Holocaust Education Northwest and The Olga Lengyel Institute (HEN TOLI)

When writing about the week long seminar held at the University of Oregon, I could not decide how to begin writing about the experience. Eventually, I settled on creating the collage above title "Holocaust Legacy." This collage should show the many voices I now hold in my head thanks to the written stories by Dr. Linda Tamura who was kind enough to share her knowledge of Japanese internment camps in the United States during WWII, the testimonies I heard through the free program Iwitness, and the stories contained in the Echoes and Reflections curriculum. A strong message that was clear from the first homework assignment in the seminar was that discussing history, especially the holocaust, requires many, many testimonies and primary documents. No person should be seen as a victim, hero, bystander, or villain. People are complicated, and the only way to understand history and the present is to gather as many stories as possible.

Gathering the stories renewed my commitment to teaching genocide and the holocaust. Many of the writing assignments and reflections used by the seminar leaders led to making connections between racism, bigotry, and the political climate of today. For that reason, I included the small poster image from the Oregon Education Association Magazine which says, "We commit to resisting racism & bigotry by interrogating our own histories, listening, and taking action."

Many of the images on the collage disturb me. The advertisement for Israel bonds is from July's National Geographic magazine. I inverted one of the children holding the flag of Israel, because the image is one of repression for many Palestinians. On NPR's newscast today, I heard an expert on Israel-Palestinian relations say that there is more division between people than ever. Advertisements for DNA tests like the one in the left corner of the collage claim to help people understand their ancestry, but the information is meaningless without context, asking the question "What percent neanderthal are you?" In my opinion, history -not ancestry- will better inform students of who they are and how they can become helpers in creating a new legacy of understanding the stories of others so they can help make the world more tolerant of difference.

Overall, the HEN TOLI Seminar was a wonderful expereince. Every lesson applies to my English Language Learners, who need lessons on tolerance and difference so they can see that the classroom is a safe space for everyone's stories to be told. A special thank you to Mindy, Robert, and Carrie for their thoughtful leadership at the seminar.


The resources from this seminar are wonderful! I will definitely be using Echoes and Reflections and Iwitness in my classroom next year.