Carleton’s Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship (CHES) marked four years of Holocaust Education Month at its launch event held Nov. 10 at the Kehillat Beth Israel Congregation.
The event is one of six currently scheduled for Holocaust Education Month, the dedicated month of November which aims to “promote the legacy and lessons of the Holocaust,” said Mina Cohn, director of CHES.
“The Holocaust did not start in the gas chambers, it started by words, and the words that we hear now are very dangerous.” — Mina Cohn, director of CHES.
The event, titled 80 Years Since the Outbreak of WWII, a Lecture in Commemoration of Kristallnacht, began with the presentation of the Arie Van Mansum award, which recognizes an educator doing exemplary work in Holocaust education. This year’s winner was Professor Jan Grabowski from the University of Ottawa.
The event’s keynote address, Anti-Semitism: Old Wine in New Bottles, was presented by Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, a renowned Holocaust historian and specialist on anti-Semitism.
“We live in a post-Holocaust world, the Holocaust has marked our lives, our thought, our politics and culture in incalculable ways that as global citizens we must grapple with,” Butler said.
Michaela-Bax Leaney, a third-year journalism and history student who works at the Zeilovitz Centre, said these events serve as a reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust.
“I think it’s just really important to continue spreading awareness and education,” she said.
“There’s a quote that CHES uses in their promotion and it says ‘For us, forgetting was never an option,’ and it’s just again, about reminding us that this happened,” she added.
Cohn said hearing the stories of Holocaust survivors is especially important.
“Being a witness to what they went through helps pass on the stories,” Cohn said.
“The survivors have always chosen the positive way of contributing to society, though they were traumatized and went through a tremendous period in their lives,” she said.
“That is another lesson we have to learn, that even from trauma, you can come out in a positive way.”
CHES has recorded the stories of 11 Holocaust survivors from the Ottawa area, which can be found on their website.
“We’ve seen, whether it’s the Christchurch mosque shooting or the synagogue shooting, these sorts of actions and these prejudices can happen.” — Michaela-Bax Leaney, a third-year journalism student at Carleton.
In a time where Holocaust denial has become a common tool to promote hate, education is even more important, Butler said.
“Claiming the right to study and learn about the history of the Holocaust, gains one the tools to fight against these lies and distortions, but it also empowers us to resist hatred and bigotry based on any identity,” she added.
“I think people begin to characterize the Holocaust as this other, and that sort of unique, standalone event, but we’ve seen, whether it’s the Christchurch mosque shooting or the synagogue shooting, these sorts of actions and these prejudices can happen,” Bex-Leaney said.
Holocaust education events are still key, with anti-Semitism present today, said Cohn, adding that everyone, especially students, must learn the history.
“If we don’t learn from the past, it has been said before and it’s true, we are bound to repeat it. In this day and age, where anti-Semitism and discrimination and hate groups are all around us, it is even more important to learn the lessons of the Holocaust,” she said.
Featured image by Saarah Rasheed.
