By Kati Morrison and Judy Young Drache
On November 18th 2018 thirteen Ottawa participants of the 2018 March of the Living (MOL) Program met with five local Holocaust survivors, among them Elly Bollegraaf, Raoul Korngold, Kati Morrison , David Moskovic and Judy Young Drache. (All five were among the survivors whose testimonials were recorded by CHES in 2016 (https://carleton.ca/ches/ottawa-holocaust-survivors-testimonials) Raoul joined the students via Skype.
The students are from a number of schools in Ottawa. The following students are participating in this
MOL alumni project: Stephanie Ages, Oren Baray, Ben Dodek, Dalia Feldberg, Adam Freedman, Rachel Goldfield, Anne Khazzam, Sydney Leith , Dalia Miller, Allison Sedlezky, Neilah Shapiro, Emily Shinder, and Daniella Springer. Nathan Cantor and Dani Taylor will be leading this project.
The idea to connect MOL students with Ottawa survivors to learn about their survival stories and develop a joint program for the students’ schools, was developed by Minda Chaikin and Janice Friedlich of the MOL in collaboration with Mina Cohn, Director of CHES. The goal was to eventually bring survivors into the classroom or a school assembly with an appropriate joint program through which the students can help to bring the stories and messages of Holocaust survivors to the younger generation. The students will also use this opportunity to speak about their experiences on MOL as well as with the survivors. They plan to explore how this experience has impacted them and why it is important for them to be involved in Holocaust education, particularly in what appear to be signs of growing Antisemitism even in Ottawa’s schools.
The survivors and the students felt they had a useful introductory meeting and agreed to continue working on the project. The students left with enthusiasm and motivation to explore ideas for the joint project.
Some of reactions of the participating survivors are summarized below:
- The meeting was well organized. It had a clear agenda, yet it allowed for spontaneity in the dialogues that took place in small groups: 2-3 MOL students with each survivor.
- As a survivor, I really appreciated the idea of the proposed plan behind this project: namely to have the young MOL participants help in stimulating Holocaust education projects in their schools. This should assist in having survivors (while they are still with us) visit more schools and having more teachers made aware of the need to teach about the Holocaust.
- The students were interested in our stories; they stressed that they returned from the MOL trip with the wish to learn more about the Holocaust and the desire to increase and pass on the knowledge they have gained.
- It seems an advantage that although the participating students are Jewish, they are from a cross-section of public and private schools, so their project to share information and knowledge about the Holocaust with their fellow students and teachers will likely lead to a better understanding of what racism and hatred can lead to if not checked.
- It was interesting to see that even 3rd or 4th generation young Canadian Jews want to know more about their past and identify with their European ancestors many of whom were wiped out by genocide.
- We hope that Holocaust education will expand to include human rights education and help to mobilize young people in their daily life to accept others, and learn to stand up to injustice when and where it happens.
- It would be a good idea to have the students write up what they learned through the meeting today and what they hope to achieve in the planned programs. An eventual sharing of the whole project with other young people through social media or even just traditional means would likely influence others to follow suit. The human chain of passing on such leaning experiences may in the end be more powerful than the survivor testimonies by themselves.
We would like to thank the students of MOL, Minda Chaikin and Janice Friedlich from the MOL committee and Mina Cohn from CHES for this important and inspiring experience and look forward to participating in the planned follow-up.
Click here to read other “Descendants of Holocaust Survivors” blogs.
