For Rabbi Erwin Schild, Nov. 9, 1938 is a night he’ll never forget.
It was the night the National Socialist German Workers’ Party began destroying Jewish businesses and synagogues, and taking more than 30,000 Jewish prisoners in a two-day co-ordinated attack known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
Schild, who was 18 years old and studying at the Würzburg seminary in Bavaria at the time, was interrogated and sent to the Dachau concentration camp north of Munich.
“I thought it was the end of my life,” Schild said.
Schild was released after more than a month of incarceration and decided to emigrate from Germany. He now resides in Toronto.
Now 92, Schild has spent more than 32 years traveling the world, lecturing on the Holocaust and the importance of remembrance.
His story, along with those of 22 other Dachau prisoners, is on display in Carleton’s history department as part of the traveling exhibition Names Instead of Numbers.
The exhibit is part of the Dachau Remembrance book, which features more than 100 biographies collected since 1999. Selected biographies will be on display on the fourth floor of Patterson Hall until March 9.
Exhibition curator Sabine Gerhardus said while there are many remembrance book projects, the Dachau remembrance book is unique because each of the biographies were written by youth volunteers.
“Some of the biographies have been written by high school students and they were so interested with the project, that they stuck with it for a couple years,” said Gerhardus, who traveled from Germany to open the exhibit.
“I think this is something that you can feel with the exhibition, that it’s done by people who really like what they are doing and also by people who have a different view on how to present people’s lives.”
Gerhardus said the short and conversational biographies make the exhibit engaging. Each story is no more than four pages in the book and includes graphics, photos, quotations, and signatures, she said.
Dominique Marshall, acting chair of the history department, said the exhibit’s launch was co-ordinated with Carleton’s first Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference in Jewish Studies.
The conference’s theme was Jewish Spaces and Jewish Places.
James Casteel, assistant director of Carleton’s Jewish studies centre, said Dachau “obviously plays a role with Jewish memory” and is a place where “Jewishness is discussed.”
“By focusing on the biographies and how they relate to the space, it’s also a form of commemorating what happened in that space and trying to restore some of the dignity of the people who were persecuted there,” he said.
Schild said his time at Dachau was short, but his experiences have shaped who he is today. Holocaust remembrance books like Dachau’s will continue to play an important role in helping all communities learn and grow from events of the past, he said.
“If we can hear the challenge to repair the world, to fix our society and to fix the global community of human beings, then we are on the way to the future. This [exhibition’s biographies] are the voices we hear and they tell us, ‘Go, begin the future and do a good job.’ ”
