{"id":69992,"date":"2019-05-06T17:05:10","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T15:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=69992"},"modified":"2019-05-03T08:16:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T06:16:53","slug":"13-05-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=69992","title":{"rendered":"A Vienna high school acknowledges its own harsh truth about the Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"30%\" class=\"center alignleft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.reunion68.com\/Biuletyn\/img\/jta.png\"><\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #000080;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #000080; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2019\/05\/02\/global\/a-vienna-high-school-acknowledges-its-own-harsh-truth-about-the-holocaust\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A Vienna high school acknowledges its own harsh truth about the Holocaust<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>TOBY AXELROD<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"100%\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/5-2-19-anschluss.jpg\"><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><em>Austrian members of the League of German Girls wave Nazi flags in support of the German annexation of Austria, in Vienna, March 1938. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u2014 On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day,&nbsp;a public high school in the Austrian capital corrected its own historical record.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Along with a memorial to World War II soldiers, the Gymnasium&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.5\">Kundmanngasse<\/span>&nbsp;now also has a plaque with the names of all 50 Jewish students expelled from the Vienna school exactly 81 years ago. And the life stories of these pupils \u2013 some tragically cut short \u2013 are contained in a book written by teenagers now attending the school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The dedication of the new memorial on April 25 came just as a new survey reveals a disheartening lack of knowledge about the Holocaust among adults in Austria.&nbsp;But the&nbsp;<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.claimscon.org\/austria-study\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study<\/strong><\/span><\/a>&nbsp;also found a profound commitment to Holocaust education among Austrians, particularly among younger adults.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The study was commissioned by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and released May 2, Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Among the survey findings:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">58 percent of Austrians do not know that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">36 percent of respondents said they believed people still talk too much about the Holocaust;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">28 percent said they believed that many Austrians acted heroically to save Jews, when in fact only 109 are recognized as rescuers by&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.6\">Yad&nbsp;<\/span><span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.7\">Vashem<\/span>, Israel\u2019s Holocaust memorial and archive.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">On the positive side, 82 percent of respondents \u2013 and 87 percent of younger ones \u2014 said they believe that Holocaust education is important.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Data was collected from a randomly selected, demographically representative sample of 1,000 Austrian adults. It was analyzed by&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.8\">Schoen<\/span>&nbsp;Consulting in New York.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"100%\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/5-2-19-austria-plaque.jpg\"><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><em>A plaque, reading \u201cIn Memory,\u201d at the Gymnasium Kundmanngasse commemorates 50 Jewish students expelled from the Vienna school exactly 81 years ago. (Gymnasium Kundmanngasse)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cOn one hand, there are some troubling, problematic results,\u201d Greg Schneider, the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.9\">the Jewish Telegraphic Agency<\/span>. \u201cOn the other hand, there is a recognition of the importance of learning about the Holocaust, which is very hopeful. It gives us a road map to ensure that the&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.10\">Shoah<\/span>&nbsp;is taught in schools and given the proper context and support.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The first duty of Holocaust education is \u201cto honor the memory of those who were killed,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish Communities in Austria and Vienna, said in a statement, \u201cThe lack of knowledge among many Austrians revealed through this study sets a mission for not only teachers and politicians but all society. A sincere handling of antisemitic incidents today and misrepresentations of the Shoah is crucial.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Compared to Germany, Austria was notoriously late in confronting its role in the persecution and genocide of its Jewish population. What might be called willful ignorance changed dramatically in the mid-1980s, when the Nazi past of then-chancellor candidate Kurt Waldheim was put on the table. He was elected despite the questions raised about his role.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In 2000, Austria\u2019s Ministry of Education, Science and Research established a Holocaust education program \u2013&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.11\">errinern<\/span>.at, or \u201cremembrance.at\u201d \u2013 that oversees educational projects on the national and state level&nbsp;<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.erinnern.at\/bundeslaender\/oesterreich\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>with help from other foundations<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Its programs reach thousands of teachers and students each year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Today there is a \u201cbroad societal consensus that Austria has a responsibility and a share in this history,\u201d said Martina&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.15\">Maschke<\/span>, chair of&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.16\">errinern<\/span>.at, in an interview before the Claims Conference survey\u2019s release. Since the Holocaust is a paradigm for genocides, \u201cthere will never be enough Holocaust education.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">That\u2019s especially clear today, Maschke said, with the rise of the right wing and an increase in anti-<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.17\">Semitism<\/span>&nbsp;from migrants \u201csocialized in Muslim countries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cOf course, the administration is always one step behind the political&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.18\">factum<\/span>, and this is something that makes me rather sad,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think that this goes for every society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In fact, Schneider said, the results of the survey in Austria are similar to those in recent surveys that the Claims Conference commissioned in the United States (<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.claimscon.org\/study\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>April 2018<\/strong><\/span><\/a>) and Canada (<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.claimscon.org\/study-canada\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>January 2019<\/strong><\/span><\/a>). He said they share an \u201cappalling lack of knowledge, and a tremendous commitment to the importance of Holocaust education.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">It was just such a commitment that inspired Katharina&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.19\">Fersterer<\/span>, a history and English teacher at the Gymnasium&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.20\">Kundmanngasse<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.21\">Fersterer<\/span>, 29, had long been interested in Holocaust history. Austria\u2019s Ministry of Education sent her to a summer program at&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.22\">Yad<\/span>&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.23\">Vashem<\/span>&nbsp;two years ago, and she returned determined to add to her school\u2019s historical record in time for its 150th anniversary this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cMy principal said, \u2018Yes, let\u2019s do this,\u2019\u201d Fersterer recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Her students found the names of 50 Jewish students forced to leave the school in April 1938, shortly after Germany annexed Austria.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cBut we didn\u2019t stop at that. We wanted to know what happened to them,\u201d Fersterer said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">It turned out that most of the former Jewish students had been able to escape Nazi-occupied Austria via the Kinderstransport, a rescue operation that brought Jewish children from Germany, Austria and then-Czechoslovakia to England in 1938-39.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cBut some were also killed in concentration camps,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The students started looking for descendants of the survivors. Ultimately the project, including art and video, involved teachers and students in other departments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">That\u2019s when Elia Ben-Ari of Arlington, Virginia, received her first&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.25\">Facebook<\/span>&nbsp;message from Samuel, a 17-year-old senior in Fersterer\u2019s class who asked that his last name not be used.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">His message came \u201cout of the blue,\u201d Ben-Ari said in a recent interview, \u201cfrom somebody who said he was a student doing a project about my father. My first reaction was, \u2018Who is this person? How do I know this is legitimate?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Samuel had chosen to write about two students \u2013 Ernst&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.26\">Ratzer<\/span>, who did not survive the Holocaust, and Martin&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.27\">Buchbinder<\/span>, who was sent to safety in England in 1939 and later changed his name to Moshe Ben Ari. After living in Israel, he eventually settled on suburban New York\u2019s Long Island with his family.&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mylife.com\/moshe-ben-ari\/e17027289366\"><span style=\"color: #000080; text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>He died in 2011.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"100%\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/5-2-19-ben-ari-austria-1.jpg\"><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><em>Moshe Ben Ari was one of the children expelled from the Vienna school. A current student at the school has been researching his life story. (Courtesy of Elia Ben-Ari)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Luckily, Moshe Ben Ari had written an autobiography \u2013 \u201cMy&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.28\">Pre<\/span>-American History\u201d \u2013 that gave Samuel enough information to go on. But it was just the beginning of his research.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cIt was really a surprise to actually find a relative, and when it turned out that she was actually his daughter, I was obviously very excited and happy,\u201d Samuel said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">On April 25, the school held a ceremony and dedication of a plaque remembering the 50 former Jewish students.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cWe now have a kind of book with all their life stories,\u201d&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.29\">Fersterer said<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">That book sits alongside Moshe Ben Ari\u2019s&nbsp;autobiography for anyone to read, in the room with the plaque, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cThere is no question that there are teachers who manage to succeed, who are doing a lot,\u201d said&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.30\">Richelle<\/span>&nbsp;Bud&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.31\">Caplan<\/span>, director of the European Department at&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.32\">Yad<\/span>&nbsp;<span id=\"m_5339793880762545892:5qb.33\">Vashem\u2019s<\/span>&nbsp;International School for Holocaust Studies and a member of the Claims Conference survey task force.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to do with funding. It has to do with support from the school administration to create a local momentum, a learning community,\u201d she said. \u201cWe very much want people to focus on individual stories, so youngsters can connect,\u201d and understand that \u201cthe majority of those who lived during this complex and difficult period did not survive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cOur school has a memorial remembering the fallen soldiers of World War II, but it didn\u2019t have one memorial for the Jewish students,\u201d said Samuel, who walks the same halls and climbs the same stairs that they did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cI can imagine it was terrible,\u201d he said. On the students\u2019 last day, \u201cmobs formed at the entrance of our school, where a few hardcore teachers and students were spitting and shouting names. So it was not a very kind goodbye, as you can imagine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">As for Ben-Ari, she regrets that she could not attend the dedication ceremony. But \u201cI think my father would have been gratified to know that somebody read his history and cared about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\">\n<div class=\"content-alignment\" id=\"content\">\n<div class=\"yt-uix-button-panel\" id=\"watch-description\">\n<div id=\"watch-description-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><em>Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion&#8217;68,<\/em><em><br \/>\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion&#8217;68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.<br \/>\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:<br \/>\n<\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em><a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"mailto:webmaster@reunion68.com\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr style=\"width: 100%;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Vienna high school acknowledges its own harsh truth about the Holocaust TOBY AXELROD Austrian members of the League of German Girls wave Nazi flags in support of the German annexation of Austria, in Vienna, March 1938. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) \u2014 On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day,&nbsp;a public high school in the Austrian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69992"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70021,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69992\/revisions\/70021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}