Max Eisen Lecture on Holocaust Studies

You and yours are warmly invited to attend Trent University’s inaugural Max Eisen Lecture in Holocaust Studies, on Monday, September 23 at 7 p.m. at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough). The Shattering of the Assumptive World: A Family Story will be presented by Dr. Peter Suedfeld, Dean and Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia. This event is free and open to the public, but you are asked to pre-register here to attend. More information on Dr. Suedfeld and a lecture abstract can be found here. 

Lecture Abstract:

Two families, joined in marriage, lived as ordinary Hungarian citizens for several centuries. Their accustomed way of life changed drastically when in the 1940s the Holocaust focused on the Jews of Hungary. Over the next few years, they lost all rights, possessions, and protection from the state. Eventually, all younger men became slave labourers for the army; other family members were deported to concentration camps, mostly to Auschwitz, where many were murdered; and most of the rest were crammed into the ghetto. Peter, the sole child in both families, was hidden in an orphanage. The talk describes the diverse nature of their experiences and of how the survivors rebuilt their lives, with new homes, new work, and in some cases new families.

Yom HaShoah Events

Learning about the Holocaust and Its Meaning Today

Below are a set of links to Yom HaShoah events of note for our local community. 

Online participation is possible. 

Click on the links below to reach the event or learning materials.

• Toronto Holocaust Museum:  Commemoration of the Holocaust
• Yad Vashem:  Remembrance Day
• Yad Vashem:  A Lost World:  The Destruction of Jewish Communities (A Central Theme for Holocaust Remembrance Day)
• B’Nai Brith:  Yom HaShoah Commemorative Gathering in Ottawa. 
• Echoes and Reflections:  a free 4-week course offering:  Foundations of Holocaust Education:  Deepening Student Learning, May 2024.  
• TOLI:  Days of Remembrance:  The Kindertransport
• A collection of 12 poems of remembrance from the Congregation Beth Israel (Vancouver):  Yom HaShoah poems. 
  

   

  A Yizkor Poem by Peterborough’s Poet Laureate:  Ziysah v. Bieberstein

Yizkor:  Our Commitment to Remember

6 million worlds extinguished.

6 million pairs of hands that could no longer be held

6 million lifetimes of stories that could no longer be told

We cannot undo these horrors

What we can do is honour

We honour 6 million worlds in our candle lighting

We honour 6 million worlds in our remembering

We honour 6 million worlds by saying Never Again

We honour by bearing witness, by teaching this difficult history to our children. We honour by asking:

Where is the seed of this hate?

How was it made to blossom?

How was this hate elected?

Who is feeding it today?

To every soul that perished in the Nazi Holocaust, Jewish, Roma, disabled, gay, trans, to the millions of universes we can no longer explore,

To each of you, we pledge: We will keep learning, we will keep teaching, we will keep speaking, we will keep thinking, we will keep loving, we will keep building relationships across difference

We refuse to believe that we are powerless against hate, we refuse to abandon faith in humanity, we refuse to take anything for granted. In your memory, in the shadow of 6 million worlds, We will do everything we can to make never again mean never again.

 

Resources for Combating

Anti-Semitism and Hate

In light of the increase in antisemitism at home and abroad, the Beth Israel Holocaust Education Committee has compiled a list of community and educational resources to combat antisemitism and hate here. If you have further resources you would like to suggest, please email Ralph. shoaheducation@jccpeterborough.com https://jccpeterborough.com/events/education/stop-hate-resources-for-confronting