Questions for Interview

These were the questions Robin Migdol of USC Shoah Foundation asked me...and my responses:

When and how did you become interested in teaching the Holocaust? My interest in teaching about the Holocaust stems from my desire to model kindness and acceptance.  This desire has grown within me for my whole life.
 In primary school  at the tail end of the Cold War, my teacher read our class Peter Spier's book "People". At the end of this colorful book, there is a page where diversity is eliminated and all the buildings are grayish rectangles. I vividly remember my well-meaning kindergarten teacher admonishing the class that we should be grateful that we don't live in Russia, because everyone is the same there. As much as I loved variety, even back then, I was horrified that the first time my great-grandmother's native land would come up in school would be in that context. I wanted to know more, to go beyond the picture books and beyond one teacher's interpretation.
  My Jewish heritage only came up a few times in school: the representative Chanukah songs ( with an occasional invitation to my mom to come in and make latkes) and the all-encompassing Holocaust.  I knew that my heritage was so much more than this, but none of the songs, games, dances, folktales or blintzes were in our school curriculum. I knew that I was in the minority, but I also began to realize that when we were studying history in general, we were mostly getting the names of the warriors, the years and places of Big Events and very little about the real people who lived ordinary and important lives. I began to read more and more about history, about real people who led the way for me to have the comfortable and colorful life I live today.   As I learned more and more about all sorts of stories in the past-- Holocaust stories and also tales of the first female post officers and mysteries about missing aviators-- I wanted to share more and more of our amazing humanity with my students.
   Furthermore, I was horribly bullied as a kid in the 1980s. Back then, it wasn't cyber bullying but rather name calling and physical violence. Often it was overlooked by well-meaning authorities. As an adult and as a teacher, I am on the lookout for ways to role model kindness. I like to share good news about people and find the "treasure" in every student. When there have been cases of meanness, I look for examples in literature and history to guide students to opt for kindness. The Holocaust was a horrific time for humanity, and yet, there were deeds of great generosity and bravery in that era, too. People in scary situations now (there are still wars...) can learn from the kindnesses of the past as well as from the harm of past prejudices. I believe that as a teacher, I can guide students toward choosing powerful kindness over powerful prejudice-- and that comes from education.


What will it add to your teaching to have actually visited Poland and attended the Auschwitz commemoration?   As I am getting ready to go to Poland, I am real with my students about my mixed feelings of honor, sorrow, pride, trepidation, horror and joy.  They know that I am stepping out of my comfort zone to do something I believe in. I want them to be able to make choices that will expand their worlds when they grow up, and I hope they will remember some element of the personal journey I am taking when they experience similar mixed feelings.
    Conversely, they see me preparing intellectually for the journey. I am learning Polish, just because I have a gift with languages and I can!... And they see me challenging myself to speak with a substitute teacher.  They see me reading and watching videos when they pass my room after school. Too often, students think that education is a tool to get to a destination. I hope I am modeling that it is a way of life-- on the way there, while I am there, when I return.
   Finally, I will come back from having actually been there with stories and vivid examples that right now I cannot even imagine. When I write poetry, I am reminded of the power of visceral images. I can say, for example, that I am happy or sad-- but that doesn't paint the same image for a reader as my describing the cold lush feeling of crunching into a watermelon or the squishy feeling of spitting a watermelon seed out! Right now, there are still students who ask me ( and I shudder), "What is the Holocaust". I hope I will come up with specific age- appropriate examples from my experience of what exactly it was and how we can prevent little and big Holocausts from ever happening again.

Why is it important that students today be aware of what happened during the Holocaust?This world has a lot of hatred in it, a lot of fear, and a lot of anger. When economic times are rough, these societal emotions can grow and become more dangerous.
There was a time, not too long ago, in rural New Jersey, when I had a swastika painted on my house. As a single woman living in a country neighborhood where there was no cellphone access,  I was too scared to make an official report. In fact, I moved out of that town as fast as I could.
There was an incident in a local school with hate language written on the bathroom walls. There are incidents of hate every day in the newspapers, and I don't just mean anti-semitism. Some of my best friends are Persians, and I have seen subtle and not so subtle prejudice towards Muslims. They even told a story about running into a man who they heard speaking in Farsi and approaching him about their shared common heritage. The gentleman denied it and said "I am from German (sic)" rather than identify as an Irani.

I want to leave the world better for my having been alive. I want these small local moments of intolerance and lack of acceptance to lead to growth and positive change. I want the next generation and generations after that to know that little acts of hatred can grow bigger and bigger and more and more dangerous...and one horrific example of that danger is what happened in the Holocaust.

All of those deaths, all of those displaced people, all of those tears and all of those people who could not afford to let the flood gates happen---I want them to be honored with the promise of "never again". The way to assure "never again" is to make sure that memory is long and love is deep.

Why is it important that they hear from the survivors themselves through testimony?Children of the modern world are growing up with several layers of reality. There are the video game worlds, the movie/YouTube/Instagram society, the texting conversations, and traditional face to face communications. More and more, eye contact is lost and first person shooter games become a reality. Without adult modeling and consistent meaningful human reactions, kids can grow more and more removed from society.

Reading, watching movies, listening to a teacher-- none of these are as engaging to some students as their interactive virtual societies.

But sometimes, an older person with a genuine emotion has the ability to awaken a lost fervor in students. I organize oral history projects to develop relationships between my students and senior citizens in the community. The ensuing relationships  are beautiful and have lasting effect on my students ( and on the seniors too!). It is because of Real, Genuine contact.

The survivors  sharing their testimony will give subtle and not so subtle emotional cues that will make their reality awaken feelings in students. They will give details that viewers will remember and will create the feeling of a personal connection and hence a personal responsibility to add to the "never again" mindset that is crucial to humanity.