We bought lunch at a kiosk before boarding the bus from Zurich to Lucerne along with the passport survivors and their families. Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, sat next to us and I took the opportunity to show him the documents I had brought with me. He closed his eyes and gave a visibleContinue reading “Walking with the President”
Tag Archives: History
The Student Becomes the Teacher
A high school classmate, enthused about Tutti’s Promise, introduced me to a current teacher at our former school, Eric LaForest. Eric is the Director of the Norton Center for the Common Good at Loomis Chaffee School and he invited me to spend a day teaching. We spoke on the phone, exchanged emails, and came upContinue reading “The Student Becomes the Teacher”
Tutti’s Promise is here!
The Hotel Bristol – Berlin
Tutti’s Promise contains a scene in which a concentration camp guard lets my grandfather smuggle vegetables out of a root cellar to his wife and children. This really happened and my mother remembers it well. She has told me that my grandfather even said that he would have testified for leniency for this particularContinue reading “The Hotel Bristol – Berlin”
Spiersfelde
A few years ago I was looking through my grandmother’s photo album. One of the most striking pictures shows thirty-one people in a group portrait. They are nicely dressed and posed in a purposeful composition with the family patriarch and his wife, my great-great-grandparents, sitting in the center. My grandmother stands slightly to one sideContinue reading “Spiersfelde”
University of Hartford Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies Awards Evening
Monday night I attended the University of Hartford Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies Awards Evening. It was an evening of acknowledgment for hard work, academic rigor, teaching and learning, and appreciation for the donors who made it all possible. Avi Patt and Matthew Rubin presented the Joseph Zola Memorial Holocaust Educator Award to meContinue reading “University of Hartford Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies Awards Evening”
Well Here’s Another Fine Mess I’ve Gotten Into*
I have been trying to edit my manuscript and get it in the best shape possible. There are typos and redundancies and places that need a bit more pep. And then there are the more important issues – like historical accuracy and avoiding plagiarism. I have one chapter that begins with my grandfather listening toContinue reading “Well Here’s Another Fine Mess I’ve Gotten Into*”
Why Bobby?
On the evening of January 16, 2014 I arrived in Tilburg. This small city in the southern province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands is home to a little over 206,000 people, more than 60% of whom are Roman Catholic. The next largest “religious” group are the atheists who make up about 20% of the population.Continue reading “Why Bobby?”
Why I’m Writing about the Holocaust – Part 2
This is a powerful piece (click on the link below) by Naftali Bendavid that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week. It is about the last survivors of the Holocaust telling their stories. According to the popular press there were only 100 child survivors of Theresienstadt. My mother was one of them. I don’t knowContinue reading “Why I’m Writing about the Holocaust – Part 2”
Why I’m Writing about the Holocaust
Please watch this short video. It is short and speaks for itself. We are raising a generation of students who don’t know about the Holocaust. If they don’t know, it is because nobody taught them. If they don’t know, G-d help us all in the future. We all need to know what has happened toContinue reading “Why I’m Writing about the Holocaust”
K Heidi Fishman (Popje and Me) 