The Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center — along with its co-sponsors, the Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC and the Jewish Museum Milwaukee — this month will launch its annual series of educational programs, to be presented through the end of the year.
The series will focus on “Extraordinary Heroes: Holocaust Rescuers.” Each program will highlight one or more individuals who have been recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
To date, almost 24.000 individuals who saved Jewish lives have been awarded this title. “By remembering the rescuers, we study these instances of moral courage and make note of the evidence of human nobility,” said HERC director Bonnie Shafrin in a release.
The programs involve many different organizations throughout the community and include lectures, films, exhibits, and plays.
The first program on Thursday, Oct. 11, will allow community members to meet a witness to Holocaust rescue. Nelly Trocme Hewett, the eldest daughter of Magda and Pastor Andre Trocme of Le Chambon sur Lignon, was a teenage girl in this French village whose citizens saved 5,000 Jews.
She will speak at 7 p.m. at the JCC. This program is free of charge. A special workshop for teachers will be offered at 4:30 p.m.
Other programs taking place or beginning this month include:
• The showing on Sunday, Oct. 14, 7:30 p.m., at the Marcus Northshore Cinema, of the 2011 film “Nicky’s Family,” about Nicholas Winton, the Englishman who organized the rescue of some 700 children before World War II began.
This is an offering of the 2012 Jewish Film Festival (see page xx), and will be preceded by a lecture at 6 p.m. on the Kindertransport by Simone Schweber, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• The photographic exhibit “Polish Heroes: Those Who Rescued Jews,” at the Polish Center of Wisconsin, 6941 S. 68th St. in Franklin. It pays tribute to the some 6,000 Polish Righteous Among the Nations honorees by focusing on 21 of them who still live in the area of Krakow, Poland.
The exhibit opens Sunday, Oct. 21, with a reception at 2 p.m. and a talk by Jakub Nowakowski, director of the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow; and it runs through Nov. 20.
• A collaboration with Cardinal Stritch University who will produce the play “Irena’s Vow” (2009), based on the true story of a Polish nurse, Irena Gut-Opdyke, who hid 12 Jews in the basement of a German Nazi officer’s villa.
The play’s run — Oct. 26-Nov. 4, at the university’s Nancy Kendall Theater, 6801 N. Yates Rd. — begins with a special premier event on Thursday, Oct. 25, that will feature Gut-Opdyke’s daughter Jeannie Smith.
Also coming on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 7 p.m., at the JCC will be a screening of “Empty Boxcars” (2011). This documentary explores the complexities of Bulgaria during World War II, a country that rescued most of its thousands of Jews, but helped kill some thousands of other Jews. The film’s producer and director, Ed Gaffney, will speak after the showing.
For more information, contact Shafrin, 414-963-2719 or bonnies@milwaukeejewish.org.
The Holocaust Education Resource Center is a program of the Coalition for Jewish Learning, the education program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
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