Chinese Educators Attend First of Its Kind Seminar at Yad Vashem

International Conference Explores Polish Attitudes toward Jews

Some twenty Chinese educators recently participated in a 2-week seminar at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies. This first of its seminar of its kind brought together participants from China, Hong Kong and Macau, for in-depth study of the Holocaust and how to teach it in the classroom. For most of the participants it was their first visit to Israel. One of the educators, currently on leave from her teaching position in order to complete a thesis on Petr Gintz, was especially gratified to see authentic Holocaust-era artifacts. Another participant, Dr. Zhong Zhiqing, whose expertise in comparative literature led  her to translate a book of Amos Oz into Mandarin  noted that “what has now been instilled in our heart and inscribed in our mind, we will teach.” The seminar was sponsored by the Adelson Charitable Family Foundation.

How did Polish society and people deal with the fact that the Holocaust, to a great extent took place in their midst? How did Jewish survivors rebuild lives in Poland? A four-day international conference exploring Polish attitudes toward Jews and the events of the Holocaust was held in October by the Diana Zborowski Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Shoah of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem.  Looking at Polish society through the antisemitic pogroms in the immediate aftermath of the war, the communist era, and from the fall of communism until today, researchers from Poland, the United States and Israel presented new findings on various aspects of the Polish population grappling with the post-Holocaust era. The conference was underwritten by Eli Zborowski and Family and with the generous support of the Gertner Center for International Holocaust Conferences and the Gutwrith Family Fund, and the Instytut Polski.

The updated “Museum Complex” section on Yad Vashem’s website has been redesigned, allowing online surfers to more easily “visit” the Museum Complex, take a virtual tour of the Holocaust History Museum, and look at related online exhibitions. The new page layout makes navigating the Museum from long-distance an effortless process.

“Looking Through the Lens of History,” presents a series of online mini-exhibitions that focus on a single theme, bringing together documents and photographs in a brief, yet interesting examination of the subject matter. Among three newly created segments is “Studying Arabic in Theresienstadt,” offering a fascinating profile of Dr. Mojzis Woskin-Nahartabi.  In addition to teaching Hebrew and giving lectures in the ghetto,  Dr. Woskin-Nahartabi also gave a course in literary Arabic. The pictures and accompanying text provide insight  into life in the ghetto, and  the personal and community priorities that existed at the time.

In the Shadow of the Red Banner: Soviet Jews in the War Against Nazi Germany
Yitzhak Arad
in Association with Gefen Publishing House, NIS 140/$30 (airmail included)

Over 500,000 Jews fought under the Soviet banner in WWII, of which an estimated 40 percent gave their lives - the highest casualty rate of any group in the Soviet Union. Yet, this history was systematically concealed by the Soviet government. Arad documents the contributions of Soviet Jewry on the battlefronts and in the weapons development industry, in the ghetto undergrounds and in partisan warfare. In addition, the book records the Soviet government’s deliberate attempts to downplay the Jewish effort and the antisemitism that Jewish soldiers and partisan groups suffered at the hands of the Soviet establishment, even while giving their lives for their country. The book is replete with the stories of individual heroes of all ranks.  Click here to order. Visit our online store to see our full range of publications.