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

This document is the 2013-2014 Annual Report for the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University. It summarizes the center's activities, achievements, and future goals for the academic year. Key highlights include an increase in Jewish studies minors, hosting visiting professors and playwrights, public lectures (including the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Lecture and the inaugural Leo Trepp Lecture), and various events reaching out to students and the wider Boston area. The report details faculty affiliations, publications, and presentations, as well as graduate and undergraduate student news, including study abroad programs. It also covers the center's outreach efforts, new office location, and partnerships with other organizations like Hillel. The report emphasizes the center's role in promoting Jewish studies, fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse, and engaging with contemporary issues related to Judaism, Israel, and the Middle East.

This document is a 2007 membership invitation and form for the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), addressed to Professor Elie Wiesel. It serves as a "Call to Action" for influential leaders, distinguished officials, non-government leaders, and CEOs to join CGI in addressing global challenges. The brochure outlines the initiative's goals, focusing on areas like energy and climate change, global health, poverty alleviation, and education, encouraging members to make personal commitments. It highlights membership benefits, including participation in the 2007 mid-year and annual meetings in New York City, access to web resources, and commitment support. The document features numerous prominent figures, including Bill Clinton (founder), Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey, through images and quotes, emphasizing their involvement and the non-partisan nature of the William J. Clinton Foundation project. The invitation includes a detailed membership form with contact and payment information, demonstrating how CGI catalyzes solutions through global partnerships.

Samuel Sherron was born March 27, 1932 in Skuodas, Lithuania but lived in Schweksna. His father was a merchant. Samuel was educated in both public school and cheder. He lived under Russian occupation from 1940 until the German invasion. He describes the roundup and torture of local Jews by SS troops and Lithuanians. He cites eyewitness accounts of the murder of all remaining Jews, mostly women and children.

Samuel and his father were taken to a labor camp in Heydekrug near Memel, Germany in 1941. He experienced beatings, atrocities and frequent selections. Those selected were shot. In 1943, when he was only 11 years old, they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He describes surviving the initial selection and how inmates built tracks so transports could go directly to the crematoria. He details conditions at Auschwitz, the Appels, the constant hunger, and an encounter with Dr. Mengele. He witnessed sadism and torture. Lithuanian and Ukrainian guards killed Jewish prisoners for sport.

With 5000 non-Polish Jewish volunteers they were sent to Pawiak prison to build barracks and crematoria in what had been the Warsaw Ghetto, as transports of Hungarian and Czech Jews arrived. In the summer of 1944, most of the prisoners from “Camp Warsaw “ were evacuated on a death march to Kovno, then by cattle train to Dachau, with a group of Greek Jews. He mentions eyewitness accounts of mass murders of Jews by Einsatzgruppen under Operation Barbarossa. He went to a labor camp in Mühldorf, Germany to do construction work for the Luftwaffe. In April 1945, the prisoners were put on cattle trains guarded by SS. Intervention by the mayor of Pocking, Bavaria (because American troops were near) kept the Luftwaffe from killing them. Samuel and his father were liberated by America troops in Seeshaupt on April 28, 1945. They were transferred to Munich after some medical treatment.

Interviewee: SHERRON, Samuel Date: December 11, 1983

This document is an invitation from the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, in cooperation with the Georgetown University Alumni Association. It invites recipients to the official designation of "Jan Karski Corner" at the intersection of Madison Avenue and 37th Street, followed by a panel discussion titled "Georgetown Professor Jan Karski: Giving Voice to the Holocaust." The event is scheduled for Thursday, April 16, 2009, at 2:30 PM, and will take place in front of the Consulate's residence at 233 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016. The invitation includes RSVP details. The first page features a photograph of Jan Karski and highlights his role as a "Legendary Polish Underground Courier in WWII," "The First to tell the Allies about the Holocaust," and a "Hero of the Polish and Jewish People," also recognized as "A Righteous Among the Nations."

Sophie Roth, née Parille, born in Zloczow, Poland, was one of four children in a religious family. She refers to the German bombing and invasion in 1939, and the killing of doctors and teachers by Germans, aided by Poles and Ukranians. She worked in forced labor camps in Lazczow and Kosice until 1942, when she was shot and lost a leg. A Polish teenager, whom she tutored, travelled to Lemberg to obtain a prosthesis for her.

She describes hiding in a fish barrel and then in a Polish peasant’s stable with her family, in exchange for money, jewelry and the deed to their house. She details near-starvation and suffocating subliminal existence under a manure pile with nine other people. Forced to leave by their sadistic “benefactor”, her family found shelter in an unheated basement of a Polish teacher, Elena Sczychovska, and her husband, who was the local police commandant. Fourteen people were sheltered there during the last year of the war. She mentions the hostility of neighbors when her family returned to their home.

In 1947, she married a Hebrew teacher who lost his religious faith and his entire family. She remained a believer, attributing her survival to God’s miracles. A daughter was born in Paris in 1952 and the family emigrated, aided by HIAS and by Jewish Family Service in Philadelphia. She reads several poems, recalling horrendous Holocaust memories, into the interview.

Interviewee: ROTH, Sophie Date: March 9, 1988