"Journey to America: Haven Project"
Presenter:
Eva RosenfeldView the entire 2009 Witnesses and voices of the Holocaust catalog
here.Register HereEva Rosenfeld was born in East Prussia, which was part of Germany prior to WW II. It was 1937, and terrible events were happening in Italy and in Germany. There were more and more restrictions for the Jews: yellow stars they had to wear, schools they could not attend, and many things they were forbidden to do. The Nazis were in power and many families sought to escape.
In 1937 Eva and her parents emigrated to Genova, Italy because of the increasing persecution of the Jews in Germany. Her father was arrested in Genova and told he had to leave Italy. He went at night on a fishing boat to France where he was eventually caught by the Nazis and died on the train headed for the concentration camp in Auschwitz.
During the nights of November 9-10, 1938, a massive pogrom (state-sponsored anti-Jewish violence) was orchestrated by the Nazi government throughout Germany and the recently annexed state of Austria. A total of 815 shops, 29 department stores, 171 residences, and 267 synagogues were burned and destroyed. Ninety-one Jews were killed. The shattered panes of beveled glass that littered sidewalks, most of it coming from the shop windows of Jewish stores, gave the pogrom its name: Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass." In the days that followed, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to Germany's concentration camps.
Kristallnacht marked the Nazis' first centrally organized operation of large-scale, anti-Jewish violence. It signaled the fateful transfer of responsibility for "solving" the "Jewish Question" to the SS and served as a prelude to the coming Holocaust.
Eva was taken in by a young Jewish couple, but soon all of them were placed in internment camps in southern Italy (by Italian fascists) from 1940-1944. They lived in hardship none of them could ever have imagined.
As horrendous and infamous as the genocides were, the Jews are still the only group whose fate was the end product of an intentional process specifically designed for their complete extermination. With ruthless efficiency, the victims dehumanized and were gathered, transported, catalogued, sorted, selected, destroyed, and eliminated.
After the liberation of Italy in 1944 and with both her parents now dead, she became one of 982 refugees from many countries, mostly Jews, who were able to come to the USA.
These European-Jewish Holocaust refugees from war-torn Europe were approved for immigration to the United States as “guests” of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the duration of the war.
President Roosevelt “invited” 982 refugees to enter the USA outside the strict immigration quota. These were the ONLY refugees of the Holocaust offered haven in America during World War II.
Time: 9:00 and 10:00 AM (CENTRAL time zone)
Targeted Audience: students in grades 5-12
Format: 45-minutes formatted into 30-minute presentation, and then 15-20 minute Q & A
Cost: $75 per site
