When did survivors first start to join in the efforts of Yad Vashem to educate about the Holocaust?
I arrived at what was then Yad Vashem's Educational Department in 1988, which had a staff of just five [today the International School has over 150 permanent staff, excluding external guides]. Already while teaching in high school I had begun to introduce survivors to the classroom. Back then, they were the parents of students of mine, and some of the boys I taught had never heard their parents talk about their wartime experiences.
I learned that the idea of survivors engaging with students had to be handled correctly; they needed to be guided as to what was appropriate to talk about, and most importantly, to allow for a dialogue with their audience.
How did the training course for survivor witnesses begin?
In the early 1990s, my colleague Shulamit Imber [now the Pedagogical Head of the International School, and Fred Hillman Chair in Memory of Janusz Korczak] began to develop Yad Vashem's educational philosophy of age-appropriate and culturally targeted programs. Our then-department head Shalmi Bar Mor approached me with the idea of developing the proposal of Holocaust survivor Hana Greenfield z"l to "break the silence" of Holocaust survivors, most of whom rarely gave public testimony outside of the courtroom, even decades after the end of WWII.
What do these courses include?
We invited psychotherapist Moshe Harel Sternberg from the Amcha organization, which provides psychological and social support to Holocaust survivors and Second Generation, to help develop a five-day course that included lectures, tours of the Yad Vashem campus, and tools to enable survivors to tell their story in a concise and effective manner. It was a very delicate process balancing the enormous need of the survivors to tell all of their story, as a monologue, with the necessity to relate shortened versions according to time, place and events, so that the audience is given the chance to digest their words and ask questions.
Sternberg also encouraged the survivors to develop a kind of "visiting card" – a short and informational introduction to themselves, so that those engaging with them may view them as real people, with histories, family connections and careers that extend beyond their Holocaust years.
Over time, some 450 survivor witnesses have attended our training courses, where they learned to trust our experience as educators, and adhere to our guidelines in order to ensure as effective an encounter as possible for all of our audiences.
How do audiences generally react to hearing firsthand testimony?
After so many years developing Yad Vashem's world-class educational seminars, I can honestly say that there is nothing that comes close to really internalizing events of the Holocaust like hearing a survivor speak and interacting with them. I've seen people literally break down in tears, embrace or hold hands with survivors, and even laugh with them: They create bonds they never would have thought possible – even those who hail from countries with very few Jewish residents such as China, or regions with racial tensions such as South Africa. The kaleidoscope of stories they hear, from survivors who hailed from countries across Europe and North Africa, leaves an impression that I believe lasts forever in their minds and hearts.
Beyond the obvious imperative to learn the facts of the Holocaust and the creative and vital pedagogical tools to teach it in their own classrooms, seminar participants who meet with survivors are forever changed, inspired to pass on messages of hope, faith and resilience to audiences the world over.
Are the seminars also important for the survivors?
Extremely! They give them the chance to tell about their experiences, and a purpose to both their survival and lives that they rebuilt here in Israel. You would be amazed at the lengths they will go to in order to join our seminars either in Jerusalem, or abroad – some have flown as far as New Zealand, and many have joined students on their traditional roots trip to Poland before or during their national military service. As one survivor told me, "Yad Vashem is filled with life – soldiers, visitors and educators. That is why I need to give testimony."
Our survivor witnesses are a true community we have built together.
What will happen when these kinds of testimonies are no longer feasible due to the absence of survivor witnesses in the world?
There is no doubt that the face of Holocaust-related seminars, as well as commemoration ceremonies and media interviews, will change forever once survivors are no longer available to give their precious, irreplaceable, firsthand testimonies before live audiences. But Yad Vashem has been preparing for this eventuality for some years, through gathering artifacts, artwork and documentation that are the "silent witnesses" to the atrocities of the Holocaust, as well as with its flagship educational video series "Witnesses and Education." Developed by the International School's e-Learning Department, this unique series takes Holocaust survivors back to the locations in which their prewar lives developed, their wartime experiences took place, and their new lives were rebuilt. The videos have proved to be extremely effective in classrooms and courses around the world, either as whole units, or broken up into shorter segments to illustrate a particular Holocaust-related theme or episode. This is certainly what I would call "the next best thing" to meeting a survivor in person, although obviously that bond is much harder to engender via a screen.
Nevertheless, we are still taking full advantage of the fact that they are still with us, and creating chances for people to hear them speak. Every meeting with a survivor – in person or online – is a blessing. As Prof. Elie Weisel remarked, “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.”
In which ways has Yad Vashem adapted its partnership with survivors in the Coronavirus era?
Just like our department, I know that many other members of Yad Vashem staff in the different divisions have made a concerted effort to keep in touch with our survivor witnesses during this difficult period, to let them know we are concerned, and to try to help them in any way possible.
A few of them have been able to master the technology and join us for online seminars, interviews and memorial ceremonies – which are reaching thousands of participants around the world, including other survivors. This is how we close the circle – the unbreakable bond between the witnesses, the educators and the generations to come.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 93.
