Films, Presentations and Informative Lectures Offered During Holocaust Education Week

The legacy of the Holocaust will be considered through cultural, academic and personal perspectives in a series of enlightening film presentations, lectures and community discussions during Holocaust Education Week, November 6-11, 2022.

Holocaust Education Week is a community-wide program of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach, a Committee of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.

All programming is free of charge and open to the public. Advance registration is required for all events, except for the Kristallnacht program.

Sunday, November 6 | 6 p.m.

Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass
“The Spark That Ignited the Holocaust”

One of the most tragic days in modern Jewish history, Kristallnacht will be commemorated just prior to the 84th anniversary of the event. Widely considered to be a major turning point in Hitler’s campaign to annihilate the Jewish people, Kristallnacht was marked by a series of coordinated attacks on Jews in Germany and parts of Austria on November 9-10, 1938.

Join the community in person or via livestream at JewishMiami.org/kristallnacht to remember the victims of this event and honor the Survivors.

Monday, November 7 | 9 a.m.

The Journey, Teaching About the Kindertransport
With the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, the only British museum with an exhibit dedicated to teaching younger children about the Holocaust
Recommended for students in grades 5-8

Take a life-changing journey through the eyes of Leo, a 10-year-old Jewish boy forced to flee his home in Nazi Germany. Immerse yourself in Leo's life to see how his world changed and learn about identity, friendship and kindness.

Monday, November 7 | 1 p.m.

My Survivor Film Discussion
With licensed mental health counselor Dr. Mindy S. Hersh
Recommended for students in grades 8-12

Who will tell the story when the last Survivor is gone? As we approach the end of the last generation of Holocaust Survivors, the world is confronted by this haunting – and sadly – ultimate question. My Survivor takes a fresh look at this inevitable reality by exploring the life-changing experiences of some of the 500 University of Miami students who participated in a landmark educational initiative. This dynamic group of young adults learned about the Holocaust through the intimate intergenerational relationships they forged with members of this remarkable, but rapidly disappearing Survivor population.

Monday, November 7 | 4 p.m.

The Ethics of Rescue: True Stories Behind the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
With author and second-generation Survivor Dr. Bernice Lerner
Recommended for adults

Shocked by what he discovered upon entering Bergen-Belsen with the British Second Army in April 1945, Deputy Director of Medical Services Glyn Hughes did not initially know how he would go about stemming typhus, burying thousands of dead and arranging medical treatment for 25,000 of 60,000 “displaced persons” in dire need of hospitalization. In this talk, Dr. Bernice Lerner will describe how a small group of rescuers went about trying to save lives. She will share astonishing stories about the unprecedented liberation — from the perspectives of both liberators and Survivors, including her mother, then-15-year-old Rachel Genuth. Dr. Lerner wrote a book about her mother’s connection with Hughes, which will be shared with program participants. Attendees will also learn why the event was a watershed in the life of the high-ranking Hughes and those with whom he served.

Tuesday, November 8

1945 Film Screening
Recommended for adults

On a summer day in 1945, an Orthodox man and his grown son return to a village in Hungary while the villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. The townspeople – suspicious, remorseful, fearful and cunning – expect the worst and behave accordingly. The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally seized property back.

The film’s director, Ferenc Török, paints a complex picture of a society trying to come to terms with the recent horrors they’ve experienced, perpetrated or just tolerated for personal gain. A superb ensemble cast, lustrous black-and-white cinematography and historically detailed art direction contribute to an eloquent drama that reiterates Thomas Wolfe’s famed sentiment: “You can’t go home again.”

Presented on demand via livestream. Link will be provided upon registration.

Wednesday, November 9 | 9 a.m.

The Education of Herschel Grynszpan
A live play featuring award-winning actor Avi Hoffman and playwright and composer Yale Strom
Recommended for adults and advanced students in Holocaust elective courses

The Education of Herschel Grynszpan, based on true, historic accounts, is a story about two passengers sharing a train from Krakow to Warsaw on November 1, 1938. Meyshke Labushnik says he is a Klezmer violinist. His trainmate is young Herschel Grynszpan, who is about to enter university.

Times are tense in Poland and Meyshke reads the newspaper, explaining to Herschel the troubling aspects of the rise of antisemitism throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. He bristles when the authorities randomly ask the passengers to show their identification papers.

Meyshke is desperate to impart to Herschel the severity of the times and that the Jews must not wait to change their circumstances. As the train gets closer to its destination, we find out the truth about Meyshke’s journey. He is in a clandestine Jewish organization that is smuggling Jews out of Poland illegally into Palestine, for which he could be arrested and killed. When the police arrive to arrest Meyshke, Herschel is shocked.

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan entered the German Embassy in Paris and mortally wounded Third Secretary Ernst von Rath. On November 9, in response to the shooting in Paris, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels gave an inflammatory speech that triggered Kristallnacht. Hundreds of synagogues were torched, 7,000 Jewish businesses were looted, Jewish cemeteries were desecrated, 91 Jews were murdered and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to the concentration camps in Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen.

Wednesday, November 9 | 11 a.m.

Messages From Survivors
With Co-Founders of The Memory Project Productions Rosalyn Jacobs and Laurie Weisman
Recommended for students in grades 8-12

Survivors’ voices anchor Holocaust history and make it vivid and personal. Messages From Survivors grew from a trove of Survivor videos recorded over 40 years. The presentation provides an intimate look at a family of Holocaust Survivors, sharing their history, their life challenges and their celebrations. Students will be able to connect the individual experiences of one Polish-Jewish family to the immense scale of the Holocaust. 

Thursday, November 10 | 9 a.m.

Theresienstadt: Story of the Ghetto
Through Its Art, Music and Poetry With Yad Vashem Educator Liz Elsby
Recommended for students in grades 8-12

Some of the most moving Holocaust testimonies are the artistic expressions created in the Theresienstadt ghetto by artists and poets who sought to bear witness to the horrors they were experiencing both collectively and individually. Their work, often produced at huge risk, offers us an intimate window into the life, death, deprivation and despair that defined ghetto life, as well as rare moments of joy and hope.

How did these artists find the strength and motivation to create in a world of darkness? In this talk, we will examine and discuss artwork and poetry created by Jewish prisoners in Theresienstadt to better understand the ghetto world they depicted.

Thursday, November 10 | 1 p.m.

The Tattooed Torah Film Discussion
With Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach Holocaust Education Committee Chair Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff
Recommended for students in grades 5-8

Over the past three decades, the beloved children's book by Marvell Ginsburg The Tattooed Torah has been a powerful resource for Holocaust education for children. The book recounts the true story of the rescue and restoration of a small Torah from Brno, Czechoslovakia and teaches the Holocaust not only as a period of destruction, but also as an opportunity for redemption.   

Narrated by Ed Asner, the film brings illustrator Martin Lemelman's rich artwork to life and allows this story to reach a much broader audience all over the world.

Friday, November 11

The Ritchie Boys Film Screening
Recommended for adults

The Ritchie Boys is the riveting, untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned as soldiers in US uniforms. They knew the psychology and the language of the enemy better than anyone. In Camp Ritchie, Maryland, they were trained in intelligence and psychological warfare. Determined, bright and inventive, they fought their own kind of war; they were victors, not victims.

Presented on demand via livestream. Link will be provided upon registration.

Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach

Jessica Katz, Chair

Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff, Chairperson, Holocaust Education Committee 

Sharon S. Horowitz, Executive Director

Dr. Nicole Freeman, Education Director

In cooperation with: City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council 🞄 Miami-Dade County Public Schools Department of Social Sciences 🞄 University of Miami Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies 🞄 With special thanks to the Florida Department of Education

Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts

Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach
1933-1945 Meridian Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.538.1663
info@holocaustmemorialmiamibeach.org
holocaustmemorialmiamibeach.org