Tag: holocaust

When we grow up, we want to be like Carla Peperzak. That was how my wife and I felt after our three-hour lunch and visit with Peperzak in her home at Rockwood Retirement Communities. At 99 years old, she is mentally and physically much younger. Her passion for teaching children about the horrors of the Holocaust is keen and always eager.

I have never seen anything like our current anti-Semitic climate. Jews understand this dynamic in the same way Black Americans understand racism in ways white Americans cannot. We know the dog whistles, the coded language that anti-Semites use to signal their hate.

On Friday, Sept. 30, Clarice Wilsey will share the inspiring story of her late father, who was a liberator of and physician for the people of Dachau Concentration Camp.   

You must watch Ken Burns’ PBS series on America and the Holocaust. This documentary about the Holocaust was made for our times. To understand the darker elements of America, it is required viewing.

Holocaust survivor and Spokane resident Carla Peperzak will join several Gonzaga University historians and representatives of Seattle’s Holocaust Center for Humanity to present “Remembering Our Past to Inform Our Future” tonight from 7-8:30 p.m. in the Hemmingson Ballroom.

Jewish tradition obligates us to remember. We believe that the memories of our lost loved ones are a blessing to us. When we say the name of someone who has died, we revive them in our memory, and we acknowledge their life.

I don't believe that they followed him entirely blindly--i.e., certainly propaganda and lies did their dirty work, but people made conscious choices. I mention this here and now as we are outraged by the latest evil anti-Semitic hate crime in our country at a synagogue in Pittsburgh while the community was celebrating Shabbat, a day of rest, peace, and contemplation.