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Jewish Heritage Museum To Hold Special Conference For Educators More than 200 participants are expected to convene for the Eighth Annual Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Conference for Educators, which this year examines Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. The event will take place at the Museum in Battery Park City next Tuesday, March 27 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Jewish resistance is an under-explored, but extremely important part of Holocaust and Jewish history. Contradicting the stereotype that Jews were passive in the face of Nazi domination and slaughter, this conference, made possible through the generous support of Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, will enlighten educators about the brave and dignified acts Jews took to preserve Jewish life and identity under unimaginable circumstances. This conference will help teachers guide their students in understanding the multiple forms of resistance that took place: armed, political, cultural, and spiritual. Learning the conditions facing Jews, attendees will understand why, as one resister reflected, "the miracle was not that Jews could occasionally take up arms, but that a resistance existed at all." Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, Holocaust survivor and author of Love in a World of Sorrow: A Teenage Girl's Holocaust Memoirs, has sponsored the annual conference every year since 2000. Ms. Heller serves on the Board of Trustees, and the Museum is grateful to her strong commitment to Holocaust education. At the Museum and at schools throughout the country, Ms. Heller speaks passionately about her experiences during the war. This year's topic, Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, is of particular significance to Ms. Heller, as her own wartime experiences illustrate a variety of ways that Jews defied the Nazis. Ms. Heller will address the participants during the conference and tell her own first-person narrative of resistance. "The general public has not been exposed to this aspect of history: Jews fought back. Jews fought Nazi occupation within their homes, their communities, in the ghettos and the forests, in the concentration camps, and in their hearts," says Elizabeth Edelstein, the museum's Director of Education. This facet of Holocaust history will be approached with an emphasis on Jewish unity, human dignity, and perseverance and hope against all odds. Professor Samuel Kassow will provide a context for understanding resistance, as well as an examination of the compelling work of Emanuel Ringelblum. Rabbi Jack Bieler will discuss ethical wills and moral imperatives. Children's book author Susan Goldman Rubin will speak about art as resistance and the children of Terezin. Lyubov Abramovich will speak of her experience as a partisan. Curriculum materials to guide educators in teaching about the Holocaust will be available, including a new Teachers Guide for Love in a World of Sorrow. The book offers young people a personal glimpse into the horrors of life under Nazi rule as experienced by a teenage girl, while also showing the universal issues faced by young people: issues of identity, morality, responsibility, love, etc. The Teachers Guide discusses key concepts like decision making, consequences of one's choices, survival against impossible odds, and personal responsibility. Participants are invited to tour the Museum before the conference and after the lectures. The conference will conclude with dinner. The symposium is held in conjunction with the Museum's newest exhibition, Daring to Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust, opening to the public April 16. During the Holocaust, Jews throughout Europe, in individual and collective acts of resistance, sought to undermine the Nazi goal of annihilating the Jewish people. Jews engaged in a range of resistance activities with the aim of preserving Jewish life and dignity despite unimaginable difficulties. Their efforts powerfully refute the popular perception that Jews were passive victims. Through testimony, archival footage, and authentic artifacts, the exhibition will help visitors to understand the dilemmas that Jews faced under impossible circumstances.
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