JERUSALEM — Another milestone has been passed on the road to continued education about – and greater understanding of – the Holocaust, and a member of Toronto’s Jewish community is part of that story.
From left, Yaron Ashekanzi, executive director of the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem and Joseph Gottdenker, with his children, Debbie and Adam, join Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council; Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, and Canadian Ambassador Jon Allen at the cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new international seminars wing at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies. [Yossi Ben David/Yad Vashem photo]
Joseph Gottdenker, a philanthropist and Holocaust survivor who serves on the boards of several Jewish non-profits, is a Yad Vashem benefactor who recently donated seed money to build a new international seminars wing at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, is located on Har Hazikaron, the Mount of Remembrance, adjacent to Mount Herzl.
A ceremony was held there Jan. 19 to lay the cornerstone for the new wing. Some 60 educators from nearly 20 countries attended the event, as did 26 ambassadors.
During the Holocaust, a Polish police officer, Wladyslaw Ziolo, provided asylum to Gottdenker and his mother, Bina. When it became too dangerous for Bina to remain, Ziolo provided her with false identity papers, helping her to escape with the Polish underground.
The Ziolo family protected Joe, raising him as their own child for almost three years. After the war, Joe, with the help of his uncle, David Zuckerbrot, was reunited with his parents in Germany.
The Gottdenkers spent three years in Germany as displaced persons before immigrating to the United States in 1948. Ten years later, they moved to Canada. Joe attended high school in Toronto and university in London, Ont.
“I was born into a world where whole Jewish communities, built up over centuries, were destroyed mercilessly without a second thought,” he told attendees in his address, which stressed the importance of Holocaust education.
“We must ensure the tragedies of the past do not repeat themselves in the lives of our children and grandchildren. We must ensure the memory of every person who perished in the Holocaust is preserved, and that their stories are told, so that the lessons of the Holocaust will resound the world over,” he said.
“Yad Vashem recognizes this responsibility and stands at the forefront of Holocaust commemoration and education.”
He added that “Yad Vashem is without a doubt the most influential and active institution in safeguarding the memory of the Holocaust.”
“As a Holocaust survivor, I know only too well the human capacity for evil. I believe the only way to rise above this evil is through education. It is not enough for us to remember the Holocaust in our hearts. To truly honour the memory of those who perished, we must ensure that they and the Shoah are remembered in the hearts of the third generation and the fourth generation and every generation to come.”
One of the educators taking part in Yad Vashem’s winter seminar program, Canadian Steven Van Zoost, an English teacher at Avon View High School in Windsor, N.S., also spoke at the ceremony.
Van Zoost said that he “had three reasons for attending the winter seminar.
“First, I wanted to learn about how to teach the Holocaust other than as a series of dates and consequences for Jewish people… Secondly, I wanted to learn about modern Israel, and this seminar has helped me through lectures, but also through experiences outside of our classes… Finally, my third reason for attending this seminar was that I wanted to promote Holocaust education within my profession, something that I will continue to do through professional publications and my university teaching with other teachers.”