live Webcast with Q&A.

• Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 ~ 10:00-11:00am PST (1-2p EST)
• Sign up to reserve your spot: www.jewishpartisans.org/rsvp
• Tune in day of: www.jewishpartisans.org/webcast
• Registration is open until the hour of the webcast.

More resources on Jewish Women in the Partisans - including online videocourse, film and study guides:

• E-Learning Course: www.jewishpartisans.org/elearning
• Resource Page: www.jewishpartisans.org/women
• Writing Contest: www.jewishpartisans.org/contest

Students can ask questions ahead of time. Twitter #JPEFWebcast or e-mail webcast@jewishpartisans.org. If you are unable to make the live event, we will send you a link so you can access the videorecording online.

"There is such a thing as fighting back… If I was going to die, it would be as a fighter. Not as a Jew."
– Sonia Orbuch

Ask a Partisan Q&A: Part 2

Last week, we posted the first half of JPEF's Ask a Partisan Q&A with students from Blantyre Public School in Toronto. This is the second half of the session.

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Michael, age 9: What were your responsibilities as a platoon commander?

Frank Blaichman: On a day-to-day basis, I was responsible for 45 men and 4 women who were under my command. Every day we moved around to another area in order to deprive the enemy of our whereabouts. This required logistical planning, the gathering of food, the finding of suitable shelter and to make sure that all weapons were in working condition, clean with enough ammunition on each person. I was the one who delegated these jobs among our platoon.

In battle and in sabotage attacks I oversaw any intelligence information between the Polish Partisans (the AL), our other Jewish Partisan groups and ourselves. Armed with this information I made decisions on where and when we should hit and when and where we should run after the attack. I sometimes had to make quick decisions in the field regarding our movements. Whether to pull out or continue the attack.

Azaria, age 13: What was it like being a female partisan?

Sonia Orbuch: You feel isolated from the world. You feel all the eyes of the male partisans on you. You feel afraid even though you are in the partisans — you feel afraid they might not like you and tell you to go somewhere else.

Braydan, age 12: What happened to your family?

Frank Blaichman: My immediate family, my parents, my siblings, my grandparents etc., were deported on Friday, October the 9th, 1942 to a death camp. It was most likely either Majdanek, Sobibor or Treblinka. I do not know which one and I do not know the date of their deaths.

Of my entire extended family, only 3 cousins survived the war. One survived with me as a partisan fighter. One was captured in Russia and ended up in a camp near Hamburg where he managed to survive. And the third survived as a laborer in Germany on false non-Jewish papers.

Daniel, age 12: How did you know which peasants were the good guys?

Frank Blaichman: This is a very good question. At first we didn't know who we could trust — we were in the dark and we did think that all Poles would want to kill us. When we went to town, for example, to buy food, we were chased by bullies with pitchforks.

Once we organized into a Partisan group, and after we acquired firearms, we were seen as having some power — the dynamic changed. There were still German collaborators who hunted us and wanted to kill us, but there were also good, decent Polish people who provided support to us and risked their lives to do so. They became our informers, telling us who they thought were the German collaborators in their area, and warning us of Nazi troop movements. They also helped us immeasurably by providing us with food and shelter. Had they been discovered as helping a Jew they would have faced severe punishment from the Germans: immediate death or deportation, and the burning down of their homes. We could not have survived without the help of good, local Polish people.

Once we captured collaborators and were able to interrogate them, they provided us with the names and addresses of other collaborators. We were then able to bust up their spy ring and prevent them from functioning in our area. A number of Polish peasants felt that we had in fact liberated them as well from the terror of these Nazi collaborators.

Click here to read Part 1 of the Q&A.

Part 3 coming soon!

Ask a Partisan: Teacher Tips from Toronto

This letter comes from Monica Nelson, who co-created a lesson for her Special Education class based on JPEF’s “Ask A Jewish Partisan” resource. You’ll find answers to her students’ questions at the end of this article.

Our school is Blantyre Public School in Toronto, Ontario. Wendy Klayman is the teacher and I (Monica Nelson) am the education assistant in a class of 12, grade 4-8 children with various special education needs such as learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders and autism. In October we started a language unit incorporating character education, empathy, digital technology, art and research.

We decided to focus on the Jewish partisans because of the empathy that can be instilled from this topic, because it helps young people understand the difficult concepts involved in discussing this topic, helps them with research, can incorporate technology and e-learning. Also, our teacher (Wendy) has a personal connection to the Holocaust. We spent a great deal of time on JPEF’s site, researching the various topics. The stories and videos were fascinating and the students particularly enjoyed finding out which partisan was most like them and writing to that person.

We were both thrilled to hear answers to our questions and fascinated with such honest, informative answers. Not only did we focus on the reading, writing, critical thinking and empathy part of this unit, but we incorporated extensive artwork in the form of empathy posters that tied together the story of the Jewish partisans and another book that we studied at the same time, written by a native Canadian on the theme of teamwork and perseverance. Thank you for sharing this topic with us.

—Monica Nelson

Partisan Q&A: Part 1

Sarah, age 10: Where did you hide the bombs?

Sonia Orbuch: The mines were used by our demolition teams to derail trains which were being used by the Germans to re-supply their army. The teams had horses and wagons which were used to transport their supplies and to keep them hidden when we were under attack.

Vanessa, age 10: What would have happened if you were caught spying?

Frank Blaichman: As a partisan - one of our tactics for survival was to gather information - to watch the movements of our enemies so we could know where it would be safe for us to move to. We also needed to gather information in order to successfully attack or sabotage our enemy.

If I had been caught spying on either the Nazis or the Polish authorities, I would have faced the same fate. I most likely would have been killed on the spot. At the very least, I would have been taken to a death camp.

Kurtis, age 12: How did it feel running through the woods being attacked by Nazis?

Sonia Orbuch: I felt frightened and scared....especially when my family was alone in the forest. Later, when we joined the forest we felt stronger because we were fighting back.

John, age 13: Did you ever NOT want to be a partisan?

Frank Blaichman: NO. I liked what I was doing. I was into it. I couldn't stop.

As an example, one group of Jews among many that we helped to shelter, were hidden in a Polish farmhouse. The farmer created a bunker for them in the barn. This group included Itka Hirschman, a young woman and her child David, a small boy who now lives in Israel. I would bring food around four times a month to the ten people in the bunker. One day Itka asked me: "You are risking your life bringing us food, why don't you come and stay with us?" and my answer was: "I cannot do it, it is in my blood. I along with my men cannot stop doing what we are doing - fighting the Nazis and their collaborators and helping others, including Jews to survive."

Click here to read Part 2 of the Q&A.