scholarly journals Pieces Of The Past: The Holocaust Diary Of Rose Rabinowitz by C. Matas

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Frail
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Foster Home ◽  
Her Family ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust

Matas, Carol. Pieces Of The Past: The Holocaust Diary Of Rose Rabinowitz. Toronto: Scholastic Canada, 2013. Print. Dear Canada.The “Dear Canada” series from Scholastic recently celebrated its tenth anniversary with now more than 30 titles. It includes fictional diaries written from the point of view of a child or teenager during a time of historical significance. Pieces of the Past opens with Rose in her third Winnipeg foster home having been given the diary by her “not-father” Saul. Her guardian and a psychologist by trade, Saul suggests she write in it to help remember the past. At first she is reluctant to delve into her memories of such a dark and brutal time: “this little book seems far too small to write down ‘what happened’.  How will I ever fit what is stuffed into my head into these tiny pages, all the wild waking nightmares tamed onto these straight lines…” However she progressively reveals more with each entry, interspersing her present-day teenage hardships of trying to fit in at school and in someone else’s home, with the atrocities she and her family endured during the Holocaust.The entries are intimate and immediately gripping. Alternating between her teenage and more child-like voice from the past heightens the emotional connection readers will feel with Rose, whose name was changed from “Rozia” when she arrived in Canada from her native Poland. She describes the gradual and confusing process of losing all of their possessions, their home and finding shelter with various other families in cramped apartments and eventually ending up in a lice-ridden underground dug out.  Although in our present day, media-driven society we have become somewhat desensitized to the atrocities of the Holocaust and war in general, Rose’s story re-personalizes the tragedy in a very powerful way. As she begins to piece together the circumstances of the deaths and disappearances of her family members, we mourn with her. Some of the subplots and underlying themes will also resonate with youth of any generation. Her only friend, Susan, is the victim of bullying. Issues associated with foster care and blended families are also explored. Although at the conclusion of the diary, Rose’s circumstances are much improved it is by no means a fairy-tale ending. The author provides a subtle moral conclusion with no utopian delusions: “So diary, no storybook life for me. I know I can never really be safe. And I know that people who think they can be are just kidding themselves. But I know I can try to be good. And I will.”  The book contains a lot of useful material for the classroom. There is a historical section that provides a summary of the major events recounted in the diary. There is also a timeline of the Warsaw Ghetto, a selection of black and white photographs, and some reproductions of primary source material from the war such as a young Polish emigrant’s identification document and newspaper articles about the arrival of Jewish orphans in Canada. This book is recommended for children Grades 4-6 and higher. It is an excellent addition to the series, and like another famous diary, Rose’s story will be forever etched in the reader’s psyche.Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Kim Frail   Kim is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. Children’s literature is a big part of her world at work and at home. She also enjoys gardening, renovating and keeping up with her kids.

scholarly journals Specters of the Past: Transgenerational Memory in Miriam Katin’s Graphic Memoirs We Are On Our Own and Letting It Go

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Andrea Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Her Family ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Graphic Memoirs

This paper thematizes the topic of the eyewitness report based on Miriam Katin’s transgenerational point of view on the Holocaust, which has a cathartic impact on the author through self-reflexivity. In We Are On Our Own, Miriam Katin draws on her own cultural and transgenerational memory, which is heavily influenced by her mother. The author unveils her parents’ story and elaborates on how she, as the child of Holocaust survivors, has dealt with the atrocities of the Holocaust throughout her life. In her second memoir, Letting It Go, Katin expands this point of view and not only addresses the Holocaust from the view of the second generation, but adds another layer to dealing with the Nazi past, namely the point of view of the third generation. Accordingly, it is through Katin’s son, Ilan, that Miriam learns not to encounter Berlin stereotypically and embittered anymore. Modern day Berlin welcomes Katin and her family with open arms and is not comparable with the former capital of National Socialism anymore. Therefore, both graphic memoirs can be regarded as a process of coming to terms with the trauma of the Holocaust through the technique of self-reflexivity.

scholarly journals Śmierć porwana. O terezińskiej sztuce Hledáme strašidlo Hanuša Hachenburga z 1943 roku

2019 ◽  
Vol 168 ◽  
pp. 327-335
Author(s):  
Agata Firlej
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Zygmunt Bauman ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Puppet Theatre ◽  
East And West

The stolen death: About the play Hledáme strašidlo by Hanuš Hachenburg from 1943The puppet theatre play Hledame strašidlo by Hanuš Hachenburg was written in the Terezín/Theresienstadt ghetto in 1943 and over 50 years was hidden in the archive until it was presented to readers and viewers in the 1990s — but it turned out to be still surprisingly valid and cogent. The author, a 14-year-old prisoner of the ghetto, used the conventions of the puppet theatre, the carnival and the fairy tales. The mythical or fairy-tale-like “timelessness” allowed him to show the absurdity of Nazism and — yet unnamed — the Holocaust. The main character of the play, the King, captures Death itself, which soon becomes so ordinary and kitschy that no one is afraid of her. The confinement of Death — a motif known, among others, from the myth of Sisyphus — is an important theme of the theatre in Terezín; it appears also in the German-speaking opera by Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, Der Keiser von Atlantis Emperor of Atlantis. In this article, I show how the old themes of enslaved Death and the dance macabre between extasy and destruction become the symbols of the war, and indeed of the 20th century, which culminates in the devastating forces of the great ideologies and in which there can be found the origins of retrotopia, which is now, according to Zygmunt Bauman, the dominating point of view in East- and West-European and in American discourse.  Únos smrti. O terezίnske divadelnί hře Hledáme strašidlo Hanuše Hachenburga z roku 1943Divadelní hra Hledáme strašidlo od Hanuše Hachenburga byla napsána v ghettu Terezín / Theresienstadt v roce 1943 a více než padesát let byla ukryta v archivu, aby v 90. letech si našla cestu pro své čtenáře a diváky — a ukázalo se, že je překvapivě platná a přitažlivá. Autor, čtrnáctiletý vězeň ghetta, využil konvencí loutkového divadla, karnevalu a pohádek. Mýtická nebo pohádková „nadčasovost“ mu umožnila ukázat absurditu nacismu a — tehdy ještĕ nemenovaného — holocaustu. Hlavní postava hry, Král, zachytí samotnou Smrt, která se brzy stane tak obyčejnou a kyčovitou, že se ji nikdo nebude bát. Únos smrti — motiv známý mimo jiné i z mýtu Sisyfa — je důležitým tématem divadla v Terezíně; objevuje se také v německojazyčné operě Petera Kiena a Viktora Ullmanna Der Keizer von Atlantis Císař Atlantidy. V tomto textu ukazuji, jak se staré motivy zotročené Smrti a danse macabre mezi extázi a zničení stávají symbolem války a celého dvacátého století, v který vyvrcholily ničivými sily velké ideologie a kde lze nalézt počátky retrotopie, která je podle Zygmunta Baumana dominantním hlediskem ve východním, západoevropským a americkým diskurzu.

scholarly journals Niedom. Przekraczenie idei domu rodzinnego w mieszkaniu migracyjnym

2014 ◽  
pp. 541-665
Author(s):  
Magdalena Łukasiuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Memory Space ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Historical Education ◽  
The Individual

How is the memory of the Holocaust and Auschwitz seen today among young Poles and Germans, is it different from that of the past? What are the differences in the memory space and education about the Holocaust between the two countries, and what do they have in common? The article is based on three pillars, and what served as foundations for them was a survey conducted with Polish and German youth in late April and May 2013, immediately after their visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first part concerns the individual and family memory of young people from Poland and Germany, who came to the Memorial and Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau (MMA-B); there are also issues related to the intergenerational transmission of war fate of the relatives. The second pillar takes on teaching about the Holocaust at school and the evaluation of historical education from the student’s point of view. There are presented the opinions of many historians, teachers and educators struggling with the effects of the reform of history teaching. The third and most extensive part of the article presents the issues related to historical education in the memorial site and young people confronting their past experience, knowledge, notions with the authenticity of MMA-B. Fundamental questions has been raised about the sense of maintaining authenticity of the memorial site and the reason that makes the memory of the Holocaust such an important task for future generations.

scholarly journals Orchards by H. Thompson

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Huck
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
American Girl ◽  
Her Family ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Media ◽  
The University

Thompson, Holly. Orchards, New York: Delacorte Press, 2011. Print. Orchards is a poetic novel written by Holly Thompson. It tells the story of Kana Goldberg, an American girl, half-Jewish and half-Japanese, who is sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family in Japan working on their mikan farm. (Mikan is a type of Japanese orange.) A school-mate, Ruth, has committed suicide and Kana is a member of the group of girls who had excluded and locked horns with the girl over a boy, not realizing at the time that she suffered from bi-polar disease and that she was reaching out to the boy for support. The book is less about Kana accepting responsibility for her involvement in the confrontation with Ruth than it is about mending relationships and the process of Kana overcoming her anger and feelings of guilt. The book challenges us to set aside our own pre-conceived notions about bullying and consider the idea that everyone is vulnerable to depression, and that what gets sensationalized in the media as bullying is not always a black and white case of cruelty, but is sometimes a case of misunderstanding that escalates in dramatic fashion when emotions are mixed in. Kana’s fixation on Ruth and the pressure of a community that blames her and the other girls constitute an invisible burden that puts her at risk of the unthinkable, too. “Suicide can spread like a virus,” Kana’s grandmother warns. Kana’s ‘exile’ to a strange country turns out to be a chance to ground herself amongst her family, make peace with the presence of death in life, find confidence in who she is, and learn how to make a difference in the world of the living. Readers expecting a remorseful narrative may feel unsatisfied, but because the book reads quickly and the language is pleasurable, they may also decide to re-read it for a second impression. The reason it reads quickly is that Thompson has chosen to tell the story in a kind of free-flowing verse. Stanzas of varying lengths define sentence-like sequences, with the breaks between stanzas replacing the conventional sentence demarcators of full stops and capitalized first words. Line breaks play the role of commas, controlling the flow without impeding it. These syntactic arrangements complement the imagistic and uncluttered style of the writing, giving an inward, contemplative feel to the story. Because it is a subtle book, it would be most suitable for an older teen who is perceptive and has literary sensibilities. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: John HuckJohn Huck is a metadata and cataloguing librarian at the University of Alberta. He holds an undergraduate degree in English literature and maintains a special interest in the spoken word. He is also a classical musician and has sung semi-professionally for many years.

scholarly journals Globalne tezy, lokalne przemilczenia

2012 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Krzywiec
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
European Experience ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The One ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Insight Into

Global theses with local omissionsTimothy Snyder’s book is an ambitious monograph which attempts at placing Shoah in a more appropriate context of the murderous fight between the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Russia from the perspective of civilian victims. However, the book offers no new evidence or new arguments. On the one hand, most of the interpretations come from established scholars. On the other hand, Bloodlands presents a sort of synthesis of the latest discussions of the Holocaust historians and Eastern European experience of the Soviet rule. Nonetheless, as Snyder himself has stated, the novelty of the book lies rather in a parallel insight into systems and events. Such “parallelism” must, and surely will, trigger a wealth of reflections.The review article focuses on one particular aspect of the book. One of the most suggestive assumptions of Snyder’s method is that the book overcomes national narratives by examining the cruelest period in the 20th century from the above-mentioned universal point of view. However, for Snyder, a leading scholar of Eastern European, and first and foremost, Polish history, these “national” motifs play a significant, and often even crucial role in his book.Yet, as it is claimed in the review, the author frequently cannot free himself from them. On the contrary, his narrative delivers systematic permeations of Polish martyrological stereotypes and biases, which in the end results in a reproduction of many handbook schemes and even metaphorical figures from the so-called Polish “historical politics”. This also leads to many false and misleading juxtapositions with the most striking one being the comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Warsaw Uprising.Interestingly enough, evading many national particularities, Snyder relapses in deeply rooted national, and to be specific, Polish tales. He proves to be more “national” than many other “national” scholars critical in their research of this period.

scholarly journals The Swazi People by R. Van der Wiel

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Cotton Cloth ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The North ◽  
Full Page ◽  
Sufficient Detail ◽  
Publishing Group

Van der Wiel, Renée.  The Swazi People.  Gallo Manor, South Africa: Awareness Publishing Group, 2012. Print.South Africa describes itself as “one rainbow nation going forward”, but within that rainbow there are eleven indigenous South African peoples.  The Swazi People is one of eleven volumes in the African Cultures of South Africa series, which presents the cultures for readers at the upper elementary level.  The other volumes include the cultures of The Khoikhoi, The Ndebele, The North Sotho, The San, The South Sotho, The Tsonga-Shangaan, The Tswana, The Venda, The Xhosa, and The Zulu.In The Swazi People, Renée Van der Wiel describes their arts and crafts, beliefs, clothes, history, houses, language, leaders, marriage, music and dance, recipes, and way of life.  The book incorporates many Swazi words, which are listed in the glossary at the back of the book.  For example, mahiya (cotton cloth), gogo (grandmother) and lobola (marriage gift, usually cattle) are all listed in the glossary.This volume is attractively produced and brightly coloured.  It opens with a full-page map of South Africa that shows the historical movements of the Swazi people and highlights their homelands.  Text and images are presented on alternate pages.  The professional quality images are usually full-page and are either historical black and white photos or modern colour photos of Swazi people engaged in traditional activities.  There is also an index, which improves the book's usefulness as an elementary research text.The text is written in age-appropriate language and deals with the subjects in sufficient detail that as an adult, I was able to learn from it.  In general, the tone is objective and non-judgemental.  For example, "[i]n 1973, King Sobhuzall and the Imbokoduo National Movement stopped all other political parties from taking part in elections in Swaziland. (…) After only five years of being a democracy, Swaziland became a country ruled by a king."  Where there is bias present, it is more in the form of presenting the Swazi point of view: "But the Boers did not care about looking after the Swazi people – all they wanted was to get through to the sea without having to travel through British territory.".This sturdily bound volume is an excellent work and is highly recommended for public and elementary school libraries.  Highly recommended:  4 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 

scholarly journals Special Section: Conceptualizations of the Holocaust in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine: Historical Research, Public Debates, and Methodological Disputes. Foreword

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-128
Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
System A ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Many ◽  
Second World

This article is part of the special cluster titled Conceptualizations of the Holocaust in Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine since the 1990s, guest edited by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe. This special section examines how debates on local participation in the mass murder of the Jews during the Second World War have evolved in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. The comparative approach adopted in this collection has highlighted the common problems in these four countries in coming to terms with the “dark past”—those aspects of the national past that provoke shame, guilt, and regret. Like the contributors to this collection I believe it is debate among historians that offers the best chance to move forward and that the intervention of politicians has had a clearly deleterious effect. This debate needs to be conducted in an open and collegial manner although we may differ strongly in our conclusions. We should always remember that the past cannot be altered. We can only accept the tragic and shocking events that have occurred and try to learn from them. This is a process that could begin in northeastern Europe only after the collapse of the communist system—a coming to terms with the many neglected and taboo aspects of the past in all four countries. The first stage of approaching such issues has usually been from a moral point of view—a settlement of long-overdue accounts, often accompanied by apologies for past behaviour. It seemed that we were reaching a second stage, where apologetics would increasingly be replaced by careful and detailed research based on archives and reliable first-hand testimony.

scholarly journals Ama itzultzailea memorien transmisio-bideetan: Martutene eleberriaren irakurketa bat

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miren Ibarluzea ◽  
Izaro Arroita
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
The Past

LABURPENA Saizarbitoriaren Martutene (2012) eleberriko Julia protagonistaren bitartekaritza-rola dugu aztergai. Itzultzailea da, eta Martin bikotekide idazleari eta haren testuari leial izan beharrez sortzen zaizkion kezkei eta nekeei erreparatuko diegu. Zubi-lan horrekin bat interpretatuko dugu Juliak familian egiten duen bitartekaritza: memorien transmisioari buruz gogoetatzen du, semea bitarteko. Kasu horretan ere, iraganarekiko leialtasuna eta horrek ondorengoei eragin diezaiekeen zama izango ditu Juliak gogoetagai. Ondorioztatuko dugu bitartekari leialaren irudia problematizatuaz, ezabatzeak eta birkokatzeak proposatzen dituela ama itzultzaileak transmisio-bide gisa, ikuspegi kritiko batetik. RESUMEN En el presente trabajo se analiza el papel mediador de Julia, protagonista de la novela Martutene (2012) de Ramon Saizarbitoria. Julia es traductora y visibilizaremos aquí las inquietudes y fatigas que le hace sentir la necesidad de ser fiel al texto y al autor que traduce, su compañero sentimental Martin. Interpretaremos, asimismo, la mediación que realiza Julia en el seno familiar, en tanto en cuanto reflexiona sobre la transmisión de la memoria con respecto a su hijo. También en este caso Julia se preocupa por la lealtad al pasado, y reflexiona sobre la carga que todo ello pueda suponer a los descendientes. Concluiremos que, problematizando la imagen del mediador fiel y desde un punto de vista crítico, la madre traductora propone omisiones y reposicionamientos como vías de transmisión. ABSTRACT This paper analyses the mediating role of Julia, one of the main characters in Ramon Saizarbitoria’s novel Martutene (2012). Julia is a translator and we will make visible here her concerns and fatigues as she feels the need to be faithful to the text and the author she is translating, his sentimental companion Martin. We will also interpret Julia’s mediation within her family, as far as she reflects on the transmission of the memory to his son. Here again, Julia is concerned with the loyalty to the past, and thinks about the burden this may place on descendants. We will conclude that, by problematizing the image of the faithful mediator and from a critical point of view, the mother and translator proposes omissions and repositioning as ways of transmission.

"Not Bread Alone": Clandestine Schooling and Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust

2002 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Kardos
Keyword(s):  
Educational Activities ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Future ◽  
Historical Episode ◽  
Great Danger

In this article, Susan Kardos speaks to the importance of education by looking at the forms and purposes of clandestine schooling in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Building on archival evidence and survivor accounts, Kardos recreates the moving spirit and multiple endeavors of schooling that prevailed in the Ghetto. Despite horrific conditions and great danger, individuals and organizations within the Ghetto devoted themselves to ensuring that educational activities would continue. According to Kardos, schooling became a form of resistance against Nazi attempts to eradicate the Jews and their culture. She argues that schooling was oriented simultaneously to the past, present, and future: to the past by defying cultural and historical annihilation; to the present by providing a sense of normalcy that helped Jews survive their daily struggles in the Ghetto; and to the future by providing a sense of hope for the Ghetto inhabitants. Kardos unearths this heroic and inspiring historical episode to illustrate the importance of schooling as a means of survival and resistance by people who would not allow themselves to be erased.

The Cenozoic history of Antarctica and its global impact

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter-Noel Webb
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
The Past ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
Future Success ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Antarctic

The Antarctic continent and the peripheral ocean regions are the primary source of information on the Cenozoic cryosphere and events leading up to its development at least 36 million years ago. From a variety of data it is now apparent that the southern high latitudes have been subjected to a dynamic alternation of ice sheet expansion and decay through the late Palaeogene and Neogene. This history of climate change was accompanied by, and certainly strongly influenced by, significant vertical and horizontal lithosphere changes, including the evolution of major internal seaways and mountain ranges. The imprint of this record is preserved in the marine successions of the polar basins, in the world's bathyal and abyssal ocean basins and in the continental shelves of other continents, including those of the Northern Hemisphere. The Antarctic and extra-Antarctic terrestrial and marine data bases have developed separately in the past three decades and geospheric and biospheric information must now be integrated across latitudes. Future success in deciphering climate change depends on a better understanding of glacial–deglacial cycles from the point of view of both direct Antarctic and indirect or proxy extra-Antarctic data, through the complete temporal range of 107 to 103 years. Unfortunately, much of the high latitude record for the past 65 million years of earth history is presently veiled by thick ice sheets/ice shelves and deep and often ice-covered marine waters. Without the intensive application of the most advanced remote sampling equipment on the continent and in the Southern Ocean it will be difficult for this region to contribute significantly to global change and global climate programmes.

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