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New Canadian Legacy Fund Ensures
Holocaust Education and Leadership
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Louis Greenbaum |
Vice-Chair of the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem Louis Greenbaum
is active in a number of Jewish communal organizations in
Toronto. Like his younger brother and wife, he is a child of
Holocaust Survivors, “robbed of their innocence, youth and a
normal life, experiencing the worst atrocities imaginable during
the Shoah, and losing—with the exception of one sibling—our
entire families.” Growing up with parents who shared their
Holocaust experiences with their children, he made a pledge to
himself that their stories would not be forgotten.
With
this objective in mind, Louis sought to establish a Second
Generation organization, within the framework of his work for Yad
Vashem, thus creating a new base of young leadership for the 21st
century. This June, he also launched the Yad Vashem Holocaust
Education Legacy Fund “in honour of ‘our’ parent survivors.”
The
Legacy Fund will serve as an ‘annuity,’ providing the means to
send dozens of teachers annually from across Canada to Yad
Vashem’s International School of Holocaust Studies for intensive
seminars and teaching programs, so that the history of the
Holocaust and its lessons will continue to be taught in Canada’s
public and Jewish school classrooms. The Holocaust Education
Legacy Fund will be dedicated in Jerusalem during the Canadian
Society’s Mission to Israel in 2005, which will coincide with the
opening of the new Holocaust History Museum.
Louis
also anticipates—through
example and proper planning—the
establishment of an active and dedicated “Third Generation” of Yad
Vashem volunteers and leadership. “We are the legacy of our
parents,” Louis says, “and we, the Second Generation, in turn have
an obligation—a responsibility—to create a legacy for them. It is
my hope that this Fund will encourage the Second Generation to
take on the mantle of responsibility with regard to remembrance
and education, thereby ensuring the legacy of the survivors
continues.”
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
