The Russians drove my father’s family from Europe, not the Nazis. My paternal grandfather, living in the neverland between Ukraine and Russia, fled to America in the 1920s. Pogroms that decimated Jewish villages in Eastern Europe had been sending Jews west for decades, fueling bursts of Jewish immigration to the U.S.
In a tremendous coup -- no pun intended -- SpokaneFāVS has acquired an early draft of the statement issued by the Trump administration to mark the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The finished product, though considerably more polished than this draft version, still failed to mention the Jewish people as the primary target of the Nazis’ genocidal efforts.
Andrea Lieber, associate professor of religious studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., will lecture and lead a discussion in two events at Gonzaga University on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins the evening of April 7 and ends the evening of April 8.
Lieber will speak on and invite discussion on the topic, “What Does the Holocaust Mean to You?” — starting at 5:30 p.m., April 7 in the Foley Center Library, Teleconference Room.
It ended almost seven decades ago and remaining survivors are few, which is why on Thursday the Spokane community paused to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and reflect upon the importance of educating students about it.