Anyone ‘watching’ might hopefully note that included in my mission during most of my 20 Years of Inside Press publishing has been supporting the amazing work of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center, (find out more at hhrecny.org). Here, as an HHREC advisory board member, I was honored to join HHREC Director Millie Jasper, HHREC Board Member and past Chairperson David Alpert and Greenburgh councilwoman Ellen Hendrickx to also offer remarks at a Westchester County January 27th commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. County Executive George Latimer hosted the speakers commending them for their long-time commitment and support of Holocaust education and advocacy against antisemitism and all hate. Said Jasper to Latimer: ”Once again you struck the perfect tone about the importance of being an Upstander in the Westchester Community, and around the world.” — Grace Bennett, Publisher @ Editor, Inside Press, Inc.
Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center
HHREC Promotes Education Program to Combat Rising Hate Crimes in Schools
Incidents of hate crimes continue to cause concern in cities and towns across the country, and a rising number of these have been occurring in the greater Westchester County, New York area. As schools continue to grapple with ways to confront this growing wave, an increasing number of administrators are turning to new methods that attack the root cause of these incidents– ignorance and a lack of education on the topic.
In their ongoing effort to promote education as a means to stem this growing tide of bias-related incidents and hate crimes, The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) of White Plains, New York, a nonsectarian not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting tolerance and respect for diversity, offers a program designed to educate and sensitize juveniles involved in these crimes. The HHREC Juvenile Offender program was developed to react to these offenses as they are referred by the Westchester County DA’s office, the Legal Aid Society , the Judicial System, local public and private schools, local municipalities, and the Westchester County Human Rights Commission.
“We are very troubled at the evidence we are seeing and the spike in incidences of hate crimes including antisemitism over the past few years, particularly in our schools” said Millie Jasper, HHREC Executive Director. “These crimes based on religion, race, ethnic background or sexual orientation have increased dramatically, and they are often committed by youthful offenders. The goal of our Juvenile Offender program is to work with our education partners to educate and sensitize these offenders – changing and rechanneling their bigoted and prejudicial attitudes that often result in hostile and offensive acts – by fostering tolerance for others, understanding and respect for diversity.”
The HHREC Juvenile Offender Program offers area schools the opportunity to:
- Educate juvenile offenders about the dangers of hatred and bigotry;
- Provide role models for positive behavior, helping juvenile offenders change from perpetrators to activists in the prevention of bias-related incidents and hate crimes;
- Help young offenders channel the hostility and anger that frequently lead to destructive behavior into more constructive directions;
- Nurture pride in the juvenile’s own ethnic, racial and religious background and the ability to relate to the pride of other ethnic, racial and religious groups; and
- Encourage juvenile offenders to gain an understanding of and appreciation for the diversity of our community and our nation by learning about the historical roots and current concerns of various groups.
The topics for the program vary depending on the needs of the participants, but include the study of African American, Latino, Jewish and Asian histories and cultures, studies in homophobia and LBGTQ+ issues, diversity training, conflict resolution to combat racism, and others. The course sessions includes exercises and discussions as well as speakers, and participants will be expected to complete reading and writing assignments.
The program does not include juveniles convicted of violent crimes, or those with identified violent tendencies. Outcomes are measured by the program administrator, facilitators, school and justice system personnel, as well as by the self-assessment of the participants themselves. According to the HHREC, wherever they have been able to offer this program, there has been “0% recidivism” involving those students.
There is no cost for schools to participate in this program. For more information, contact Millie Jasper mjasper@hhrecny.org Tel: 914.696.0738.
News Courtesy of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center
Holocaust Survivor Helga Luden Relates her Story of Escape, Rescue and Survival
“I always listened to my mother.”
Helga Luden Speaking at an International Holocaust Remembrance Day Event Sponsored by the Horace Greeley High School Club ENOUGH and the Town of New Castle Holocaust and Human Rights Committee
January 27, 2023–In a panel on the stage at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center yesterday eve, Helga Schmitz-Fernich Luden–holding multiple documents and pictures to help relay details–shared her harrowing but ultimately triumphant and inspiring story of herself as a very young girl (she was born in 1934) surviving the Nazi invasion. Her family was the only Jewish family in Ulmen (a town in the Rhineland region of Germany).
Despite her family’s rich history as residents of the town, she and her mom after being separated from her father–who was sent to a slave labor camp–were sent to the Gurs transit camp in the Basque region of southwestern France.* There, her mom, growing increasingly aware of the Nazi plans, each day actively coached her young daughter to prepare for a daring escape–instructing her ‘to play dumb’ with her German-sounding name, and also promising to join her.
While of course terrified at the prospect, Helga also offered, “I always listened to my mother.”
As the dangers escalated, her mother finally sent her daughter on her way with money hidden in her clothing too (the money had been saved in the wires of her mom’s girdle!). This part of the journey was painful to contemplate, an exceptionally young Jewish girl traveling alone in the rolling hills of Europe, in dire danger. She described being found passed out in a field but, miraculously enough, revived by a group of French Jewish partisans who helped her find refuge first in a convent and later in an orphanage.
True to her word, her mother (who eventually escaped Gurs too) and she were reunited there! From another safe haven in Marseilles, Helga and her mom boarded the famous ship, the Serpa Pinta, which was heading to North Africa–it held 750 Jewish men and women in its hull in secret and these refugees were rarely allowed to come on board, Helga explained.
Helga related another miracle as she and her mom found her father among the refugees too, having survived and escaped from a slave labor camp. He was emaciated but alive. A challenging (to say the least) journey, the ship would span two continents over six weeks as they were turned away from different countries for refuge, including sadly, from the New York Harbor in the United States.
Eventually, the ship was accepted in the Dominican Republic, its government saving its Jewish refugees, after 100 or more of whom had already perished from typhoid and other life threatening conditions (funerals were held daily on the ship, Helga related, through tears). Their journey to freedom began in earnest as they settled into farm life in the seacoast town of Sousa.*
In 1946*, the family, which now included a young sister to Helga, was finally allowed to emigrate to the United States, bringing the family to the melting pot neighborhoods of Inwood and later, the Lower East Side of Manhattan–where Helga also related a touching and funny story of how she met her ‘beshert’ and came to have three children, 12 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Throughout her presentation, Helga communicated gratitude for the incredible strokes of luck that aided her family’s survival.
The Town of New Castle Holocaust and Human Rights Committee and the students of Horace Greeley High School’s ENOUGH club made this inspiring presentation possible. Helga’s story was relayed after remarks from students of ENOUGH, from New Castle Town Supervisor Lisa Katz, and from state Senator Peter Harckham.
*Additional facts about Helga’s story are from the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center, www.hhrecny.org Helga is member of the Center’s Survivor Speaker’s Bureau.
Teaching History With a New Consciousness and through a Personal Lens
The holiday season is rapidly approaching, and with it, the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, an eight-day celebration honoring the triumph of the Jewish people over the Syrian Greeks. The holiday is joyous, complete with gift giving, dreidel spinning, menorah lighting and lots of latkes.
For me, however, a teacher trip through the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) to Germany and Poland last summer caused a subtle shift in the way I think about Hanukkah and my career as an educator.
As a social studies teacher and self-proclaimed history nerd, I wanted to learn about this dark period in human history up close and bring these experiences back to my classroom. I can listen and read and even watch Ken Burns’ excellent documentary, “The US and the Holocaust”, but none of this makes history come alive the way walking along the streets of Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow did. It was here that I saw the physical evidence of a once thriving Jewish life, now all but gone. I walked in the very places where the Warsaw ghetto confined its Jewish residents. I visited concentration camps, like Auschwitz-Birkenau where millions were murdered and left with the picture of a pair of shoes that had once belonged to a small child seared in my mind.
Memory became paramount on this trip, as I scrambled to imprint every lecture we heard, every object we saw, and every place we visited into my consciousness. Our tour guide at Auschwitz, a Polish Professor and activist, reminded us that the simple act of visiting the death camp had afforded us the chance to bear witness to this evil tragedy and therefore we now shouldered the responsibility to make sure the next generation remembers. This has never been so important as it is today when Shoah survivors are diminishing in number.
This is where teachers come in.
As educators we make content choices. While a curriculum is prescribed in broad strokes, it is the teacher who decides to spend a week on World War II, and two days on the Cold War. Or vice versa. In so many ways we are the gatekeepers of history, and as such we have a responsibility to continually learn and consider how we will present material to our students.
As much as we want history to come alive for our students, we need to make it vibrant for ourselves. When we learn, they learn, and if there is a personal connection to the material all the better. I certainly cannot arrange for a field trip to Europe for my students, but I am certain when we find ourselves in our World War II unit next spring, there will be an increased interest because I can offer a personal lens with which they can view and understand this time period.
I hope that my enthusiasm will be palpable as I show them the photo of their English teacher and me straddling the wall with one foot in the former East Berlin and one foot in the West. I am excited to answer their questions as they look through the 100-page photo journal I created to try and capture the essence of my experience.
There are even pedagogical ideas from the trip–the idea of memorializing, the purpose of museums, the contrast with how our nation and Germany grapples with its dark history that have easily fit into our earlier units of study. In essence, the trip has rooted itself in my consciousness as a teacher, a Jewish adult and as a human.
My students remind me daily of my responsibility to help them develop compassion, empathy, and an ability to grapple with the darker side of human history. As for me, I will continue to celebrate the triumph of the Maccabees, and admire the warmth and light the menorah brings into my home. But my lens has shifted ever so slightly and I can never look at it in quite the same way. The on-going struggle of the Jewish people, which so many ethnic and racial groups experience is built into the story of Hanukkah, and this year I will light the candles and say the blessings for the six million European Jews who cannot.
HHREC Honors Westchester Business Leader, Features Pulitzer Prize-Winning Speaker at Annual Fall Benefit
November 1st 2022– The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) honored Westchester County Business Executive Dennis Mehiel at their annual Benefit at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York on October 27th. HHREC Board of Directors Chairperson President Michael Gyory introduced Mehiel, who spoke about the importance of standing up against antisemitism and expressed his gratitude for the work of HHREC in offering programs that teach the lessons learned from the Holocaust. Mr. Mehiel was the first person not of the Jewish faith elected to the Board of Governors of Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work where he served from 1989 until 1996.
The program also featured a talk and Q&A with Pulitzer-Prize Winning Journalist, Author, and New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who appeared as the event Keynote Speaker. Stephen’s talk centered on drawing parallels between 2022 and 1922 and the dangers of overlooking signs of hatred and discrimination, and the possibility that they could reoccur in the U.S. in the years ahead.
HHREC Executive Director Millie Jasper recognized Holocaust survivors who were in the audience and introduced a film about the HHREC Educator’s Study Tour of Germany and Poland. She also thanked the audience for their continued support for HHREC programs and announced a new endowment campaign.
“We are so grateful for the support from our growing community, especially those who came out to be with us for this year’s HHREC Benefit.” said Jasper. “ Our staff, board of directors, and education program partners are reenergized as we continue in our efforts to teach the lessons of the Holocaust, and the right of all people to be treated with dignity and respect.”
Additional Photos by Julie Rothschild
About The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center
The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center is a not-for-profit organization based in White Plains New York that serves Westchester, Fairfield, and neighboring counties. Their Mission is 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. We encourage students to speak up and act against all forms of bigotry and prejudice. Their work with students and teachers helps schools fulfill the New York State mandate that the Holocaust and other human rights abuses be included in their curriculum. Since 1994, they have brought the lessons of the Holocaust, genocide, and human rights crimes to more than 1,500 teachers, and through them to thousands of middle and high school students. Through their volunteer Educators Program Committee, the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center gives teachers the unique opportunity to develop programs for themselves and others. These programs not only enrich teachers’ knowledge about the Holocaust and related issues, but they also provide the lens through which to view all other human rights violations. For more information call 914.696.0738 email info@hhrecny.org