Aimee Veiner
On Wednesday evening, the Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies cohosted a virtual event for International Holocaust Remembrance Day entitled Lost Memory, Forgotten Lessons? Holocaust Education & the challenge of Antisemitism Today.
The event featured a panel discussion of the film Glass Negative’ with the film’s director Jan Borowiec and researcher Tal Schwartz, Deidre Butler, director of the ZC and Hernan Tesler-Mabé, coordinator for the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program.
Irwin Cotler, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism made a pre-recorded statement for the event. In his speech, he emphasized the universal lessons of the Holocaust, including “the danger of indifference and inaction in the face of mass atrocity and genocides”.
“What makes all the genocides unspeakable is that they were preventable. Nobody can say we did not know. We knew but we did not act. And even now we are not acting in the case of the Uyghurs in China,” Cotler said.
Israeli Embassy Donation
Ohad Nakash Kaynar, deputy head of mission for the Israeli Embassy, announced as part of the event that the embassy will be making a donation to both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa’s libraries. The purpose of the donation is for the libraries to obtain Holocaust education resources.
“We at the embassy have been monitoring and are concerned over the rise of antisemitism and the rise of Holocaust denial, not just in the world, but here in Canada as well,” said Dario Chaiquin, director of cultural affairs for the Israeli Embassy in an interview before the event. “We’re always looking for ways to combat that.”
Carleton University’s president, Benoit-Antoine Bacon, thanked the Israeli Embassy for their donation.
“As we move forward to the future, it becomes easier and easier to forget the past. And that’s why we must always remember. Access to these resources will be invaluable to our community,” Bacon said.
University of Ottawa President, Jacques Frémont, also expressed his gratitude for the donation.
“These new resources will be added to our already substantial collection of materials about the Holocaust and will be used by students around the world for years to come.”
Note: the remainder of this story was written with interviews conducted before the event, but reflect discussion that was had during the event.
All of the new Holocaust education resources at Carleton’s MacOdrum Library will be available in ebook format for students. University librarian, Amber Lanon, said the new ebooks will enhance Holocaust education for students, especially when it comes to conducting research remotely.
“At this time many of our students are not in Ottawa. Digital resources allow immediate access to Carleton students and faculty from anywhere in the world.”
Butler said the goal of the Holocaust education is not just to educate on the history of the Holocaust and the memories of its victims. She said studying the Holocaust helps people understand the “long historical arc of antisemitism” that dates back to the ancient world. To understand modern antisemitism, Butler said we need to critically reflect on the history of the Holocaust.
“The antisemitism that we face today has its roots in the Holocaust, and in the historical antecedents of the Holocaust, but has its own form and shape, “ she said.
Tesler-Mabé echoed this sentiment.
“Guarding against antisemitism is vital. But at the same time, it will not succeed if we don’t have a deeper appreciation of the historical forces at work that really laid the foundation for the Holocaust to occur when and where it did.”
Glass Negatives: the importance on material culture
Glass Negatives follows Tal Schwartz, a volunteer at Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre as she researches a collection of glass negative plates that were found in an attic in Lublin. Schwartz sets out to find out the identity of the photographer and of the subjects of the photos. The plates span a 20 year period and document the community of Lublin before the Holocaust. Schwartz said there around 3000 photos in the collection which capture approximately 10,000 faces. Many of the subjects of the photos are Jewish. Before the Holocaust, a third of Lublin’s population were Jewish — 3,000 people. Only 300 Lublin Jews survived.
Director Jan Borowiec said the story of the glass negatives is the story of his neighbours. Borowiec was born and raised in Lublin. It was important for Borowiec to try to chronicle a Lublin which no longer exists.
“If not for the Second World War, I would probably have girlfriends that were Jewish and friends, he said. “You can imagine, like hypothetically, this kind of world. And it’s vanished. It’s a void.”
Glass Negatives does not directly engage with the events of the Holocaust. Schwartz said focusing on life in Lublin before the war helps viewers understand the extent of the devastation of the Holocaust.
“I think you need to understand what you lost. You need to understand the life in order to talk about the Holocaust later,” Schwartz said. “So for me, talking just about the Holocaust, it’s not full, it’s not whole. You need to understand who are these people? How did they live?”
Determining the identities of the photographer and the photo’s subjects was not the most important thing for Schwartz, as she said so much of Jewish Lublin is lost. The Holocaust erased a thousand years of the rich culture, traditions and language of Jewish Lublin in just a few years.
“Even if we find names and even if we manage to reconstruct something, there is still a huge hole and I want to acknowledge it. I prefer to look at what is absent and give it space.”
Butler said the focus on what came before, what was lost, is crucial.
“One of the most important shifts in Holocaust scholarship is how we speak of those who perished in or survived the Holocaust as persons, not merely as objects of Nazi persecution and murder. As a Jewish Studies scholar, I want to foreground Jewish identity culture but also Jewish agency and personhood.
Glass Negatives will be available for Carleton students through the MacOdrum Library for the remainder of the academic year. The Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre’s involvement with this event reflects its core strength in Holocaust Studies research and teaching and its mission to serve as a bridge between Carleton University and the broader community.