Marking Humanity‘s editor, Shlomit Kriger, and two of the survivors featured in the book, Helen Drazek and Renate Krakauer, recently spoke at a Toronto, Ontario, chapter of Na’amat Canada. The all-female audience was very curious to find out about the survivors’ experiences during and after the Holocaust, while also discussing reflections on the past and its relevancy to the present.
On November 11, Remembrance Day, Marking Humanity‘s editor, Shlomit Kriger, gave a presentation at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada, and led a discussion with the students on some of the topics that were raised in her talk and some of the survivors’ pieces from the book.
Editor Shlomit Kriger and one of the Holocaust survivors from Toronto featured in Marking Humanity, John Freund, were interviewed on “Perspectives with Barry Shainbaum” on Faith FM (CJTW 94.3) in Kitchener, Ontario, on Nov. 7, 2010.
John was born in Czechoslovakia in June 1930. In 1942 the Nazis transported his family to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, and at the end of 1943, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. He ended up being one of about 35 boys who survived the camp, but he found only an aunt from his father’s side still alive when he returned to his hometown.
Click here to listen to the interview (Length: 1 hour) You may also view an audio visual of the interview.
On the following Sunday, Shlomit and Holocaust survivor Helen Drazek, whose poems are included in Marking Humanity, appeared on the Israeli Network’s “Together with Gila Yefet” talk show based in Toronto. Helen shared some of her Holocaust experiences as a child in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland and having later lived in hiding with a Christian family that helped her family. She also read excerpts from her writings. The women then discussed the importance of passing on the Holocaust education and lessons to future generations.
Marking Humanity‘s editor, Shlomit Kriger, and some of the featured survivors from Toronto, Canada — Renate Krakauer, George Scott, Simcha Simchovitch, Helen Drazek, and Frieda Traub (joined by her daughter Debi Traub) — connected with audience members ranging from youth to the elderly at two events in October 2010: at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center on Oct. 18 and at The House on Oct. 28 (as part of Holocaust Education Week).
The survivors moved the audience with their stories and as they read their pieces from the book. Shlomit then shared her thoughts and research in relation to what people can learn from the survivors and the Holocaust, as well as how some of the core issues that played a role during that dark period in history are relevant in people’s own communities today. She emphasized that every person helps to shape the world and everyone can work on bettering themselves and their communities.
By Darryl Salach
The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada reported in the year 2009 that incidents of anti-Semitic behaviour had increased nearly five-fold in Canada. Around the world, acts of anti-Semitism and the denial of historical events pertaining to the Holocaust having ever taken place, have also seen a significant rise in recent years. In reflection of these startling facts, local Toronto writer and editor Shlomit Kriger has compiled a wondrous anthology titled Marking Humanity: Stories, Poems, & Essays by Holocaust Survivors (Soul Inscriptions Press, 2010).
The stories within this anthology are startling and unique to say the least. George Scott (formerly Spiegel) was born in Hungary in 1930 and now resides in Toronto. His grandparents, who raised him, placed him in a Budapest Jewish Orphanage after he completed Grade four, and there were one-hundred-and-twenty boys, aged six to eighteen. He tried to run away from the orphanage when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, but he was caught on the border of Slovakia and taken to Sarvar, a large concentration camp, and later sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. He writes in his poem Auschwitz 1944, “Not close enough for warmth / The lusty flames / In the crematorium’s busy chimney / Rise and fall / Indifferent lies / The barbed wire’s shadow / On the frozen ground / Very thin is the line / Between being and not being / The night is emptied.”
Edited by Shlomit Kriger
Soul Inscriptions Press 2010, $27.99, 312 pages (softcover)
By Hannah M. Heller
Special to the Jewish Times
Remembering the destruction of the Holocaust is essential as we confront an increase in anti-Semitism, terrorism and threats to Israel’s survival. This book is a collection of writings from 46 survivors, from various countries in Europe and immigrating to many different parts of the world after World War II. Each featured survivor has a different story to share; all were impacted by the cruelty of the Nazi reign of terror in Europe from 1933-1945.
Shlomit Kriger shared some of the bios and poems of the survivors featured in Marking Humanity at the 2010 Patio Plays summer arts festival in Toronto, Canada.
By Dave Gordon
With their numbers dwindling, aging Holocaust survivors realize there are limited chances to educate the public on the horrors they experienced. A Thornhill journalist has taken it upon herself to not only assist in chronicling painful but vital history with personal anecdotes, but has utilized a little-used format for educational outreach.
Shlomit Kriger, editor of Marking Humanity: Stories, Poems and Essays by Holocaust Survivors has, by encouraging the creative force of poetry and short narrative, helped to widen the accessibility of survivors’ testimony.
“A collection of writings to put faces and souls for those who got out of one of the worst atrocities in history alive and went on to live full and rich lives. Conveying powerful messages, “Marking Humanity” does well in its goal of making survivors more than just statistics. A solid addition to any Holocaust studies collection.”
— Small Press Bookwatch, Volume 9, Number 7
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO –Canadian journalist Shlomit Kriger has brought together the reflections, stories and poems of nearly 50 Holocaust survivors in an anthology that covers many aspects—and emotions—of the Shoah. Marking Humanity could serve as an excellent secondary textbook in either a college class or in an advanced high school history class.