Sunday, Aug. 22, 1999 | 9:26 a.m.
More hate news tonight.
More gunmen. More vicious epithets. More sickening tales of sickening crimes.
A shooting, a beating. A man is dragged behind a truck because he is black; another is strung up on a country fence because he is gay. In Colorado, hate between different high school groups erupts as mass murder; in California, a man shoots children and calls for war on Jews.
Most people are seriously -- yet briefly -- appalled by the news.
One group of Nevadans has been working steadily to offer people a longer-lasting education about the consequences of hate. Their warning -- that piecemeal intolerance can turn quickly into grand-scale homicide -- is particularly high profile today.
"People don't think the Holocaust could happen again, but it can," said Eta Chinkes, 79, a Las Vegan who survived the Holocaust. "The Nazis looked and acted and talked like human beings. But they were brainwashed to hate."
Holocaust education is getting more emphasis in Nevada -- backed by state funds and fueled by a growing group of local survivors and activists.
"Now is the time. The Holocaust has lessons to teach that are particularly relevant to today's kids," said Carole Helfand, librarian at the Gertrude Sperling Resource Library for Holocaust Studies in Las Vegas.
"There are very few places in the U.S. where there has been a more sustained, high-quality emphasis on Holocaust education than in Nevada," said Vern Mattson, a UNLV history professor who serves on the 10-year-old Governor's Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust.
The 11-member council was created shortly after Imperial Palace owner Ralph Englestad's Nazi museum drew concerns about anti-Semitism to state leaders' attention in 1988. The council has received $75,000 from the state coffers every two years except during the 1997-98 budget crunch, according to Edythe Katz Yarchever, founder of the library and chairperson of the council.
"The message isn't just a Jewish thing -- it's a humanity thing," said Katz Yarchever.
She and a group of dedicated volunteers started with nothing but a few books -- "We literally worked out of boxes" -- and today operate a resource center with more than 3,500 books, videos, periodicals and audio tapes. In addition to state funds, they are backed by philanthropists such as Sheldon Adelson and the Kronberg family. Their success has led to plans for another Holocaust library in Reno -- scheduled to open later this year.
Over the years Katz Yarchever and company have educated thousands of Clark County School District teachers and students about the Holocaust. Additionally, activists have set up an extensive network of Holocaust survivors who go to schools and speak about their experiences.
"We are definitely seeing much more emphasis on the Holocaust in local schools than 10 years ago. The demand has been growing," said Mattson.
"There is so much hatred and anger in our culture today, and much of it is aimed at the traditional groups targeted in the Nazi era. I'm not an alarmist -- I don't think hate crimes are growing so much, but they are here and they are real -- and that basic hateful mentality is what Nazis were able to tap and use to mobilize people. The connection between the shooting at the Jewish Community Center (in Los Angeles) and the Holocaust is real, because of the hateful mentality.
"That is a big reason that interest in Holocaust education is growing."
But that rise is not welcomed by everyone.
University of Chicago professor Peter Novick argues in his recent book "The Holocaust in American Life" that there is too much emphasis on the Holocaust in the U.S., and that an "obsession" with it is contributing to a culture of fear.
"I disagree with Novick. There is value in studying it, and in Las Vegas, it has been very well received," Mattson said.
Still, conveying the Holocaust's lessons is delicate work.
"Teachers are hesitant. They sometimes don't know what to teach. But the lessons of the Holocaust are so far-reaching -- it's not just history, it applies to today's life," Helfand said.
Telling the story
Chinkes, who lost family members in the Holocaust, tells her story:
"Our life in Poland as Jews was pleasant until 1939. Then it all turned into a nightmare. I was 19 when Hitler invaded, and killed, and took many to death camps.
"They stuffed us in box cars and took us to prisons. We didn't know what had become of our families. We didn't know what would become of us.
"I was taken away from my family to a concentration camp, where I labored.
"The factory I worked in for two and a half years is still in existence. It made synthetic rubber.
"There were all kinds of jobs. I worked in the packing station, where we stuffed this black powdery soot into huge bags all day. We breathed it in, we were covered from head to toe in it -- we looked like chimney sweeps. Then I was moved to this other room where there were these little machines with burners, and we a had to clean the burners and make sure the flame was blue all day. So you looked into a flame for 8 hours; it was very bad for your eyes.
"We were on a starvation diet. We didn't hope to escape. We hoped for a little watery soup. We were lucky to get a cup a day. Or we hoped for a slice of bread. That's what kept us going. Nothing else."
The primary means of teaching, according to Holocaust Survivors Group of Southern Nevada President Henry Schuster, is to tell the story.
The generation that endured the Holocaust is aging and many of the survivors have chosen not to talk about their horrific experiences as they went on with their lives.
But recently, spurred by current hate crimes and media productions such as the movie "Schindler's List," survivors have begun to talk in increased numbers.
"There is a tremendous sense of urgency among survivors now. They know no one will be left soon," said Mattson.
In Nevada, an influx of retirees also has contributed to the educational efforts.
"When I first got involved 17 years ago, there were eight or 10 survivors in town. Now there are more than 200 because so many Jewish seniors have moved here," Mattson said.
Chinkes said she went on with life after the Holocaust and didn't want to talk about her experieces.
"But now I feel it is my obligation to talk about it, to prevent it from happening again," she said.
Survivor Blanka Schuh said she also was reluctant to discuss her experiences.
"It took me many years to talk about it," said Schuh. "It was heartbreaking and terrible."
Now she speaks publicly about her plight, and has contributed a written account of it to the "Survivors' Chronicle," a monthly journal of stories assembled by Anita Schuster and published by the Holocaust Survivors Group.
"When I got to the concentration camp I was 20 and separated from my family. I was in Auschwitz for two days and they shaved my head and put me in a long gray dress," Schuh said.
She was taken to a factory and forced to sew German military uniforms all day.
"I never worried that I should get out. I only worried that I should have enough food. I think that the worst thing is to be hungry. We could not think straight."
Teach the class
Maybe you don't show pictures of 11 million corpses to third graders. But some teachers feel that the message of tolerance, rooted in real history, should be taught early.
To that end, there are 3 million soda can pop tops in the library of Jack Dailey Elementary School. The goal is to collect 11 million -- one to represent each life lost in the Holocaust.
There are framed pop tops from George Bush, Vatican officials, Star Trek actors, former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn.
"I don't show them horrible pictures of dead bodies. I try to show the concept -- the sheer numbers of people -- using the pop tops," said Kelly Green, a third grade teacher who in 1994 started the Holocaust Pop Top project.
"The Holocaust is a very useful learning tool," said Green. "We talk about Hitler and prejudice and being a racist. At this age, being fair is very important to children. What they understand about the Holocaust is how terribly unfair it was. And we go beyond the history -- we talk about being accepting of people who are a different religion or a different body type -- all types of differences.
"Hitler gave people someone to blame for their problems -- the easy way out.
"We are teaching kids to get along with each other and solve their problems responsibly."
But, Green said, occasionally a parent objects to the Holocaust being taught in public school. One parent wrote a note to her saying that the Holocaust didn't really happen.
"If a parent doesn't want their child to be in the room for this, we certainly don't force them," Green said.
"I don't really remember talking about the Holocaust until I was in college. I think we weren't concerned about it in the 1970s. But today's kids are different, they face different challenges. This is needed now."
In the end, the kids seem to be able to make the connection between the Holocaust and today's social politics, Helfand said.
In May a group of students from Mack Lyon Middle School capped off their Holocaust studies by preparing a list of lessons learned that correspond with each letter of the alphabet.
The list is posted in the Holocaust library, and ranges from "Absolute tyranny is dangerous" and "Bigotry, unfortunately, is everywhere," to "You can make a difference" and lastly, "Zero tolerance for hatred."
archive
