Sinclair Community College’s annual Holocaust Remembrance and Education Series continues its 26 years of observance this April with the theme “Spirit of Survival.”
The Holocaust Remembrance Committee, comprised of Sinclair staff and community members, was formed in 1987 with the purpose of “encouraging the study of the Holocaust, to foster understanding between different cultures and to work against racism and ethnic prejudice.”
Sean Frost, Holocaust Remembrance Committee chair and associate professor at Sinclair, described the ambition of this year’s theme as not only an effort to emphasize the will to survive in the midst of mass murder, but to highlight those who survived and help communicate their experiences. “It’s really important to share those stories — to let the younger people hear these stories of survival and how that came about,” Frost said. “We know that all too soon the opportunity to hear first-hand accounts is going to be lost. Survivors are aging.”
This year, Holocaust survivor Sam Heider will deliver the “Spirit of Survival” keynote address on Thursday, April 4 at 12:30 p.m. in Building 14, Room 130.
Heider was relocated from Biejkow, Poland to the Bialobrzegi ghetto in 1941. He survived Nazi-occupation and the labor camp at Radom, but his parents died in the Treblinka extermination camp.
“Yom HaShoah: Remembering the Holocaust” commemoration will be held, with the help of Sinclair’s Campus Ministry, on Tuesday, April 9 at 12:30 p.m. in the Library Loggia. The student-led reading and reflection will be held in remembrance of those killed during the Holocaust.
A workshop for teachers and education majors will be held on Thursday, April 11 at 4 p.m. in Building 7, Room 006. The series of three workshops will focus on teaching about the Holocaust.
Sinclair Talks will present “Renate Frydman, A Survivor’s Story” on Monday, April 15 at 2 p.m. in the Library Loggia. Frydman is a Holocaust survivor with the Dayton Holocaust Resource center and a Holocaust Committee member.
Frost said the Holocaust Committee will also help promote the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center’s Max May Memorial Art Contest, which encourages Dayton-region students to create Holocaust-themed art projects and written pieces. Selected pieces from the contest will be displayed in the Sinclair Library in April.
Frost said he grew up with an awareness of the Holocaust, but the experience of hearing a Holocaust survivor speak while he was in college widened his perception of the event from being a tragic period in history, to something much more.
He described the chance of hearing a survivor’s first-hand account as a “visceral, gut-churning experience.”
“I think for students, anytime you get an opportunity to interact with history, it makes it more tangible and it makes it something that is living,” Frost said. “I think it can have an emotional impact, but it can also have a cognitive impact, so that students are encouraged to do more research and learn about the Holocaust.”
The Sam Heider keynote event, “Yom HaShoah” and Sinclair Talks events are free and open to Sinclair students and the community.
For additional information or questions regarding Holocaust Remembrance and Education, contact Frost at sean.frost@sinclair.edu.