OULive Episode 12: Yom HaShoa - With Dr. Shay Pilnik

welcome to your life my name is rabbi david Pardo tonight we begin commemorating you mashallah Holocaust Remembrance Day observed on the 27th day of Nisan the anniversary of the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto Jews around the world remember and commemorate the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust there are thank God so many ways to remember commemorate relive I highly recommend joining us tomorrow for a program with Rabbi Israel Meir allow the former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel was also the youngest survivor of the book on wealth concentration camp he's going to be speaking for us tomorrow live 11:50 a.m. ten minutes before noon together dot o u org if you just navigate it together that OE org you'll find that program as well as all the things that we're doing throughout the week for the general public I'd like to introduce my guest at this time dr. Shai pelvic dr. Phil neck is the founding director of the meal and Jenny fish center for Holocaust and genocide studies at Yeshiva University prior to that for the past five years he's been the executive director of the Nathan and Esther pelts Holocaust education Resource Center Shai how are you with Pablo David how are you doing doctor filming such a such a pleasure hopefully under under different circumstances I want to I want to start out you really about love are you really a an expert in this field I really a a question that I had and I think a lot of other people have also which is what exactly is a center for Holocaust and genocide studies it's not we're not talking about a museum we're not talking about a professorship what is it what does it mean for university to start a center what it means for university to start the center the very core is to be able to train the next generation of educators and leaders in the field both professional and lay leaders this means that the fish center for Holocaust and genocide studies which is was facilitated through a gift of a meal a meal fish and the journey fish may she rest in peace a intends to offer a master's degree and a certificate for teachers that would train the next generation of educators and leaders in the field so you're not we're talking about a series of courses and and building a full package for Holocaust Studies and it's very core so the core would be in programs that would our degrees in the field but beyond that the center will do its best to reach beyond the ivory tower to the greater community with teacher work teacher training workshops with webinars with public programs public programs can be lectures they can be life interviews with Holocaust survivors they can be exhibits theater plays the goal would be to make sure that the Holocaust which I see is a complicated topic difficult tragic painful to grapple both on the cognitive and the emotive level on both of them to make sure that the public with particular emphasis on young people would be sufficiently educated about the subject so that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you about it's been over 70 years since the Holocaust Oh American Jews have invested legion amounts of effort and money into Holocaust Studies and have Holocaust museums I you'll tell me in exactly how many states in the United States of America and I grew up next one of the the big ones the Simon Wiesenthal Center has Holocaust Studies been successful meaning what was the what was the goal was if it was to avert another more genocides we haven't done that if it was to avert anti-semitism at least in this country or really in any other country we haven't done it either what were we striving for was it successful and what does it look like it looking to the future great question this is a really hard question I'm sorry dump it on you yeah we've been awfully you know it's great we've been awfully successful and awfully unsuccessful and it really depends on the objectives that we set for ourselves first of all Holocaust education centers I would say it's very core on on character education we also have to point out that Holocaust education is both for Jews and for non-jews and Jews I believe do have a different obligation to remember the history of their people but I as a grandson of survivors for first of all an introductory editorial comment about myself my Holocaust education was not the standard one maybe it was standard in some circles in Israel I always say that my Holocaust education began when I was five years old when I learned that my grandfather lost all of his siblings during the Holocaust that my grandmother was taken from my parents and a few weeks later a few months later they were actually taken to a pit to a ravine and they were shot they were machine gunned by the Nazis and their collaborators and the subject always always intrigued me and I think that myself not in an unusual way came to the topic through a very personal connection sometimes when I actually work with non-jews and you would think that they are just history buffs who come to study the topic you you find out that they also have a personal collection all too often it may be a grandfather who liberated one of the camps or took part in World War two I think that if you dig you know deep down you will always find the personal connection because Holocaust education is about developing cultivating the car the character so I first of all define it as an area within the realms of character education and at the end of the day Holocaust education prompts us through a study of a chapter in history historical chapter to understand human nature and to be able to make better moral decisions now Holocaust education its purpose is not only to make us be better people but at its very very core I would say that the maxim of all Holocaust Museum and Holocaust institutions is never again is the idea that if you go through the property education process you become more committed to making sure that this is not going to happen ever to the Jewish people you will not be either a victim god for being the perpetrator or bystander to such a calamity and on top of that I would say by extension this is not going to happen ever to any group of human beings so of course Holocaust education has many different flavors and contexts and you know as we say she she taught or she teased but at the very core it's about moving you by through the educational process to be a better person aim so when you asked me about success yes or no I would say that in character education what we do is first of all maintenance and we don't have a control group that we can look at and say hey look at these children in the students they never learned anything about the Holocaust and look they are about to commit god forbid the then the next genocide or the next Holocaust so when we do maintenance in education we sow seeds we don't necessarily see the outcome and the flowers that are going to grow from there or the fruits from the sea that we sold I can share with you more anecdotally personal experiences that working in Wisconsin for five years I have met students who chose to do a master's degree in Holocaust Studies or chose to go to law school or chose actually to become managers directors leaders in their community and when you ask them why did you make this choice they said you know we actually I remember as an eighth grader I had a Holocaust survivor who came to my class and spoke for 45 minutes also if you think about your or our middle school education what do we really remember from our middle school education 20 years later we don't remember you know the algebra classes at least not in my case you know that you're the geometry English you know we remember a little bit of the details but if we had a guest speaker a Holocaust survivor I remember it well palek man the math teacher in our school who was a Holocaust survivor I am in my early 40s so I got a chance to interact with survival world survivors were in their 20s and 30s today most Holocaust survivors who speak to students are a child survivors they survived the war as either tween agers as we say today or as young children yeah I really remember the testimonies of Holocaust survivors that that I met throughout my lives so Holocaust education provides this powerful moment that I think remains with people now at the same time so we're awfully successful I'm you mentioned before you wanted to ask me how many Holocaust museums or centers are and I don't know I would estimate them by the dozens there is an association of Holocaust organizations which is an umbrella institution for all of these organizations we're talking about hundreds of Holocaust organization centers museums around the world the so there is a recognition today that the topic is important almost every community in the United States would like to have it say it's Holocaust Museum I heard a story about a Holocaust Museum in a mall right next door to a nail polish the person who told me about it said you know what nail polish like a nest by Pardo that's right and the person who told me about it said you know what maybe that's the Holocaust Museum that you'd have not happened but I think that you know in the way in a way there cannot be too many of them they all show recognition but I also said that we are awfully unsuccessful awfully unsuccessful in the sense that one would think that with this plethora of Holocaust educational institutions around the country and around the world young people would be knowledgeable about the subject we would be able to ask college students the most basic questions about the Holocaust and they would be able to to answer them and there's plenty of indicators I will mention the shown survey conducted by the claims conference back in 2018 there is also a video clip that went viral of students at Penn State University and University of Pennsylvania and other colleges in Pennsylvania being asked the most basic questions about the ha the Holocaust not being able to answer them complete ignorance right ignorance we're talking about 41% of Millennials who think that we're talking about two to three million Jews we're talking about 49 percent of Millennials who would say that who cannot name a single concentration camp out of the 40,000 constructed by the Nazis and their collaborators we are struck by the level of ignorance there is certainly plenty of indicators that something about Holocaust education is broken in so far as the ability to communicate this subject particularly to young people is concerned so you are now starting a center and how as we have it I hear the hear that that we are building people's characters and morals and it's hard to measure we haven't averted subsequent genocides how are we doing things different now going forward and if something is broken how what is it what are you doing that's different I think that what I recognize is broken as the remedy or how to fix what's broken is first of all to acknowledge the fact we will not be able to fix it within one day and also create this one-stop shop once that one-size-fits-all solution to the problem to the program Holocaust education has a variety of approaches the approach that why you is going to adopt is teaching the Holocaust through very specific lens particularly for Jewish lens we see the Holocaust primarily as the show the Holocaust just to give you like a quick background is a greek term that talks about being better offering your lab victimization by the fire show ah by the way is a biblical term that refers to a natural disaster like a flood it wasn't a natural disaster the victimization there wasn't burnt offering to God but sure is in terms of branding is a label that is exclusively associated with the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust if why is show a show are like he said a biblical term is not immoral meaning when nature when a tidal wave comes it's calamity but it's not not man-made it's not man-made and therefore not immoral in the same way or maybe at all but yes how is that yeah it suggests that there's no real term that would capture the magnitude and the depth I would say of this experience the English term is Hooven human a whole band destruction referring to the destruction of the first and the second temple but so this is like the the reader whom the the third destruction it also doesn't capture the magnitude because this was not a temple that was destroyed but rather an entire people him I think that our program is going to focus on the show in a much more blatant way in comparison with other Holocaust centers or Holocaust museums the Shoah and the Holocaust the relationship with them is complex first of all we have to understand that the Holocaust is an experience that means and should mean a lot to humanity not only to Jews first of all when we analyze genocide we have to remember the term genocide the destruction of people was coined during the Holocaust and second virtually all scholars of genocide would agree that the most extreme genocide that has been experienced in in the modern age maybe even in history in human history at large it is the show is the Holocaust so the Holocaust does have some universal components we as Jews must have must be able to recognize these Universal components in the fact that for a lot of people around the world suffering the dehumanization brutalities are associated with the Holocaust and the Holocaust by the way broadly defined by for instance the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that's not the Jewish institution that's a federal institution is defined as the state-sponsored targeting victimization of not only Jews but also the Jehovah's Witnesses people with mental disabilities schirra is a reference to the pacifically jewish district a jewish genocide perpetrated by the nazis you know I see ya know did he see hunters now this is like a this is a big topic amongst uh I heard of somebody told me it's not so great so I haven't seen it yet mixed reviews no not not the time but it's very clear that they didn't have any consultants that they didn't bring in consultants I'm assuming because all the writers were Jewish so they're like we don't need consultants and there's some things there there's so many little things were just like so maddening like that they walk into a shul in Brooklyn in the 70s and they're using art Scrolls that wouldn't be published for another decade or that someone sitting Shiva and a woman walks out and on the she walks out she taps the guy on the shoulder says oral Hashem and whenever they refer to a number the numbers 11 million and I was like never net use in Brooklyn in the 70s I don't care of religious not religious wouldn't say 11 million right I mean is a good it's a great point by the way I heard that in the movie The Ten Commandments there's one Israelite that's standing with with a Breitling watch you know that kind of keeps up right good pops up because I did have consultants I and before about about art scroll Luba severities aim 6 million 11 million it really shows you the point I was I was bringing home before about universalism number 11 million is a number conjured up by by Simon Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal wanted to find a way to define the Holocaust or really find the Holocaust that would ensure that it continues to be appealing for Jews and non-jews and that's how he came up with this perfect formula of six million Jews and five million non-jews we do not know the number of people non-jews who were targeted by the Nazis if you talk about victims of the Third Reich listen there were 27 million Soviet citizens and soldiers combined who died during the war but if you compound a number for instance the Roma the Gypsy the the more proper term appropriate term would be the Roma and Sinti we think that we're talking about between two hundred and fifty thousand to a million we don't really know the numbers nobody has ever did the serious study of the victims of the euthanasia program a Freemasons jehovah's witnesses the the political prisoners the Soviet prisoners of war so I think that Wiesenthal came up with five in order to give the Jewish Holocaust the Shoah its primacy six versus five by the combination of the number eleven frightens me so I wanted to say a few words about that because I think that Holocaust education and Holocaust Remembrance has a future only if we do manage to keep this balance of the Holocaust Universal aspects that I touched upon before and any Jewish aspects V so what I said before is understandably people are always going to refer to the Holocaust it is going to touch people all over the world and you know they may sometimes confuse what one group of victims of the Nazis and others but they would look at Hitler and this grand program of destruction that he came up with if what is the remain of the Holocaust if what remains of the Holocaust in terms of memory in twenty thirty years is only this vague memory that there was a dictator a ruthless dictator named Hitler and he killed people human beings eleven million human beings this would be incredible I think insult and injustice particularly done to the victims when we think about the history of Native Americans in this country we don't want to study this history just for the sake of studying the I would say negative effects of colonialism when we study the history of african-americans during african-american history we don't just want to come up with this general moral lesson about how bad slavery is slavery of all sorts slavery and the Roman Empire or the Mesopotamian Empire in other words I think that when you study and very dark and painful saga that pertains to the history of the people you have to study it with respect you have to study it by paying attention to the details and to the experiences of the victims not only to see for instance in the case of the Holocaust to see the Holocaust as a grand program of brutalization of a people to study how the SS s the SS is moving from one town to another rounding up people and shooting them but also to study the experiences if diaries through the memoirs of survivors if materials sometimes by the way even during the war through portraits reportage created by the by the victims so why you for instance is going to have a center we are going to be we are a Holocaust and genocide studies centre I do not think the word genocide is not valid I think that when you study talking about character education when you have engage in a deep study of the Holocaust it makes you already committed to all other genocides that happened later and also to preventing genocide but in order to do justice to the subject and to the victims you have to study it as we say in Latin as sua generis in other words as a genre as a type in and of itself without just universalizing it I came upon an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a couple of years ago I was so upset I gotta tell you and it was I mean 70 years ago you know today 70 years ago today 73 years ago a story about a girl in Frank she's a high school student from Holland a Dutch high school high school student who was hidden by the who hid so she was hiding during the war and then she was found she was discovered and taken to a Nazi camp no mentioning of the fact that she was Jewish also when we think about Anne Frank so again when you talk to me about what's broken in Holocaust education too much emphasis on on the very powerful compelling story of Anne Frank's attempt to survive and murder and Frank was a a Jew from the West she was in hiding hidden by buying by non-jews in Amsterdam the centerpiece of the Holocaust it's epicenter is Poland in Poland we had 3.3 million Jews before the war and 92% of them about 92% were murdered during World War two during the Holocaust a most Jews experiencing the Holocaust are not in hiding their fundamental experience for the most part is being taken home the ghetto being put on a train in a in a sealed a train car and being deported to to a death camp or an extermination facility in which they would be you know dragged off the train and killed within a matter of an hour through by poisoning with lethal gas so again I think that we have to recognize the fact that the Holocaust has the capacity to change lives and change worlds and hearts that the Jews in the non-jewish world humanity at large is always going to be intrigued by the subject but this must not be must not be done at the expense of understanding that the Holocaust is intrinsically a Jewish experience the Holocaust to me is primarily the Shwa I think that if we look at the experiences of other victims of the Nazis they are different Adolf Hitler in his first essay is his first letters in my camp is not rambling on and on and on and on about how much he hates the Jehovah's Witnesses for instance clearly the Holocaust ties into the very DNA the very deep tissues of the Jewish people in terms of our existence in Europe our existence as a people in that part of the world for 2,000 years the Holocaust is tightly linked to the story of anti-semitism both the medieval and modern anti-semitism and during antiquity and from everything I described to you here I think you can see that there was a critical need to establish a holocaust center that would highlight this point of views that doesn't mean that we are going to make all Millennials now be able to recognize more than one camp and if you ask me and the survey shows that they cannot name a single camp if they could name the word my Dannic if they could recognize the word Bell Bell jets or Sobibor would that make Holocaust education of different quality not necessarily and our focus is going to be educating teachers and you getting future educators I would for instance love to also work with young people who will be in the future lay leaders of boards of Holocaust centers and Holocaust Museum across the United States for me this is a part of a very deep and personal battle to shape Holocaust a memory for the next couple of decades so let me ask you a question about what you've been talking about the the tension between universalism and particularism and the Holocaust and also people who are watching should read your article in tablet where you you play out this your internal struggle actually through your career and how that that's transformed you I I staffed a march of living as a trip rabbi and it was it was a strange experience for me personally a this is my first time to Poland but B I was there as as the rabbi to other people so I was there for myself I was there for other people see my grandchild of survivors that D I never met they died before I was born so I I grew up with the Holocaust I don't remember when I learned about the Holocaust there was no moment it was always there but I never met the people and I found the trip in such in so many ways it wasn't a from' trip it was an orthodox trip the the messaging of the trip I found to be very III don't say not all over the place but but a lot in conflict you know the the marshal living trips are they go now so you spend you only show ah you spend in beer canal and then you spend your months in Israel so maybe the message of Israel is like we should have gone to Israel but then you visit you meet meet people in Poland who are trying to rebuild life in Poland so the message is we should stay and we should you know strength strength and winning is staying and rebuilding not going to Israel and then on the way to the March on the way to Auschwitz watching a video from a trip called the march of things called march of faith and remembrance something like that they were they taking on Jews on this march the march of living is specifically a a Jewish trip and they take non-jews on a trip and everyone goes around saying why am i marching and watching this video as I'm not going to the camp where my own Bobby for the first time recreating my bubbies experience I never met and these people are marching for you you know this marginalized group or this oppressed group or and this this woman this woman says I'm marching for all the Palestinian victims of Israeli brutality I don't like this is wild like she's on a trip being funded by you know Zionist Jews I am marching for the Palestinian children who are victimized and I just thought I realized in that moment the Holocaust is so big it's so massive that you can kind of stand on top of it and pitch your message and you can walk away from this the message of the Holocaust is that we have to resist Israeli tyranny then certainly you know there's all these other messages that are in conflict and you know back in hinds 600 14th commandments rule the day for American Judaism for so many for so many decades it was the the go to fray so to sum up what is how are we supposed to walk away from from from nashola what is the enduring message or how do we deal with with this tension with these competing messages you have thoughts on this yes I think that the memory of the show are like any memories both political and politicized we have to make sure we do our best to understand its usability and also understand that it may one day if we are not careful be used against us against the Jewish people for instance the example that you just brought up the Holocaust can be used against grandchildren of survivors like you and me will for instance BDS pro-palestinian propaganda only if and it can be effective only if society and as large at large I think is not informed about its core components so first of all the Holocaust is the in my opinion the victimization of the Jewish people it's a program that never happened before never happen after and unlike all other destructive programs the what would you what was unique about the Holocaust was the idea devised by Adolf Hitler it really came up in his mind that the world should be completely cleansed completely expunged of one group of people the Jewish people so the intent of the Holocaust was very different from either genocidal activities that happened they both both before him and after the war there was a Hitler never really intended to kill Jewish engineers Jewish intellectuals Jewish communists for instance in Zionists that was not the intention the idea was that everyone once he reached finishing that you are a Jew according to Nazi racial science and racial law you committed the crime of being Jewish a very severe crime and you should not exist here anymore this is why also we see a difference between the way the Nazis target Jews and non-jews during the war going back again to my comment about the Holocaust and the 11 million is a term that I think can be fairly misleading you asked me before we talked about Shaw or Holocaust I'm comfortable using the Holocaust but as soon as I start to teach the subject I immediately refer to the Shoah and I do it with a great deal of respect for instance to the Nazi targeting of of the Roma population the Roma by the way do have a term called param param Oz that denotes their own show and I actually think that we as Jews do have an obligation to study the targeting of other people but the Holocaust cannot be a misappropriated I would by the way prefer that the Holocaust you know sometimes people feel that when you study history what's history study the past studying the past there's a great deal I think today of underestimation disrespect towards the field of history people want to know what's the practical value of it I had actually a lot of people who told me listen shy don't be a scholar don't be a historian you know you are going to a school then talk to the children about what they need to do with this information tomorrow and that's a very problematic thing so I would say it's problematic for somebody to light a candle and maybe we shouldn't even go into it light a candle at Auschwitz because of the the so-called the Israeli brutalities that you mentioned before and but at the same token when we talk about the Holocaust is a way to understand bullying in the playground when we talk about the Holocaust as a panacea for domestic abuse and when we talk about the Holocaust a way to learn how to do conflict management better that to me is a problem so here I'm talking to a rabbi and I think that I can you know as a part of this dialogue conjure up the difference between lachemann cherish my Torah for its second Torah not for its sake mmm as a little I'm a big advocate into a lachemann and I think that Holocaust Studies should should also be recognized at lachemann and from La Leche MA we can also come to actually from the study lachemann we may be able to understand the ramifications of shallowly Sh'ma and I will explain that first of all we have to study the history we have to study the specifics we have to study the context of the Holocaust the geographical historical one the pre more divine Mar years a Jewish life in the ghettos Jewish life in the camps we have so many for instance we're gonna offer a course that while you in our program about rabbinic response or during the war which is a fairly the reaction of of the Orthodox community which is a fairly neglected day in subject I think that once we give them enough respect to the subject we are going to be much better at understanding how how it can be used and I personally would not recommend to apply it too quickly for any practical purposes that to me is not a way to give proper respect to the subject if I can make another comment about the trips that you mentioned they tend to be all over the place but they are also very powerful and highly recommended I have worked I've learned the number of student trips to Eastern Europe to places of the Holocaust I think that it's him it's a mistake on the part of a leader to expect students to a walk through the grounds or walk the grounds of Auschwitz and get out of the gate you know normally like when you - birkenau right outside beer canal there is actually a coffee shop I was actually pretty stunned there is umbrellas with a Pepsi a logo on the umbrellas and people are actually buying drinks and buying souvenirs I don't expect people to come out of a beer can now and tell you this one hour toward there changed my life all too often it starts to sink in and to dawn on the participants sometimes weeks after the trip sometimes the years after the trip but I let it rip four years ago and two years ago and in communications with the students still I see how impactful that experience was in in making them having them make life-changing decisions long term it's Yama show us today what people are watching now was one thing that people should do or take away or commit to or spend time on today I would recommend to try to think about the show as one individual jewel multiplied by six million for me maybe it was easy to do it because I grew up with survivors you mentioned your D system the Holocaust survivor grandparents that you didn't know I was fortunate to know mine very well my grandmother died at the age of 95 just a few months ago um I I think that we have plenty of resources to listen to testimonies of survivors receive a university by the way has a fascinating project called NNN names not numbers that interviews a Holocaust survivor survivors as an experiential learning project for high school students yes you're welcome to take a look at that project or go to eyewitness or new tube I would say do yourself a favor and listen to a testimony of one Holocaust survivor during the 24 hour duration of the Amish or dr. pail knock thank you so much for your time and thank you so much for sharing my friend thank you it's a pleasure thank you shy and thank you to you for joining this incredibly important conversation I'd like to again encourage you to join us tomorrow 11:50 a.m. ten minutes before noon together org rabbi a strong mayor Lau speaking about being a bearing witness to history and remember our obligation not just to those who perished but to those who survived we remain here we are here for a purpose and we have an obligation to that purpose stay healthy