On Tuesday, April 18, the University of Connecticut’s Hillel hosted an event at the Dodd Center for Human Rights. A survivor of the Shoah and panelists were invited to discuss the importance of remembering and educating people about the Holocaust in a world where antisemitism is still strong.
Yana Tartakovskiy, a UConn student and the vice president of marketing on the student board at Hillel, organized the event. The organization was supposed to be in collaboration with the Human Rights Symposium, but Tartakovskiy said they decided not to do it this year. She said she then started to work on her own and approached the other staff at UConn Hillel who were supportive of the project.
Tartakovskiy said she started her journey by looking for panelists to talk during the event like the University of South Carolina Shoah Foundation or the Connecticut Anti-Defamation League.
“I started researching Jewish organizations that could talk about antisemitism on college campuses,” Tartakovskiy said.
Tartakovskiy said she also searched for a Holocaust survivor who would be willing to talk at this event, soon finding Nina Jacobs. Jacobs is part of Voices for Hope, a Conn. database that allows Holocaust survivors and their descendants to connect.
105 people attended the event both in-person and virtually to hear the story of Jacobs.
“I’m not speaking for myself, I’m speaking for the 6 million voices that were destroyed,” Jacobs said at the end of her speech. “Parents have to tell them [their children] of being Jewish, and to be proud of who we are.”
Inés Martinez Lebron, an international student from Spain, said she came to the event because she thought it would be a good opportunity to learn about a community she is not familiar with.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to do things like this in the next few years for obvious reasons, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to come here,” Martinez Lebron said.
For Martinez Lebron, attending this event was important because it is the occasion to be more knowledgeable about a sensitive but world-changing topic from an expert.
Her and another student, Ella Gregory, said they agreed that this event should be more deeply discussed in their classes.
Panelists then spoke about how education is vital in the fight against antisemitism. Many states have mandated Holocaust education, but there is not a uniform curriculum that ensures all topics are covered.
According to Tartakovskiy, having a standard curriculum that teachers can follow and resources they can access could be a solution to facilitate the education of this topic.
“It’s a very hard topic to teach, especially depending on the age of the students, so I think pushing that legislation and creating those resources would be the best way to go about it,” Tartakovskiy said.
However, it is still necessary to teach this topic to people as antisemitism incidents have risen over the years and keep rising on campuses.
“I do know that every year, by almost 100%, antisemitic incidents have risen almost everywhere,” Tartakovskiy said.
Tartakovskiy said planning this event was very meaningful for her, as a way of reminding people that antisemitism is not normal. She said she believes antisemitism is normalized through social media, pop culture and entertainment, where these ideas can spread.
According to Tartakovskiy, “having these kinds of events where you can talk about what antisemitism looks like in different forms, online and in person” is very important.
Beyond educating people at school about what the Holocaust and antisemitism are, Tartakovskiy said having survivors testify about what they’ve been through is also a way to make this tragic historic event more powerful.
The USC Shoah foundation is working towards keeping these testimonies on record forever by recording 3D virtual videos of the survivors where students can interact with them and ask questions.
“I think being able to spread those kinds of programs across the US would be very helpful for the newer generation,” Tartakovskiy said.
A recorded version will be posted for people to watch Jacobs’ testimony and panelists’ talk.
