![\"Tova](\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/jewishstudies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-04-22-Tova-Clark.jpg\")
Tova Clark is a child survivor of wartime Germany. She is part of a project to preserve the personal history of Ottawa Holocaust survivors. | Photo: Darren Brown<\/p><\/div>\n
Tova Clark was another youngster whose life was turned upside down by the Holocaust. Born in 1939 in Oppeln, Germany (now Opole, in Poland), her parents managed a year later to secure permits to move to Shanghai, then under Japanese control. They flew first from Berlin to Moscow, then took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Harbin, China, and another train to Shanghai, where they lived in a single room in a ghetto.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother didn\u2019t stop talking about the trip, it was so emotional,\u201d says Clark. \u201cThey had a good life in Germany, and then this. Shanghai, China \u2026 it was like going to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her father, a businessman who in Germany dealt in fabric for men\u2019s suits, earned a living in this foreign land by buying kimonos and obis from the Japanese and having them turned into evening gowns, which he sold in the American quarter of Shanghai.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very difficult, but he managed,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n
Among her earliest memories, however, was that of the American bombs falling around them after the U.S. declared war on Japan in 1941.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole experience was very traumatic, but in the end we were safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1942, it bears noting, Germany and Hungary began the \u201cliquidation\u201d of the Oppeln ghetto.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d Clark notes. \u201cJapan and Germany were allies, of course, and Germany even encouraged Japan to do what they were doing, to build ovens and destroy the Jews. But Japan said no, our religion won\u2019t allow us to. So even though they weren\u2019t that easy to live with, it\u2019s because of them that we survived, because it was the Japanese who sent us the permits in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark admits she\u2019s reluctant to be looked upon as a Holocaust victim, yet she and Young-Drache are among a handful of Ottawa-area Holocaust survivors who visit schools and universities to share their experiences.<\/p>\n
But what happens when they\u2019re no longer able to tell their stories?<\/p>\n
That was a question asked by Mina Cohn, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, within Carleton University\u2019s Centre for Jewish Studies. Five or six years ago, she considered the possibility that \u201csecond-generation\u201d survivors \u2014 the children of survivors \u2014 could share their parents\u2019 experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese experiences are an integral part to teaching the Holocaust,\u201d she says. \u201cThey bring details that you can never read in a history book. But so often the details and immediate emotion are absent when a second-generation survivor tells them. So we decided to record the survivors, so students and scholars could hear their voices and see their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
So was born the Ottawa Holocaust Survivors Testimony Project, which aims to record and preserve these stories on video, and make them accessible to teachers, students and researchers.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve so far identified about 30 living survivors in the Ottawa area, and plan on recording 10 of them in their first round. They figure they need about $7,500 to cover the production and editing costs, as well as a public launch. The university has agreed to let them pitch for funds through its FutureFunder<\/a> crowd-sourcing website. If they raise sufficient funds, they also plan on editing the 30-minute interviews into thematic groups \u2014 camp survivors, for example, or child survivors.<\/p>\n \u201cThese oral history testimonies fill in the gaps of the traditional historical narrative,\u201d says Carleton masters student and project organizer Elise Bigley. \u201cThey give that feeling and emotion that will be lost when survivors stop going to schools. These testimonials are vital for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Each testimonial is also unique, she adds, making it imperative to gather as many as possible. \u201cIt challenges this grand historical narrative of just one story. Tova\u2019s story, for example, will challenge the idea that Japan was this Axis power that could have never helped the Jewish people. So it\u2019s so important that each testimony gets documented.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s of personal importance to me,\u201d adds Young-Drache, \u201cbecause it forces you to examine your life, and what happened and why. It\u2019s so important for my children and grandchildren, for everybody, to know what happened.<\/p>\n \u201cMany people say you can\u2019t learn from such terrible things as the Holocaust, but on the other hand, it\u2019s obvious that a lot of things happened not just because there were mad men and others who hated a certain group of people just because of who they were, but also because there were lots of people \u2014 and there still are in many parts of the world \u2014 where ordinary people accept what is going on without questioning and don\u2019t like to intervene or get involved.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to know with accuracy the truth, to know what actually happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Visit futurefunder.carleton.ca\/project\/ottawa-holocaust-survivors-testimony\/<\/a> for more information or to donate.<\/p>\n Source:<\/strong> Ottawa Citizen<\/a> As years pass, first-hand accounts of Holocaust survivors are disappearing. An initiative at Carleton University hopes to preserve the oral histories of Ottawa-area survivors and is looking to crowd-fund the $7,500 it needs to get the cameras rolling. Bruce Deachman reports. Judy Young-Drache was only a year old in the summer of 1944 when her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nBy:<\/strong> Bruce Deachman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"