Reflections on the Vancouver Holocaust Symposium

On May 20, Social Studies 10 attended the Vancouver Holocaust Symposium at St. George’s School. We had the privilege of listening to the stories of two Holocaust survivors, René Goldman and Michel Silver, and learned from a historian, Dr. Sebastian Huebel. 

 

We started with a presentation from Dr. Sebastian Huebel about the Holocaust and what societal factors may have caused it. He described the “8 stages of genocide,” from Classification to Extermination, and emphasized that despite past antisemitism and discrimination in Europe, the Holocaust was not an unavoidable event: “The progression could have been stopped at any time,” he said. “But with each new stage of mistreatment, people assisted the Nazis in carrying out their aims.” 

 

Next, we watched a short film created by René Goldman, a Holocaust survivor from Luxembourg. He was separated from his mother when they fled Luxembourg and was sent to live with his aunt, a French citizen. He never saw his mother again, and remembers waiting for her for years before finding out that she had not survived. As the title of his memoir, “A Childhood Adrift,” says, losing his parents in such a way and at such a young age affected the rest of his life and his worldview. When asked if he would forgive the people who wronged him, he said “No. I don’t think I could ever forgive them for what they did.”

 

Finally, we listened to the stories of Michel Silver, a Holocaust survivor from France. He talked about being taken care of during the Holocaust by a non-Jewish lady who took in Jewish children for money. Although he was safe, the place that he lived in for over two years wasn’t a home: he was forced to engage in menial labour every day and, because of this, his health deteriorated until one day he collapsed. He said that while his time in the care of that lady was not a happy time, he was still grateful for the protection she had risked her life to give him, even for money. However, he expressed anger against the French police, who had readily complied in imposing the brutal laws of the Nazi regime and giving up their own citizens to the German soldiers. “They didn’t have to do that,” he said. But they chose to. 

 

The last question asked at the symposium was “What is the most important thing that you want us to take away from this and to remember for the rest of our lives?”

 

Michel Silver answered that we must always be kind to others and avoid all forms of discrimination and prejudice. As discrimination was the first thing that led to the Holocaust, it’s important to stop prejudice even in its early stages of development.

 

Dr. Sebastian Huebel said that we should pay attention to what is going on around us in our world and never be indifferent to the suffering of others. We should use technology to educate ourselves about what is happening in our own nations and in nations across the world and speak up against injustice before it escalates. 

 

As the leader of the Vancouver Holocaust Symposium told us, we will be the last generation to hear stories about this time in history directly from survivors. This means that it is our job to internalize the lessons that we learn from the Holocaust and the people who were affected by it. We must ensure that nothing like it can ever happen again.