Program for Perspectives on Kristallnacht 75 Years Later and Interfaith Service of Remembrance

This document is a program for "An Evening of Holocaust Remembrance" held at Chapman University on April 16, 2015. The event, presented by the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music, Department of Theatre, and the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, featured a series of performances, readings, and reflections. Highlights included a welcome by Dr. Daniele Struppa, musical excerpts by various composers performed by artists such as Iman Khosrowpour and Summer Hassan, and readings from the works of Elie Wiesel by students and faculty. The program also included a lighting of commemorative candles and reflections by Dr. Marilyn Harran and Dr. Gail Stearns, with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel present as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow. The document details biographies of the speakers, performers, and production team, emphasizing the event's focus on memory, justice, and human rights in the context of the Holocaust, commemorating the millions who perished and honoring survivors and liberators.

The document is a four-page invitation from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF) for its 76th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, October 25, 2015. The event was held at the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The celebration honored pianist Evgeny Kissin with the Aviv Award for Artistic Achievement and was dedicated to the memory of Vera Stern (1927-2015), a former AICF President and Chairwoman. The event featured performances by soprano Sharon Azrieli Perez, pianist Nimrod David Pfeffer, the band Milk & Honeys, dancer/choreographer/karate champion Revital Narodizki, and pianist Tomer Gewirtzman. The invitation lists the members of the Board Gala Committee, Volunteer Gala Committee, and Emerging Leadership Gala Committee, as well as the Executive Director, David Homan, and Managing Director, Inbal Grinberg. It also provides the contact information for the AICF offices in New York and Tel Aviv, Israel, and states that all proceeds benefit Israeli artist scholarships and programs of the foundation.

Steffi Schwarcz, néeBirnbaum, was born March 17, 1928 in Berlin, Germany. She was sent to England on March 15, 1939as part of the Kindertransport, with her younger sister and 11 other children. This group was sponsored by Dr. Schlesinger, an English Jew. She briefly mentions her early life, Kristallnacht, and thegeneral atmosphere in Berlin.

Steffi describes leaving her parents and the journey to England. The children were put up in a hostel in Shepherd's Hill, Highgate. In September 1939, thechildren were evacuated and dispersed. Steffi and her sister were sent to the home of a young Christian couple in Cuffley, Middlesex. She contrasts the respectful attitude of the foster parents with the pressure to convert put on the Jewish children by the headmistress of the KingsleyBoarding School in Cornwall, run by the Church of England, where the sisters were sent in January 1940, by the Jewish Refugee Committee. A local woman intervened on behalf of Jewish children in boarding schools. She enabled them to remain Jewish, observe the Jewish holidays in her home, and to get a Jewish education. Steffi mentions that Jewish girls older than 16 were sent to the Isle of Man as enemy aliens. Steffi discusses in detail the long-term emotional effects of the Nazi era and the stay in English boarding schools on herself and her sister. She now lives in Israel with her husband and daughter.

Lisa Tyre was born February 1, 1929 in Vienna, Austria into an assimilated Jewish family. Her father, an attorney, served in the Austrian army in World War I. The family experienced no antisemitism until March 1938. Lisa describes the escalating effects of anti-Jewish measures and activities on her parents and herself and witnessed two instances of brutality against Jews. In the summer of 1938 her father was interrogated and beaten by the GESTAPO. A client, who was a Nazi officer, arranged for his safe return and also helped the family to obtain exit visas. The family left for England in September 1938 – helped by the Sassoon family – and moved to Christ Church, New Zealand six months later. The family went to the United States in November 1946, under the Czech quota and stayed for two weeks in the Congress House a shelter for refugees run by the American Jewish Congress. Lisa describes the difficult emigration process, and her family’s life and adjustment problems in England, New Zealand and the United States. Lisa attributes her rejection of Judaism and her distrust of organized religion to some of her experiences in New Zealand and the Congress House, and her bitterness to the loss of over 50 relatives during the Holocaust.

Interviewee: Tyre, Lisa Glaser Date: February 24, 1981

Dr. Gertrude Hallo, nee Rubensohn, was a personal friend of Franz Rosenzweig. She talks about her and her husband’s association and personal relationship with Franz Rosenzweig, starting in 1910 through his final illness, when she learned to take dictation from Franz Rosenzweig who could only move part of one little finger. She explains why Franz Rosenzweig decided not to convert to Christianity but to devote his life to personal Jewish learning, and to improving Jewish education for children and adults. He strove to combine orthodox practice with liberal thought. She explains why one should focus on the man and his life, not on his philosophical system and his theological teachings.

Dr. Hallo talks about Rosenzweig’s life, work, major accomplishments, publications, and some of the well-known persons who studied with him. She describes how he was able to live and to teach after he was stricken with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Franz Rosenzweig kept up an enormous correspondence, continued to write, publish and to translate Hebrew books into German until his death on December 9, 1929.

Dr. Hallo uses the historical background in Germany, the Jewish youth movement, Zionism, and the beginning of the racist Teutonic movement to explain why young Jews had to fight for their Jewish identity in Germany in the 1920s. She briefly talks about the Freikorps, the Kapp Putsch, and the economic, social, and political situation in Germany leading up to the rise of Hitler.

She reflects on Jewish participation in German art and culture and her own early experiences of antisemitism. Her husband died shortly before Hitler came to power, and she talks about her memories of the time just before and after Hitler’s rise to power and the basis of Hitler’s charisma and success.

See also her 1978 interview.

Note: the Collateral Material fileavailable through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library includes:

English translation (done in Nov. 1985) by Dr. Hallo of an article by her husband Dr. Rudolf Hallo “The Pasalter” dedicated to Franz Rosenzweig.

Gabriela Truly, née Braun, was born January 7, 1916 in Levoča, Czechoslovakia, where her family had lived since the first half of the 18th century. She and her five siblings were active in Zionist groups. In 1939, as Slovak nationalists allied with the Axis, restrictions were placed on Jews. Her father’s tinsmithing shop was taken over by the State in 1940. In 1942, Mrs. Truly was rounded up with 1000 single girls aged 14-40, from surrounding areas and sent in the first transport to Auschwitz. She describes the dehumanizing intake process and the difficult life in the camps. Later, when mothers were brought with small children to a separate block, her sister and her 4 ½ year old son were among the first to be gassed in Auschwitz. Mrs. Truly describes the drive of self-preservation, of caring only for yourself, although she narrates many incidents in which she aided others and others aided her. Later in 1942, she was moved to Birkenau, and became very ill with typhus, diarrhea and a badly infected foot. In February 1943 she was hospitalized back in Auschwitz. Mrs. Truly categorizes which jobs were easier to survive and which more difficult. Again, aided by a hairdresser named Monsi, she gets a job first knitting for commandant Hoess, then filing in the personnel building. She was told permits to go to Israel had mysteriously come to Auschwitz, but nothing happened. On January 18, 1944, she was taken on a three day death march, and then near Ravensbrück, where she saw her mother for the last time. Next, they were taken to Malchow where she later met up with the younger sister of her sister-in-law. Eventually, she came to Crivitz and witnessed rape by Russian soldiers. Three brothers and one sister with two children had also survived. At last she went to Prague, where in 1948 she left for New York to live with a brother. She married an American-born Jew and remained in New York.