Holocaust education planned throughout county

Other items in this column include
*What they’re thankful for
*Political bytes
*Coming our way

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — There will be an emphasis on Holocaust education in December and January.  The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum of Washington D.C. puts on a presentation Dec. 5 at Congregation Beth El about the experience of deaf people under the Nazis.  The main Chula Vista Library prepares for an exhibition that begins Jan. 12 on Survivors who immigrated to the South Bay.

And, in advance of those events, the Butterfly Project will try to raise $10,000 on Giving Tuesday, Dec. 3, to pay for more programming to memorialize the 1.5 million child victims of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Cheryl Rattner-Price, executive director of the Butterfly Project, comments, “We are impacting the next generation by teaching history, empathy and compassion.”  Project organizers want to provide “more teacher training to help address the rise in Holocaust denial and blatant anti-Semitism.”  A “Giving Tuesday” webpage for the Butterfly Project can now be accessed via this link.

“Crying Hands: The Deaf Experience Under Nazi Oppression” will be the subject of a presentation at 7:45 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 5, at Congregation Beth El, 8660 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, independent producers Michelle Baron and Marla Petal of All the People will discuss the traveling exhibit, In Der Nacht, that they have created to draw attention to what had happened to the deaf.

Other panelists at the free event, for which registration is required, will include James Gilmore and Suzy Snyder, respectively the archives specialist and curator of the National Institute for Holocaust Documentation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Opening remarks will be delivered by Marla Eglash Abraham, Western Regional Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Information from the museum states that “Nazi policy targeted deaf Germans, subjecting an unknown number of hereditarily deaf individuals to sterilization.  Societal prejudice about the intelligence of persons with hearing disabilities led many individuals to be institutionalized.  In those facilities, a small number of deaf Germans were murdered within the framework of the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ effort, a program of mass killing directed at persons with disabilities.”  Deaf Jews, like hearing Jews, suffered the same fates during the Holocaust : discrimination, persecution, deportation and mass murder.

“The fate of deaf people in Nazi Europe must be heard and talked about because many people simply don’t know about this dark and sad chapter of Holocaust history,” Abraham commented.  “For instance, many deaf victims of Nazi persecution were unable to emigrate because of their perceived disability. … They were further targeted under Nazi policy, through forced sterilization and mass murder.”

In the build-up to the opening of the RUTH – Remember Us The Holocaust – exhibit coming to the Chula Vista Public Library, Sandra Scheller has shared a story of how her mother, the late Ruth Goldshmiedova Sax, saved tiny pieces of bread from her meager food allowance at the Oedan Concentration Camp, and kneaded them into little figurines, including a doll and tiny Torahs here pictured.  “Wile she barely had anything to eat, she had to feed her artistic mind,” Scheller wrote.  “I am not sure where the colors came from although I remember her telling me that she would roll the pieces on things to get color.  I asked her about the string that is connected to the Torah and she said it came from her mother’s dress.”  Goldshmiedova Sax was 16 years old at the time of these dangerous artistic endeavors.  A photo of her pocket-size creations accompanied by another photo of Goldshmiedova working with bread in her later years will be included in the library exhibit.

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What They’re Thankful For
*Rabbi Mendy Begun, Chabad of Chula Vista: “Among so many things, I am most thankful for my health, my family, my job, and my community. I am forever grateful to the Rebbe (Of Blessed Memory) for entrusting me with the honor and privilege of being a Chabad Emissary…”

*Chris Ward, San Diego City Councilman: “I am most grateful for the opportunity to serve my family, my community, and my city as the District Three City Councilmember. I work every day to deliver real solutions to San Diego and I will bring that same initiative to our state Capitol as your next 78th Assembly Representative.”
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Political bytes
*Poway Mayor Steve Vaus has been endorsed by the CAL FIRE firefighters union in the District 2 County Supervisorial District from which incumbent Diane Jacob has been termed out. Vaus, who became a familiar figure to the Jewish community becuse of his support for Chabad of Poway congregants after the shooting that killed Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounded three other people, including Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, has also been endorsed by Supervisors Jacob, Jim Desmond, Kristin Gaspar, and Greg Cox, as well as by fellow mayors Kevin Faulconer of San Diego, Mark Arapostathis of La Mesa, and Bill Wells of El Cajon.
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Coming Our Way
*Chabad at University City will screen the movie Woman in Gold, about Maria Altmann’s attempt to reclaim a portrait of her aunt that had been seized by the Nazis, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 30, at 3813 Governor Drive, San Diego.

*Cantor Cheri Weiss of the San Diego Outreach Synagogue will lead an informal chat on “Why Be Jewish?” at 10 a.m., at Starbucks, 3485 Del Mar Heights Road, San Diego.  She recommends participants bring a paper and pen.

*Assistant Rabbi Yoni Danzger, at a monthly shiur for women, will discuss the character of the biblical Isaac at 8 p.m, Sunday, Dec. 1, at the home of Rabbi Avram Bogopulsky of Beth Jacob Congregation. More information via the congregation’s office. office@bjsd.org

*Young Israel of San Diego plans a Chanukah party following Mincha services at 4:30 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 22, at the shul at 7291 Navajo Road, San Diego. There will be a “dad joke contest” followed by stand-up comedy during a dairy dinner. Cost: $10 per person or $50 per family. Reservations via this website.

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com