LA JOLLA, California (SDJW) — The Holocaust Living History Workshop at UCSD has scheduled 5 p.m. presentations by survivor Max Garcia and refugee Moselio Schaechter in the Seuss Room of the Geisel Library respectively on January 13 and Feb. 10.
Susanne Hillman, project manager, provided these sketches of the upcoming presentations:
Think Only of Today: An Original Documentary by Robert Schneider and Alberto Lau
This documentary traces the life of Max Garcia from his childhood in Amsterdam through the Holocaust to his immigration and life in the United States. Born in 1924, Max was interned in Westerbork before being deported to Auschwitz and later Mauthausen. Think Only of Today follows Max’s ordeal through war and incarceration and also explores the effect of the Holocaust on succeeding generations. Interviews with Max’s children and grandchildren reveal the different ways individuals from each generation have grappled with the burden of such a searing experience. The film premiered in Ebensee in May 2015, the location of Max’s liberation seventy years previously. The screening is followed by a podium discussion with Max and his daughter Tania and the film-makers.
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Exile in Ecuador: With Moselio Schaechter
Moselio Schaechter spent his childhood in Mussolini’s Italy. In 1939 his family was about to embark on a ship bound for Australia but at the last moment refused accommodation. Thanks to a transit visa for Portugal and the United States, the Schaechters made it to Quito, the capital of Ecuador where they arrived in January 1941. Over the next nine years Elio would struggle to accommodate his Jewish identity with a nascent South American self. In this talk Schaechter shares memories of his youth, his experience as part of the Ecuadorian Jewish refugee community, his life in the United States – and his visit to his old “home.”
Schaechter is distinguished professor emeritus in microbiology at Tufts University and an adjunct professor in microbiology at SDSU and UCSD.
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Preceding provided by the UCSD’s Holocaust Living History Workshop.