Like other members of the think tank, Matthews is alarmed by the rise of anti-Semitism, pointing not only to recent events in Europe, but also to the 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue. Anti-Semitism is coming both from the far left and far right,” Matthews warns.
Matthews believes Canadian children need to learn not only about the Holocaust and genocide, but also about the consequences of discrimination. Together with members of the Foundation for Genocide Education, MIGS representatives have met with Quebec’s Minister of Education to lobby for the inclusion in the curriculum of more information about the Holocaust and genocide prevention.
Sometimes, Matthews says, he needs a break from following world news. “But I’m committed to doing whatever I can to work toward the betterment of humanity. Hope is all we have. If we don’t hold on to hope, we lose our will to change the arc of history.”
For Csaba Nikolenyi, political science professor and director of Concordia’s Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies, the greatest sign of hope in a post-Holocaust world is the existence of the State of Israel. The Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies was created by the Azrieli Foundation, which has offices in Montreal and Toronto. The foundation publishes a series of memoirs of Holocaust survivors, first-hand testimony that has become an important primary resource for Holocaust researchers. The foundation also endowed the Azrieli collection at Concordia’s Webster Library, one of the largest collections in North America of material related to the Holocaust.
Housed in the Samuel Bronfman Building, the Azrieli Institute also operates a reading room that includes the 81 memoirs published to date in the Azrieli series. The institute also organizes special events such as the 2014 presentation, co-sponsored by the Azrieli Foundation and MIGS, by Francesco Lotoro, an Italian professor and concert pianist who reconstructed music written by prisoners in the concentration camps. “The fact that music was created in the camps is testimony to the resilience of the human spirit in the darkest times,” says Nikolenyi.
Not a refugee camp
Growing up in communist Hungary, Nikolenyi knew little about the Holocaust. “It was not part of the official curriculum, though it is now,” he explains. Nikolenyi believes Holocaust education must include the study of Israel. He points to the common misconception that Israel began with the Holocaust. “If you say that to an Israeli, it raises a sensitive topic. Israel didn’t begin as a kind of refugee camp. The creation of Israel is rooted in the achievements of the Zionist movement which officially started in 1897, and even that builds on the ancient Jewish connection with the land of Israel,” Nikolenyi says.
This summer, Nikolenyi will again take 13 Concordia students to Israel for a month-long seminar. The group will visit Yad Vashem, the country’s Holocaust memorial, as well as a kibbutz established by Holocaust survivors in the Negev, a region where the salty soil made farming difficult.
The kibbutznim persevered, and the kibbutz became a centre for the development of drip irrigation technology, now used all over the world. “For the students to witness the success of Israel is to see the ultimate triumph against Hitler. He did not wipe out the Jews,” Nikolenyi says.
Though the numbers are shocking and vital to know – 6 million Jews, gypsies and LGBTQ people perished during the Holocaust, along with more than 5 million Soviets – it is always the individual stories that resonate most. This, combined with the fact Holocaust survivors are dying off, makes the work of Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling so valuable.
Initiated by history professor Steven High in 2006, COHDS’s work includes the Montreal Life Stories Project, which focused on the stories of individuals displaced by mass violence and genocide. The project brought together various groups, including one called the Holocaust and Other Persecutions Against Jews Working Group. Composed of both academics and community members, this group collected stories from Holocaust survivors as well as their children.
“As we know, there’s not just one story about what happened during the Holocaust. People who were children, women, people from different countries had very different experiences during the Holocaust,” says Cynthia Hammond, who teaches art history and is co-director of COHDS.
COHDS has shared its resources with organizations including the Montreal Holocaust Museum, the Museum of Jewish Montreal and the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. The digital interviews collected through the Montreal Life Stories Project can be consulted at COHDS, located on the 10th floor of the J. W. McConnell Building. “The most consulted of these materials have to do with the Holocaust. Since 2017, the centre has seen an increase in requests for access to our archived interviews about the Holocaust. I’m glad researchers are using the collection. That’s what it’s there for,” Hammond says.
Several members of the Holocaust working group have gone on to do related research and creative projects. A 2018 tour called Survivors on the Main: A Historical Walk introduced participants to a Montreal neighbourhood where many child refugees from the Holocaust settled – and to two child survivors of the Holocaust. Hammond, who took part in the walk, found it deeply moving.
Meeting their future wives
“These two very elderly men were still full of life and believed in the importance of sharing their experience,” she says. “They also wanted us to know about their life as Montrealers – not only as survivors. For example, they spoke about meeting their future wives at dances organized by members of the local community who had welcomed them.”
Hammond believes while the study of history aims to increase our understanding of the past, oral history has a loftier goal. “Oral history is often undertaken with the goal of a better future – a more just, egalitarian and humane society. If you decide to make your story public, it’s so that someone will be moved to see the world differently and take action,” she says.
It has been nearly 75 years since the Holocaust ended. The work that has been done and continues to be done at Concordia regarding the Holocaust is another hopeful sign. Every lesson connected to the Holocaust shares a moral imperative – that its history and stories must be passed down to future generations