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Michael Gyory Named New Chairperson of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center

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The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center  (HHREC) announced their board of directors elected Michael Gyory to the position of Board Chairperson. Gyory, a real estate entrepreneur, began a three-year term on January 18th, 2021.  He has been serving as a board member since 2019, and succeeds Joseph Kaidanow, who served as board chairperson since 2018. Kaidanow will continue to serve as a member of the HHREC Board of Directors.

“It has been a tremendous privilege to be Chairperson of the Holocaust & Human Rights Education center” said Kaidanow. “As the son of two Survivors, honoring those who have perished or endured the trauma of the Holocaust is a personal obligation for me. I also believe  it is equally important to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to prevent humankind’s darker nature from prevailing in the future, and to advocate for the right of all people to live in peace and with dignity, and  our education programs that help us achieve these goals. I wish my successor, Michael Gyory, who is also the son of two Survivors, much success in continuing our mission, and look forward to working with him as an active Board member and support him in any way I can.”

“I am deeply honored to be elected as the new board chair and look forward to working with my board colleagues to move HHREC’s mission forward,” said Gyory. “I want to thank the HHREC board of directors for its confidence in me to serve as board chair, and I especially thank Joseph Kaidanow for his years of leadership. Together with our board of directors, staff, and stakeholders, we are making a positive difference and continue to work towards our vision to enhance the teaching and learning of the lessons of the Holocaust and the right of all people to be treated with dignity and respect, and encourage students to speak up and act against all forms of bigotry and prejudice.”

Michael Gyory is the son of Hungarian Holocaust survivors. During World War II, his parents, as  teenagers, were sent to concentration camps and slave labor camps. After surviving the horrors and torture of the war, they returned to Budapest to find that they were all alone. They managed to fall in love, marry, emigrate to America and have three children. Michael grew up in the seclusion of Northern Westchester county, and now lives in the Rivertowns. His son is currently attending  college. Gyory holds a Master’s degree in Communication from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. After a brief time in the corporate world, he has been a real estate entrepreneur, building houses, renovating and developing self-storage facilities. He is a graduate of Safekeeping Stories and as a memorist, has told of his family’s experiences in many schools and civic venues.  He will be a speaker at the 2021 International Jewish Genealogical Conference and at the Irvington, NY Town Hall Theatre, and  has published a story about his father’s home which can be found on the World Jewish Restitution Organization’s website.  He is a graduate of the Leadership Conference of the Westchester Jewish Council.

For more information about the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center, visit www.hhrecny.org</a

HHREC Student Contest In Progress during April which is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month

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The 20th Century is often referred to as the “Century of Genocide.” Unfortunately, this trend has continued into the 21st Century. Many of these genocides either began in April or include significant events which occurred in April.

The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) would like students to raise awareness about these genocides and remember those who were lost as a result of “man’s inhumanity to man.”   To this end, we are sponsoring a special student contest.

Student Contest:

Create an original project in visual arts, poetry, music, or other media of artistic expression that commemorates some aspect of a genocide which has occurred in the 20th or 21st centuries. Examples include the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, the Genocide in Darfur, and many others.

Deadline for submission of projects: April 30, 2020.  Projects, with the simple information sheet, need to be submitted by email to Julie Scallero, Co-Director of Education at jscallero@hhrecny.org

All projects will be evaluated by the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center’s Co-Directors of Education, Steve Goldberg and Julie Scallero.

We will select 3 winners (one for grades 7 and 8, one for grades 9 and 10, one for grades 11 and 12) who will receive a certificate and will  have their projects announced on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Additionally, we will make a donation, on the winners’ behalf, to the AFYA Foundation, whose mission is to improve global health by rescuing surplus medical supplies and delivering them to underserved health systems around the world. Not only is this organization working to provide medical supplies during the COVID-19 crisis, they were a past keynote presenter at our Human Rights Institute for High School Student Leaders.

We look forward to viewing your submissions and hope you stay well during these uncertain times.

Questions:
Email Julie Scallero jscallero@hhrecny.org
Steve Goldberg sgoldberg@hhrecny.org

Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month Student Contest
Name _________________________________________________   Grade ___________

Email address __________________________________________
School________________________________________________
Social Studies teacher ___________________________________
Project Title ____________________________________________

Brief Description of Project (4 or 5 sentences)

 

 

 

HHREC Speaker on the 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht

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Dr. Rafael Medoff will speak at the 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht at Manhattanville College.  Dr. Medoff’s topic will be FDR, Immigration Policy, and the Jews. Dr. Medoff is an American historian and the founding director of The David Wyman Institute, which is based in Washington, D.C. The Institute focuses on issues related to America’s response to the Holocaust.

Sponsored by the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center on November 7 at 7 p.m., Manhattanville College, 2900 Purchase Street, Purchase, NY 10577. For more information, please contact Millie Jasper 914 696-0738 or mjasper@hhrecny.org

Yom Hashoah Ceremony: Calls for Vigilance and Upstanders

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Story and Photos By Grace Bennett

April 12, White Plains, NY–A procession of 30 ‘Holocaust Rescued Torahs’ took place at the Yom Hashoah Ceremony in the Anne Frank Garden of Remembrance– each symbolic of the devastation that fell Jewish communities throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, each also a reminder of Jewish resilience and survival against all odds.

 Representatives from Temples, Synagogues and Jewish Centers from throughout Westchester County carefully cradled and carried the preserved Torahs to the foot of the open gates. From New Castle’s Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, a Torah, held by Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe, came from Boskovice, at the time a part of Germany, now in the Czec Republic. From Congregation B’nai Yisrael in Armonk was a Torah scroll saved by congregants of a Synagogue in Pacov (50 miles SE of Prague).

Songs by the Westchester Day School choir followed as did the blowing of the Shofar and an invocation by Rabbi Daniel Gropper of the Westchester Board of Rabbis; Gropper notably called out current day bigotry. He also quoted the Garden of Remembrance’s inscription: “In memory of those who died. In thanksgiving for those who survived. In gratitude for those who risked their lives in rescue.”

Remarks by Joseph Kaidanow, Chairman of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center, and from Lisa Roberts. President of the Westchester Jewish Council, preceded those of County Executive George Latimer.

Kaidanow, recalled the legacy of the much beloved Eugene Grant, a survivor and long-time, generous benefactor of the HHREC who recently passed.  Eugene often warned, he said, of what can happen “when people fail to be upstanders.”

 Latimer reminded attendees of the “common humanity and vigilance” we must share after “six million Jews were mercilessly killed.”

Agnes Vertes

 The final remarks before a candle lighting were from survivor Agnes Vertes who  relayed the harrowing details of her experiences being separated from her parents, describing too how vital it was to her that she was still together with her little sister.

Both were hidden as very young children from the Nazis in Hungary. One tale in particular resonated when Vertes told of how her two-year-old sister tugged playfully on the trouser of a Hungarian Nazi officer who had come to find Jews in the orphanage she and her sister were living in as ‘Catholics.’ (Agnes was warned never to mention they were Jewish–she came to understand why after witnessing Jewish people being beaten.)

The SS officer was charmed by her sister, tossed her in the air, and said that only an Aryan child could be so cute. He abandoned his mission.

“She was 100 percent Jewish!” Gertes said, proudly, eliciting some laughter too. Her little sister, she said, “may have saved 100 lives that day.”

 Gertes described how she struggled with survivor’s guilt after learning so many children were killed, but gradually felt she “was lucky to have survived” so that she could tell the story so that such events would never be repeated again. 

Les Enfants de la Chance: An April 10 Reception and Film at SUNY Purchase

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Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center Reception and Film: Les Enfants de la Chance

The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center, The Jewish Studies Program of Purchase College SUNY, Samuel G. Fredman Family Program in Holocaust Education, and the Driscoll Professorship in Jewish-Catholic Studies at Iona College present Les Efants de la Chance.  This film is about a boy and eight other children living with hospital staff in France during World War II to prevent their deportation to a concentration camp.

The movie in in French with English subtitles.

The program begins with a reception at 6:30 p.m.  Christian Bailey, Assistant Professor of History, at Purchase College SUNY will speak at the reception.  Most of his courses explore modern European history with a global perspective.  Dr. Baily is particularly interested in understanding Europe from a neglected viewpoint of outsiders: the minorities, the colonized, and the immigrants.

The film and reception will be held on Tuesday, April 10, at SUNY Purchase Humanities Theatre, located in the Humanities Building, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY  10577

This reception and film is free and open to all.  Seats are limited to the first 200 RSVPs.

For more information, please call Millie Jasper (914)696-0738 or mjasper@hhrecny.org

https://hhrecny.z2systems.com/np/clients/hhrecny/event.jsp?event=78