Yeshiva University High School (Central) Names not numbers

The screening of “Names, Not Numbers© “ at Yeshiva University High School (YUHS)for Girls in Queens, took place two days after Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day). Over 250 people attended Central’s 12th grade Holocaust Memorial film documentary project--”Names, Not Numbers,” (NNN). 32 seniors interviewed and filmed 8 survivors: Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, a participant in the Kindertransport; Professor Carla Beeber, a member of the famed Finzi-Contini family; Mrs. Fay Brandwein who fled the Brody ghetto; Rabbi Chaim Schwartzblatt, a partisan; Mrs. Alice Bodner and Mrs. Chaya Rubin, survivors of Auschwitz; Mrs. Margot Zarny, who was hidden in a Convent and Mrs. Lyuba Abramovitch, a partisan.

NNN is a copyrighted oral history film project and curriculum created by YUHS’s Tova Fish-Rosenberg. It transforms traditional history lessons into a lively, interactive, nontraditional program that involves individuals who have actually lived through the history being taught. Students acquire documentary filmmaking skills, interview and film eyewitnesses, and create a Holocaust documentary that will become a permanent part of the National Library of Israel, Yad Vashem and YU’s Gottesman Library.

NNN has been produced 40 times over the last decade throughout the U.S. and Canada, with more than 1500 Middle School and High School Yeshiva students interviewing over 300 Holocaust survivors. Besides YUHSG, other schools who participated in NNN include YUHS for Boys in Manhattan, Moriah Day School in Englewood, Yeshiva Central Queens and Yeshiva Har Torah in Queens, SAR in Riverdale, HAFTR, Hillel Torah in Chicago, Emery Weiner School in Houston, Margolin Yeshiva in Memphis and Netivot Ha’Torah in Toronto.