Next Gathering: Saturday, May 19^th, OHRC. The theme is descendants of hidden children. 1230 pm – 1pm, Munch and Mingle; 1 – 3pm – Speakers and Discussion.
We are looking for 3 to 4 people to share their story. Are you descendant of a survivor/refugee hidden child? If you or someone you know would like to come and share their story at our 5/19 gathering, please contact the office.

Future Gathering: A future gathering theme will be focused on hearing the stories of descendants of Hidden Children. Are you a descendant of a survivor of a Hidden Child?  Do you know some who is? Please contact me about speaking at a future gathering.

Next Gathering: Saturday, April 28^th, OHRC. The theme is descendants of survivors and refugees with ties to Asia. 12:30 pm – 1pm, Munch and Mingle; 1 – 3pm – Speakers and Discussion.
We are looking for 3 to 4 people to share their story. Are you descendant of a survivor/refugee with ties to Asia? If you or someone you know would like to come and share their story at our 4/28 gathering, please contact the office.

Future Gathering: A future gathering theme will be focused on hearing the stories of descendants of Hidden Children. Are you a descendant of a survivor of a Hidden Child?  Do you know some who is? Please contact the office about speaking at a future gathering.

The Holocaust Genocide Studies Project at Portland State is pleased to announce its inaugural event, a film screening and panel discussion of The “OH” Project, An Oral History: Healing from the Cambodian Genocide. The “OH” Project is an award-winning and moving documentary about the experiences of survivors of the Cambodian genocide of 1975-79. The film features intergenerational interviews of survivors by their children and grandchildren, all now living in the state of Oregon.

The “OH” Project: Film and Discussion

Tuesday, May 8 at 7pm

Smith Memorial Student Union 238

1825 SW Broadway

This event is presented in collaboration with the Cambodian-American Community of Oregon and co-sponsored by the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center and the Department of English at PSU.

Join us on Thursday, April 19th in Pioneer Courthouse Square from 11 am-5 pm as OAJC and the OHRC join together once again in the annual reading of the names.An opening ceremony will take place at 10:30 am. Feel free to drop by at any point to hear local politicians, faith leaders and community members honor those who were killed during the Holocaust.

The Friends of the Oregon Holocaust Memorial, a committee of the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center
is proud to host
Special docent-led tours of the Oregon Holocaust Memorial at Washington Park on Sunday, April 22, 2012
Tours are free and open to the public, and will begin at 1:00 pm
If you would like to schedule a tour for your group please call OHRC at 503-245-2733 or visit our website at www.ohrconline.org to make arrangements for a guide.

“To keep alive the revered memory of those whose names we can recount
and the broken memory of those countless victims whose names we will never know.”

Please join us as we congratulate the winners of this year’s 2012 Sala Kryszek Writing & Art Competition, Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 11 am for lunch at the Multnomah Athletic Club. Tickets for the event are available through the office by calling 503-245-2733or through pay pal. The cost of lunch is $15. Tickets can be purchased below

.

The Portland Jewish Film Festival explores themes of spirituality and Jewish identity throughout all parts of the world, especially how American Jews perceive themselves in a larger social context. The films, in their abundance, touch on tragedy, embrace humor, and recount the emotional and tangible gains and losses of a people.

Please save the dates of April 29 & 30,2012 in particular. We once again will be sponsors of the Jewish Film Festival. This year we will be sponsoring three films.

Sunday, April 29
NICKY’s FAMILY at 4:30 PM
and
REMEMBRANCE at 7 PM.

Monday, April 30

THE RESCUERS at 7 PM

See information below regarding the films:

NICKY’S FAMILY (2011 Czech movie) It’s the story of Nicholas Winton – referred to as the British Schindler – who rescued 669 Jewish Czeck and Slovak children, during the outbreak of the war.

THE RESCUERS (2011 US movie) a documentary following Sir Martin Gilbert and Rwandan native Stephanie Nyombayire who meet with survivors and descendants of diplomats who interceded to save Jews.

REMEMBRANCE (2011 German movie) True story of two lovers who meet in a concentration camp in 1944.

Passes can be purchased for the entire festival at http://www.nwfilm.org/festivals/jewishfestival/. PJFF Passes will be honored at all NWFC screenings during the Festival (April 15-29).

The main events on campus, all of which are free and open to the public, are listed below.  Those with questions about HMW 2012 or about the OSU Holocaust Program may contact Paul Kopperman (pkopperman@oregonstate.edu) or the OSU Department of History (541-737-3421), or check out the website of the Holocaust Program,  www.oregonstate.edu/dept/holocaust/.

The upcoming program will include these events, all of which are free and open to the public:

Monday, April 2-Monday, April 30, Benton County Public Library, Corvallis Public Exhibit: “Letters to Sala – A Young Woman’s Life in Nazi Labor Camps”

In 1940, Sala Garncarz, a sixteen-year-old Polish Jew, was sent to a labor camp, the first of seven where she was to be enslaved during World War II.  Although she survived the war, many of her closest friends and family members – including her parents and three siblings — perished in the Holocaust.  Sala’s survival is in itself remarkable, but even more remarkable is the fact that she was able to hide and protect more than 300 letters that she received while in the camps.  Many years later, Sala, by then a mother and grandmother, gave this collection of letters to her daughter.  The exhibit at the Benton County Public Library will highlight many of these letters, and will also include photos and information on the Holocaust and on Sala’s own wartime experiences.

Monday, April 16, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center- Public Talk — Ann Kirschner, “Sala”

Ann Kirschner will discuss the wartime experiences of her mother, Sala (see above), and the importance of the unique collection of letters that she saved and later passed down to her children.  Professor Kirschner is the author of a highly acclaimed biography of her mother, “Sala’s Gift,” and is the University Dean of Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York.

Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 p.m., Benton County Public Library, Corvallis, Public Performance – Arlene Hutton, “Letters to Sala”

Inspired by Ann Kirschner’s biography of her mother, Arlene Hutton’s drama tells two stories.  The first is about “Young Sala,” the teenager who endured the Holocaust.  The audience witnesses her departure from home and her life in the camps, but most of all comes to know of her relationships with family members and friends.  These scenes are punctuated with selections from her letters.  A second story focuses on “Old Sala,” the woman who at last decides to pass the letters on to Ann, and  it follows as well Ann and her daughters as they discuss what to do with the unique collection.

Wednesday, April 18, 4:00 p.m., Journey Room, OSU Memorial Union-Public Talk: Tomasz M. Giebultowicz, “Operation Harvest Festival”

In the fall of 1943, the Germans decided to kill all Jews in the three camps of the Lublin District in Poland.  This campaign of murder was given the euphemistic name of “Operation Harvest Festival” (“Aktion Erntefest”).   On November 3, 18-20,000 Jews were massacred at Majdanek and a slightly higher number were slain at two nearby labor camps.  Even given the enormity of the Holocaust, few if any massacres on this scale occurred in such a brief span of time.

Among the prisoners at Majdanek at the time of the massacre was a young Pole, Joseph Giebultowicz.  Since he was a political prisoner, rather than a Jew, he was spared, and although he suffered greatly in the camps he survived the war, and eventually came to America.  Years later, he communicated to his son, Tomasz, what he had witnessed at Majdanek on November 3, 1943.  On April 18, Tomasz, a  member of the Physics faculty at Oregon State University, will discuss Operation Harvest Festival and review what his father told him of that massacre.

Wednesday, April 18, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center-Public Talk: Benjamin Madley, “Genocide in America?  The Assault on the Tolowa Tribe of Oregon and California”

Benjamin Madley, a postdoctoral fellow in the Native American Studies Program at Dartmouth, is a young scholar who has already played a major role in genocide studies.  His particular focus has been “frontier genocide,” which focuses on assaults on indigenous peoples, often by settlers who covet the land occupied by the natives.  Local government officials or army units may likewise engineer the attacks.  Dr. Madley has written about a number of  native groups that were targeted for genocide, including the Yuki of California, Tasmanian aboriginals, and the Herero of Namibia. He is now in the process of transforming his award-winning doctoral dissertation, “American Genocide: The California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873,” into a book.  His talk on April 18 will reflect his ongoing study of the wars against the Tolowa, 1851-56,

Prior to Dr. Madley’s talk, Jan Michael Looking Wolf will perform on the Native American flute.  The title of his concert, which will take place 7:15-7:30 p.m., will be “One Heart.”  A recipient of many awards and recognitions, Jan Michael Looking Wolf teaches Native American flute at Oregon State University.

Thursday, April 19, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center-Public Talk: Eric Sundquist, “The Historian’s Anvil, the Novelist’s Crucible: Holocaust Literature and the Uses of History”

Literature by design has a complex and often vexed relation to the history from which it emerges and seeks to represent.  In the case of the Holocaust, where the accurate representation of historical fact would seem to carry a special moral burden, the problem of imaginative recreation is more acute.  And yet, many writers, and a few historians, have argued that literature has an important role to play in our understanding of the events.  The lecture will consider these questions through an examination of a range of European, American, and Israeli writers.

Eric J. Sundquist, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, is a member of the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University.  A prolific scholar, Professor Sundquist focuses on African-American, Jewish-American, and Holocaust literature.  His many publications include the award-winning “Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America.”  During the past several years he has engaged in a sweeping examination of how the Holocaust has been depicted in American literature.  The benefits of this research are reflected in his most recent book, a co-edited collection of essays entitled “After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence.”

Thank you to the OHRC for providing us with the opportunity to make a difference in our school and our community.
(Written by Alicia Dougherty)

From left to right:

1. Dulce Gonzalez

2. Joel Humphrey

3. Jill Slansky

4. Jacob Labrado

5. Desire Schaefer

6. Bethany Rivard

7. Alicia Dougherty

8. Jared Meyers

The OHRC is immensely grateful to the students for their efforts in fund-raising on our behalf, allowing the work of the Center to reach out to other schools and community groups.