Both schools hosted programs in conjunction with Toronto’s 35th Annual Holocaust Education Week, facilitated by the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. Ulpana hosted Dr, Hilary Earl, Associate Professor at Nipissing Universty. She focused on the ethics of witnessing through photographs. The assembly was an interactive visual presentation where students analyzed and dissected the deceits of conventional images taken during the Holocaust. Thank you as well to Ms. Rachel Libman (’00) for delivering greetings from the Centre and speaking about her work there.
Yeshivat Or Chaim students learned about Liberation from two perspectives. Dr. Mark Celinscak spoke about his research, discovering that Canadian soldiers played a larger role than originally believed in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. Students also learned that liberation did not mean automatic freedom: it was chaotic and thousands of newly-freed prisoners died in the weeks following liberation. Students then heard from Mr. Martin Maxwell, who survived on the Kindertransport after experiencing Kristallnacht. He returned to Nazi-occupied in a British uniform, acting as a liberator.
Thank you to Mr. Robert Buckler for bringing greetings from the centre; thank you as well to Paul & Nili Ekstein and Steven & Shelley Ekstein for generously co-sponsoring the program in memory of Mordechai & Hilda Stern.
