Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center

From our blog: https://hamecblog.wordpress.com//how-nazis-used-personal-/ And from our archives: The Nazis wrote "Israel" on Kurt Herman's passport as his middle name. Check it out at our virtual tour here https://mobile.hamec.yourcultureconnect.com//kurt-hermans-

Join us for our celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day next month! We will be holding a virtual event on January 27 at 9:00 a.m. in partnership with the We Are Here! Foundation and World ORT. More details are coming soon!

Due to the COVID-19 coronavirus and its current and potential impact in our area, our Museum is closed for tours until further notice.

From our blog https://hamecblog.wordpress.com//greensboro-city-council-/

Please join us for our upcoming webinar, which will be held in partnership with Main Line Reform Temple and Jewish War Veterans Post 697! Link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us//register/WN_WvLg6kXjQciL_CTwjt5nYg

To all of our friends and supporters who are celebrating the Festival of Lights, we wish you a happy holiday. As we commemorate the sweet victory of the Maccabees over our oppressors, we are reminded that all times are difficult. Certainly our heroic Survivors can attest to that. 5780 and 5781 have presented us with new and different challenges. But just like the Maccabees, we will prevail. So please enjoy this holiday season as best as you can with or without family members by your side physically. And here is our hope that 2021 and certainly 5782 will be far more normal. Chuck Feldman President

A blessed New Year from HAMEC to you. As we enter into the Jewish New Year, we would like to honor the memory of Joe Kahn, Annaliese Nossbaum, Manya Perel, Gunter Hauer, and Ilse Lindemeyer and the work they did to educate children around the world about the Holocaust. HAMEC will continue to share their message and continue to preserve history to learn from the past.

Our newest exhibit is now open in an interactive virtual format! Click the link to see the artifacts and read stories from our survivors: https://mobile.hamec.yourcultureconnect.com

For this week's Legacy Library Friday, we remember the life of Dr. Leon Bass who spoke about his experience as a Black liberator during World War II. Dr. Leon Bass is a former high school principal and veteran of World War II who has dedicated much of his life as a teacher, a school administrator, and a speaker, to fighting racism wherever it exists. As a nineteen-year-old soldier serving in a segregated unit of the U.S. Army, Leon Bass participated in the liberation of Buc...henwald concentration camp in 1945. That moment changed his life. "I was an angry soldier," said Bass. "I was being asked to fight for freedom while at the same time, as a black man, I was constantly being told in many ways that I wasn't good enough to have that freedom." Following his service in the U.S. Army 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion in World War II, Bass graduated from West Chester University of Pennsylvania and later received a doctorate from Temple University. He taught at several schools in the School District of Philadelphia and was a principal at the Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia for 14 years. He has presented his story to audiences throughout the United States and across the world. He was a participant in the International Liberators Conference, held in Washington, D.C. in 1981. In 1994, he was the keynote speaker at the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, and in 1996, he was awarded the Pearlman Award for Humanitarian Advancement from Jewish Women International. He appeared in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, "Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II." In 2011, he published his book, "Good Enough: One Man's Memoirs of the Price of a Dream."

This week's #LegacyLibaryFriday features Klara Vinokur, whose heroic story of bravery, reminds us of why we continue to teach Holocaust education in schools today. Klara was born in Shpola, a small town in the Ukraine, in 1927. Her mother was a dressmaker, her father was a laborer and she had a younger brother, Gregory, and an older sister, who lived near Kiev. She attended the local school with her non-Jewish Ukrainian friends. On June 22, 1941, the Germans invaded the Sovi...et Union and her small town became occupied on July 30. She was then forced to wear an armband with the Star of David and forced to clean the streets and houses. In late September, the Shpola ghetto was established and the entire local Jewish population was forced to live in cramped quarters with little food. Her father was murdered on August 21. In the beginning of May 1942, the Nazis and local police announced that those who were capable would be sent to labor camps. Within a few weeks, Klara fell sick with typhoid fever and was confined to a room with 20 other sick people. Later, in 1942, her mother gave Klara fake identification, renaming her Olga Pushenko who came from a children's home in Donesk. The family then hid with other Ukrainian friends and that was the last time she saw her mother. Gregory was hid in another family and then was taken. Klara then went to hide in another Ukrainian home, but the family called the police and she was taken to the police station where she saw partisans hanged and others shot. She was suspected of collaborating with the partisans and on April 7, 1943, was sent to a state farm. On January 26, 1944, on her birthday, the Russian army liberated her. The next day she was shot in the left shoulder and after recovering for one month in a hospital, returned to Shpola. Her sister survived so Klara moved near Kiev, Ukraine. She married an officer and graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages. She then immigrated to the U.S. and worked as the chairwoman of a trade union from 1970 to 1985. She has one son and two grandchildren.

Today, we are celebrating one of our Graduate History Practicum students, Fabulous Flores. Fabulous is from Southern California, and is currently a graduate student studying Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University. She chose this internship because it is her goal to work in this field at a college level. She believes that continuing to work alongside people and organizations within this field is an invaluable experience and networking opportunity. So far, her favorite part about this program has been getting to work hands on with the artifacts. Fabulous mentioned, "The feeling of holding history in your hands is indescribable."

For this week's Legacy Library Friday, we are featuring ghetto and concentration camp survivor, David Tuck. To learn more about HAMEC's programs and how you can book a virtual speaker on our website hamec.org. David Tuck was born in Poland. His mother passed away six months after his birth, so his Orthodox Jewish grandparents took him in and insisted that he receive both a public and Hebrew education.... Life drastically changed on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. He was 10 years old. Radio broadcasts changed from Polish music to Deutschland Über Alles, Germany Overall. By December he was forced to wear an armband and then a yellow Star of David and he had to step off the sidewalk and into the street when German soldiers approached him. Within a few weeks David’s family was deported to the Lodz ghetto where he spoke German well enough that he was able to work in the food ration office providing families with ration cards. Then in the spring of 1941, David was deported to Posen, a labor camp in Poland. In 1943 the Nazis liquidated the Posen labor camp and sent David to another labor camp to construct an autobahn. Then David was deported, with other skilled workers to Auschwitz where he arrived on August 25, 1943. He worked in a sub-camp of Auschwitz called Eintrachthütte in a factory building anti-aircraft guns. In January 1945, David was deported on a train to Mauthausen in Austria, a brutal 370-mile trip over four days. To survive, he scooped snow from the ground using a tin cup tied to his belt. He was subsequently sent to Güsen II, an underground factory to build German aircraft. On May 5, 1945 the Americans liberated Güsen II; he weighed 78 pounds. David then spent the next several months recuperating in refugee camps and then immigrated to the United States in 1950. To find out more, listen to Dave Tuck's testimony below. #LegacyLibraryFriday

This summer, HAMEC has been fortunate to work with several post-graduate students and interns. Over the next few days, we will be featuring our interns and the work they have done this summer. Adam Babetski is from Sterling, Virginia. For the past year, he has been a member of Penn State's Bellisario College of Communications where he majors in Broadcast Journalism. He previously worked for CommRadio and runs a podcast. Part of why Adam was so excited about this position is ...due to his personal ties with having a Holocaust survivor as a family friend and believed that this internship would be a valuable experience dedicated to raising awareness and education about the Holocaust. As a Communications intern at HAMEC, his primary job function works with the social media accounts and website. Adam mentioned that he is particularly glad that he's gotten the chance to interview several Holocaust survivors who are on HAMEC's Board of Trustees in the hope that he can pass their stories and experiences to others in the future.

Looking for something to do this Sunday, August 23? The Sousa Mendes Foundation will be hosting a free program entitled, "Hidden Children and their Rescuers" at 4:00PM, which will feature multiple panelists, including Ruth Kapp Hartz. Click the link for more details and how to sign up!