Growing up in a place as diverse as Boston, it’s hard to imagine reaching adulthood without knowing about the Holocaust.
But for many immigrants, that’s the reality.Before I came to the U.S., I knew about World War II but didn’t know
about the Holocaust,” said 33-year-old pianist Aly Tejas, who emigrated
out of Cuba in 1999. “And still, I don’t know much about it. What I have
found out has been through things like the news.”
Franklin Soults, communications director for the Massachusetts
Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said Tejas’ experience is not
uncommon.
“There isn’t necessarily the same level of knowledge. That isn’t
because there’s disinterest in the topic,” Soults said. “But people
coming from other sectors of the world are learning about different
things.
Boston’s Jewish community will come together today at Faneuil Hall
for Holocaust Remembrance Day. More than 600 people are expected to
attend the event to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, according
to the Jewish Community Relations Council, one of the co-sponsors. Rena
Finder, a Schindler’s List survivor, and children of Holocaust survivors
will speak at the program to spread the mantra of Holocaust
remembrance, “never forget.”
That’s also a goal at Brookline-based organization Facing History and
Ourselves, which links history to moral choices and combats prejudices
such as anti-Semitism through education.
Its primary case study is the Holocaust, and program coordinator
Jeremy Nesoff said he encounters kids who might have a vague idea of
what the Holocaust was, but don’t know a lot about Jewish culture in
general.
“In Providence, we were looking at this amazing resource, a book of
diaries from teenagers living through the Holocaust,” Nesoff said. “One
of the diaries is by a boy named Klaus Langer from Germany, and one of
the kids’ questions was, ‘Was he writing in Jewish?’ ”
Nesoff said it’s not so uncommon to find young people whose awareness of the Holocaust is lacking.
“Through no fault of his own, this kid just hadn’t been exposed to
what it means to be Jewish and the range of Jewish identity,” he said.
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