Members of the Carleton University community marked Holocaust Remembrance Day through reflection, acknowledgement and education.
Carleton’s entrance bridge lit up yellow on Jan. 27 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust, in an attempt to continue combating antisemitism on campus. Several community members and students shared their stories as they reflected on the day.
Megan Hollinger, a Carleton contract instructor who teaches a third-year course called “The Holocaust: Historical and Religious Dimensions,” said the Holocaust has become a “really integral part” of Jewish identity for the diaspora, even if the events didn’t directly affect Jews across the world.
“For students, it might be that they have family who are survivors, whether they’re descended from them or more distantly related,” Hollinger said. “It might be that it’s just always been a way that they understand their Jewishness in terms of a transformative moment for Jewish people.”
She said that as Holocaust survivors get older, their stories are passed on through their children and grandchildren. But she also said it was important to keep supporting initiatives within the Jewish community that keep their stories alive, which carry an emotional and human element.
“If you don’t create that emotional resonance with the subject matter, it doesn’t stick in the same way that … it would if you had that emotional investment,” Hollinger said. “It’s a key part of remembrance and education.”
Hollinger also said it’s important to understand that not all Jewish people were forced to enter concentration camps but were killed in other brutal ways.
“[It’s about] understanding that these experiences are not monolithic,” Hollinger said.
In an Instagram statement on Jan. 29, Carleton University Students’ Association said it recognized its responsibility in combating antisemitism on campus.
“The Holocaust serves as a solemn reminder of the consequences of hatred, bigotry and systemic discrimination,” the statement read. “CUSA recognizes its responsibility in combating antisemitism and all forms of prejudice in [our] university and in our broader community.”
Aviya, a third-year Carleton criminology student and a member of Independent Jewish Voices Carleton, said these are unprecedented times for Jewish people, referencing American businessman Elon Musk’s salute at U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Aviya asked to be identified by a pseudonym for personal and safety reasons.
Although none of Aviya’s immediate family members experienced the Holocaust, Aviya said generational trauma from the genocide was still prevalent within her family. She said her mother would refuse to go into overhead showers because of Holocaust footage she was shown as a child.
“That harm is still very much felt today, even from people who weren’t physically there,” Aviya said.
Aviya said she feels that the most powerful part of Holocaust Remembrance Day is that the Holocaust was perpetrated and orchestrated by “regular people.”
“I find a lot of media depictions very fairly depict these people as the epitome of evil, which I totally understand and agree with,” Aviya said. “But part of being politically conscious is realizing that you could do that, too.”
“We are all capable of such evil and ‘never again’ means being conscious of that.”
Carleton public affairs and policy management graduate Talya Stein told the Charlatan in an email statement her Jewish upbringing taught her to look critically at the “apathy and fearful individualism expressed by the bystanders of fascism and the Holocaust.”
She called on the broader community, including the Jewish community, to “reflect critically on their historical positionality, personal values and community participation in light of human atrocities of today.”
“Beyond my family’s story, I feel like the collective memory of the holocaust is distant, yet visceral,” Stein said. “Reflection connects the Jewish community with our greater scattered history of survival, expulsion, knowledge-sharing and cultural preservation.”
When people ask Stein about her family’s immigration to Canada or she is “made to feel afraid” of her Jewish identity, she said this is when her reflections about the Holocaust take place. Her maternal grandfather survived Auschwitz as a teenager.
“[My papa’s] lifelong motto was “Be kinder,” Stein said. “I think that speaks for itself.”
