The Holocaust is a tragic but important piece of world history.
It is one of the worst genocides that killed six million Jews, and millions of non-jews. The Holocaust is important to remember and honor, as it has left lasting effects in today’s world.
The university does it’s part in remembering the genocide from World War II by hosting it’s annual Holocaust Rememberance Day. On Wednesday, the university hosted its 21st Holocaust Remembrance Day, which took place in the Bucknall Theater from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The Holocaust began on March 22, 1933 with the opening of Dachau, the Nazi’s first concentration camp, and lasted until May 7, 1945 after Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces. Throughout these 12 years, tens of millions of lives were impacted. Those who were fortunate enough to not be executed in concentration camps still had to deal with imprisonment, forced labor, displacement and cultural destruction.
Some were fortunate enough to escape the hellish horrors of the Holocaust, and of those was the mother of this year’s keynote speaker for the ceremony, Judy Birke.
Birke was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1940 and came to the U.S. in 1941 when she was only 10 months old. She spent her formative years in Massachusetts and New York City and settled in New Haven after receiving her education. She began an art consulting business, crafting collections and appraising art for museums, corporations, galleries and individuals. Birke was also the director of the Munson Gallery in New Haven and an art critic for the New Haven Register and Art New England.
Birke’s speech included the story of her parents, Rudolf Bleiweiss, her father who was killed before she was born, and her mother, Mirla Londer, originally from Poland, who came to America with her.
While not having directly experienced a lot of the oppression and violence that existed in the years before her birth, Birke’s insight is still valuable, with professor Ira H. Kleinfeld citing a phrase originally said by Elie Wiesel before introducing Birke, “to listen to a witness is to become a witness.”
During the ceremony, there was also a recording of university President Jens Frederiksen, in which he read a tribute to the Danish people who were oppressed by the Nazi regime and who worked together to save their fellow countrymen who were Jewish.
In his tribute, Frederiksen references the Gerda III, a small boat that in 1943 was used to rescue Jews from Nazi-occupied Denmark.
“The Gerda III and her crew worked for the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service,” Frederiksen said. He told the story of how a Danish Navy officer’s daughter used the boat to smuggle Danish Jews over to Sweden, which had now been accepting Jewish refugees after previously having been neutral in the war.
The event also saw a number of university staff reading a list of over 110 names. These names were friends and family members of the university community who had fallen victims to the Holocaust.
The university’s Provost, Nancy Ortins Savage, spoke on the significance of this event to the university.
“The University of New Haven takes this observance quite seriously, both as a remembrance and an opportunity for bettering society through its sponsorship and cultivation with many related activities and programs,” Savage said.
Examples of these activities and programs include The Myatt Center for Diversity and Inclusion, courses in the College of Arts and Sciences that focus on the Holocaust, the inclusion of Holocaust education and visits to Auschwitz in the Poland Study Abroad program.
The ceremony received a blessing from Rabbi Benjamin E. Scolnic, and was accompanied by music from Thirzah Bendokas on Cello.
