By Laurie Warshal Cohen, Special to JTNews
"On behalf on all the young children, the older kids, their parents, and all those who cherish learning, I thank you for the courage you demonstrate when you enter our classrooms to tell your stories," said Reverend Barry Keating as he spoke to a group of Holocaust survivors and supporters of Holocaust education. Rev. Keating addressed the annual Speaker’s Bureau kick-off lunch on October 12, an event sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.
"I admire you," he told the speakers and audience, "not only for the courage you possess when you tell your stories, but because you exhibit a level of trust that you will be heard, and that your stories will make a difference."
Rev. Keating, Pastor of Maplewood Presbyterian Church in Edmonds, spoke about his own journey "to learn the commonalities of genocide," so that he could fight against it.
"Sadly," he noted, "it continues in many different forms."
"I want you all to know," Rev. Keating said, taking a large part of the audience by surprise, "I am deeply sorry for the abuses of Christianity that caused the tragedy in your lives."
"Reverend Keating had a very positive effect on the group," commented survivor and speaker, Vera Federman. "We listened as this young Irish minister personally apologized to us on behalf of the Christian church, about a time before he was born."
"It was very emotional," said Bob Herschkowitz, president of the board of the Holocaust Center and a child survivor. "There wasn’t a sound in the room as the survivors, friends, and family realized what Reverend Keating had actually said. His message was an inspiration for me to continue speaking,"
"I wish my mother and father could have heard Reverend Keating," said Sheldon Balberman, board member, who often tells his parents’ story to classes.
The speakers, who work through the Holocaust Center, are a group of survivors, liberators and children of survivors who travel throughout the classrooms of Washington State to tell their stories to students and community groups. They reach over 200 classrooms and groups each year and their total audience is close to 20,000.
The Holocaust Center coordinates their presentations and works with the teachers and the schools to provide curriculum and resources for the study of the Holocaust.
"Growing up as a Protestant in Belfast meant that I’d never met any Catholics, but I knew I didn’t like them," Reverend Keating said, "we had no interaction between kids because of segregated schools. Roman Catholics can’t be trusted.’ They are trying to outbreed us.’ Their hygiene isn’t very good.’ That’s what I learned," said Keating.
He used his message of reconciliation not only for his native Ireland, but for the world at large, and it is this deep commitment that has made him keenly interested in Holocaust education in his search for an end to bigotry and prejudice.
"Soon after coming to the U.S., I got a job in a prison in Philadelphia. A prison guard decided to educate me about the African-American population of the prison," Keating recalls. He told me blacks in America can’t be trusted, they are trying to outbreed us, their hygiene isn’t very good, etc.’ The place and circumstances were changed, but the rhetoric of bigotry was the same."
Keating observed that America is at a crossroads. "The way we label one another, bigotry, bias, and prejudice are becoming the norm. We hear there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood,’ and you can’t trust a Muslim.’ We presume things about people. We don’t get to find out all about the people we meet."
Keating’s message was a clarion call for the Speakers Bureau. The speakers in attendance at the luncheon represented a wide spectrum of the Holocaust experience. Vera Federman, Magda Schaloum, Bronka Serebrin, Klaus Stern, Abe Traub, and Fanny Wald all talk about their camp experiences. Also active with the bureau are child survivors such as Susie Sherman, Bob Herschkowitz, Fred Taucher, and Josh Gortler. Steve Adler came to England on the Kindertransport, while Bertie Maarsen was saved by the Dutch Resistance. Henry Friedman helps students imagine the small space in which he and his mother, his brother, and a Jewish teacher hid in a farmhouse attic.
Chuck Stemplar, owner of Alphagraphics, attended the lunch this year for the first time. "It is amazing," he said "to see that 60 years after the Holocaust these people have sustained an effort to promote education of our young people."
Stemplar was also encouraged to meet Aida Kouyoumjian, who speaks to schools about the Armenian genocide.
Kathryn Lang of the Seattle Times’ Newspaper in Education Program attended because she wanted to meet speakers who will be featured in a spring 2005 education series on the Holocaust. As a former teacher who taught the Holocaust, Lang left the lunch feeling that she "was again reminded of my purpose and desires and those things that really matter in life."
Laurie Cohen is Co-Executive Director of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center. For more information on the Speakers Bureau, to learn more about the resources provided by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, visit www.wsherc.org