Remembering their faces

By Malka Eisenberg

Issue of July 24, 2009 / 3 Av 5769

One man recounted how the inmates of the Westerbrook concentration camp secretly baked matzo for Passover. Another survivor was among the 1800 Jews traded for tanks by the Germans. And one woman proudly told her story of how she smuggled gunpowder to help blow up a crematorium in Auschwitz.

Their stories and others were recorded by students in Central and MTA as part of “Names, Not Numbers,” an ongoing multimedia project to preserve the oral histories of Holocaust survivors. The program has proven to be a powerful event for the participating students.

“Just sitting across from a survivor and looking in their eyes, [and] knowing they saw what happened is a life-changing experience,” said Rebecca Ringelheim, one of the Central seniors who participated in the program. “I would recommend one hundred percent that anyone who can, should do it.”

Tova Fish-Rosenberg, a Jewish educator and recipient of the Baumel Award for Excellence in Jewish Studies, created “Names, Not Numbers” six years ago. It has been produced every year since its inception as a senior thesis in the Yeshiva University High Schools and in schools across the country. The program involves teaching about the Holocaust through a framework of oral history filming.

“The students are trained by professionals how to interview for an oral history and how to make a documentary,” explained Rosenberg.

Termed “an Intergenerational Holocaust Curriculum Project,” groups of two or three students receive a biography of their subject, either a survivor or a

World War II veteran, research all facets of their subject with help from a website set up by Rosenberg, and augment their research with trips to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Students learn recording, filming and editing techniques, as well as how to interact with interviewees. They then interview their subjects face-to-face, preserving, often for the first time, their personal history.

The one-hour videotaped interview filmed by each team of students is edited into a fifteen minute format and combined with others into a “Names, Not Numbers” documentary DVD.  The documentary director also films the entire process from instructional classes and information sessions to the final interview and editing to create a second film, “Names, Not Numbers: A Movie in the Making.” This documentary is shown at a dinner with the students,  interviewees and invited guests at the completion of the program.

Thirteen movies have been produced so far featuring 56 survivors and World War II veterans being interviewed by 140 Yeshiva University High School students. The films have been shown in synagogues and camps as part of Yom Hashoah and Tisha b’Av commemorations. “Names, Not Numbers: A Movie in the Making @ Central” will be shown on Tisha b’Av this year at Congregation Anshei Chesed of Hewlett, Young Israel of Jamaica Estates in Queens, Congregation Ohr Torah in North Woodmere, Young Israel of Plainview, andat  Camp Moshava in Canada.

Rosenberg pointed out that students at Central added a “twist,” a different view, to the Holocaust experience. This year, they interviewed Dr. Norman Lamm, Chancelor of Yeshiva University, about his role in producing ammunition for Israel during the 1948 War of Independence, as a chemistry major at YU. Another part of this year’s “twist” was an interview with twin German brothers studying medicine at Yale University Medical School whose grandfathers were in the Hitler Youth and the German army during the war.

Rebecca Honig of Lawrence, another Central student, chose to participate in the program because, “I thought that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The survivors are dying out and we have to seize the opportunity.”

She said that as a result of her involvement in “Names, Not Numbers” she “values life more.”

Her subject survived a labor camp, a concentration camp and a death march.

“Everything terrible that can happen to a person happened to him,” she said.  “The most inspiring thing is how happy he seems regardless of what happened to him. He built an entire life for himself and pushed on.”

“It’s one thing to sit and learn about the Holocaust in a classroom,” she emphasized.  “It’s another to sit and hear it first hand.  It changes how you think about it, your view of the Holocaust. You feel a lot more connected to it.”

“It strengthened my view about life,” wrote Liat Brody, another Central graduate, in an email. “Life is G-d’s gift; it is precious. We should try to do our best during this lifetime, because life on earth is limited.”