Two Holocaust survivors will launch the 20th Annual College of Saint Elizabeth Week of Holocaust Remembrance (CSE), 2 Convent Road, Morristown, on Monday, November 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Annunciation Center’s Dolan Performance Hall on campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Holocaust survivors and program speakers Fred Heyman of Morristown and George Greene of Caldwell were young boys when they witnessed the destruction of Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass, a massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout Germany and Austria. That night, which took place November 9-10, 1938, is widely acknowledged as the beginning of the Holocaust.
Heyman, a native of Berlin, remained in Germany throughout the war and twice escaped being arrested by the Gestapo. In addition to the daily fear of Nazi atrocities, persecutions, and the restrictions of the Gestapo and the Nuremberg Laws, he also lived through the Allied bombing and the invasion by Russian troops.
After the war, he and his family immigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he attended the University of Wisconsin. As a 40-year employee of AT&T, he was transferred twice, eventually settling in New Jersey. Now retired, he serves as a member of the Morris Rubell Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which sponsors students’ trips to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, D.C.
As a resident of Vienna, Greene saw the destruction of the city’s synagogues including his own. He witnessed the shattered remnants of the stained glass windows destroyed by the mob. By the night of Kristallnacht, his family was already in the process of leaving Austria. His father, who owned several businesses including a restaurant, had sold them before they could be seized by the Nazis. The family arrived in the United States in January 1939 and settled in Parsippany, New Jersey. His father founded a plastics company, making rubber gloves. Greene and his brother later started a company manufacturing baby pacifiers and nipples for baby bottles.
He recently designed and built stained glass windows for the sanctuary of Congregation Agudath Israel Synagogue in Caldwell, New Jersey. Co-director of the CSE Holocaust Education Resource Center, Dr. Harriet Sepinwall stated, "It is incredible to me that this man, who witnessed the destruction of stained glass windows in synagogues in Vienna and is not trained as an artist, created such magnificent windows. I am so glad that he and Fred Heyman, who also experienced Kristallnacht, will share their stories at our program."
The evening Kristallnacht commemoration will include an interfaith service and music by the Elizabeth Singers under the direction of Carol and Roger Pisani, CSE special assistant to the President for Mission and Values and the campus minister respectively.
Interfaith Dialogue with Three, Well-known Theologians on Wednesday, November 11
On Wednesday, November 11, again in Dolan Performance Hall at 7:30 p.m., three internationally known theologians, Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, Reverend John Pawlikowski and Dr. Henry "Hank" F. Knight, will discuss the challenges and opportunities in Jewish-Christian dialogue. Challenges and Opportunities in Jewish-Christian Dialogue is free and open to the public.
Rabbi Greenberg has written extensively on post-Shoah theology, on the relationship of Judaism and Christianity and on the ethics of power and religious/cultural issues of pluralism after the Holocaust. From 1974 through 1997, he was the founding president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL). As an outgrowth of his work with CLAL’s Holocaust Resource Center, he was appointed director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust and was one of the founding figures of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. From 1997 to 2007, Rabbi Greenberg served as president of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation to create new institutions and initiatives to enrich the inner life of American Jewry. He holds a doctorate from Harvard University.
Reverend Pawlikowski is the director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program in the Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Center at the University of Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, where he is also a professor of social ethics. He was appointed by President Carter and reappointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush and William Clinton to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In 1989, he received the Raoul Wallenberg Award, presented by The Raoul Wallenberg Committee to individuals, organizations and communities that reflect humanitarian spirit, personal courage and nonviolent action in the face of enormous odds.
Dr. Knight, an ordained Methodist minister specializing in post-Holocaust Christian theology, is the director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies at Keene State College in New Hampshire. He was formerly the director of the Council for Holocaust Education at the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was university chaplain and the applied associate professor of Hermeneutic (the science of interpretation of a story or text, or the methods used in that science) and Holocaust Studies at the University of Tulsa. In 1996, he co-founded the Pastora Goldner (now Stephen S. Weinstein) Holocaust Symposium, an international gathering of Holocaust and genocide scholars that meets biennially at Wroxton College in England.
Both programs are co-sponsored by the Community Relations Council and the Holocaust Council of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest and the Faith Lutheran Church in New Providence. Sister Kathleen Flanagan, director of the CSE Graduate Program in Theology and the co-director of the CSE Holocaust Education Resource Center, is coordinating the November 11 program.
Art Exhibit with a Holocaust Theme
Jersey City artist Aileen Bassis has used books to create art that interprets the story of the Holocaust. She inserted images into old books, tearing, layering painting on pages, piercing them and adding wire or thread and including maps and a text in Yiddish of a pre-World War II folk tale. The results are sculptural objects containing fragmented images that draw the viewer in and offer them remnants of the past - and a terrible story. The exhibit runs through November 15 in the Upper Lobby of Annunciation Center, which is open every day except Sunday until 10 p.m.
More Information About the Week of Holocaust Remembrance Activities
The public is also invited to attend sessions offered by CSE faculty in their classes during the Week of Holocaust Remembrance. More information about these sessions can be found on the website, www.cse.edu/holocaustcenter.
Sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, Convent Station, New Jersey, the College of Saint Elizabeth enrolls more than 2,100 full- and part-time students in more than 25 undergraduate, 10 graduate and one doctoral degree programs. For information on other activities or programs, visit the College of Saint Elizabeth web site at www.cse.edu.