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Upstander Connection

Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance

20 Aug 2013

Delayed Justice: New Museum Special Exhibit Opening Sept. 1 Reexamines Historic Controversial Case

Leo Frank

Leo Frank

This exhibit, examines anti-Semitism in America. Through a large number of artifacts, it revisits the murder case and trial that ultimately captured the attention of the nation and led to the lynching of a Jewish man in Marietta, GA in 1915.

Exhibit Dates: September 1, 2013 through December 31, 2013

Location: Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance, 211 N. Record Street, Dallas, TX 75202 (In the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas at the southwest corner of Pacific and Record.)

Hours: Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

For Leo Frank, justice arrived too late to prevent his tragic and unlawful lynching. Today, however, his story finds a measure of redemption, serving as a powerful reminder of the evils of prejudice, hatred and indifference.

The Dallas Holocaust Museum will host its newest special exhibit, “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited,” beginning Sept. 9. The exhibit will run through Tuesday, Dec. 31.

“Seeking Justice” will examine anti-Semitism in America. Through a large number of artifacts, the exhibit revisits the murder case and trial of Frank, which captured the attention of a nation a century ago.

In 1913, a jury convicted Frank, a Jewish superintendent in a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, of the murder of a child laborer who worked in the factory. Thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan’s body was found in the pencil factory cellar.

Frank’s conviction came after a long trial. To the outrage of many, Governor John Slaton, who believed Frank was innocent, commuted the former superintendent’s sentence to life in prison on his last day in office in June 1915.

Two months later, a lynch mob of 25 armed men, including pillars of Georgia’s legal community, kidnapped Frank from prison. The mob drove Frank 150 miles to Frey’s Gin, near Phagan’s home in Marietta, and hanged him. A large crowd gathered and took photographs.

In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles pardoned Frank, citing the state’s failure to protect the Jewish superintendent and bring his killers to justice as reasons for the pardoning.

The pardon was inspired in part by the 1982 testimony of Alonzo Mann, who as an office boy saw Jim Conley carrying Mary Phagan’s body to the basement on the day of her death. Conley had threatened to kill Mann if he said anything, and the boy’s mother advised him to keep silent.

The testimony gave confirmation to those who thought Frank was innocent. However, those who found Frank guilty still believed the testimony provided insufficient evidence to change their views.

The trial had long- and far-reaching impact. It struck fear in Jewish southerners, causing them to monitor their behavior in the region closely for the next 50 years—until the civil rights movement led to more significant changes.

The Leo Frank caused ripples well beyond Atlanta, GA. The case ignited the rebirth of the KKK and solidified the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.

We present this exhibit with the same intent as The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, which developed it.

To revisit the case of Leo Frank and pose critical questions relating to individual and moral responsibility, respect for individual difference, the fragility of the democratic process, responsible citizenship, and the importance of community.

The exhibit presents the complicated and nuanced story of Mary Phagan’s murder, Leo Frank’s fate, and the historical, cultural, and political backdrop against which these events took place.

Posted in Close Up:, community, DHM, exhibit, Jewish Identity, Museum programming | Leave a Comment
15 Jul 2013

U.S. Military Translator and Soldier Munir Captain: In Conflict-Ravaged Iraq, Peace is Possible Through Forgiveness and the Practice of Non-Violent Means

Munir Captain speaks at the Dallas Holocaust Museum on July 11.

Munir Captain speaks at the Dallas Holocaust Museum on July 11.

 

At age 15, when many American teens are busy playing team sports and taking driver’s education classes, Iraqi teenager Munir Captain joined the U.S. military as a translator. Later, he would become a special operations soldier in the U.S. Marines for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

But after surviving 33 assassination attempts, Munir sought and received political asylum in the U.S. in 2009 and eventually settled in Dallas, along with his parents and other relatives.

“I learned (in Iraq) that you cannot kill an idea with a bullet,’’ Munir told an audience of about 50 people at a special lecture at the Museum on July 11. “Non-violent, peaceful means are how you change hearts and minds.”

Although Munir and his family now enjoy relative safety and comfort, they cannot escape the continuing violence and tragedy in Iraq, which has claimed the lives as many as 123,000 civilians.

In July of 2011, Munir’s 19-year-old brother and his 15-year-old cousin were kidnapped and murdered by insurgents seeking revenge because of Munir’s alliance with the U.S. An uncle and other family members have also been killed in reprisal attacks.

From an early age, Munir acknowledges that he questioned the ideology of Saddam Hussein’s regime. His questioning of totalitarian authority landed him in prison for eight months when he was a teen boy of 13 and 14, a place where he was sexually assaulted.

At age 15, Munir said he gladly agreed to serve as a translator for the U.S. military and eventually as a soldier alongside Marines who taught him discipline, confidence and public speaking skills.

And, he said, he learned that forgiveness—not revenge—is the most effective means to stop violence, a lesson he learned from his exposure to and conversations with Christians, Muslims and Jews who had each suffered the loss of loved ones and went on to aid those who had suffered similar loss during the Iraqi conflict—regardless of the sufferers’ religious or other background.

Today, Munir works for a local lighting manufacturer while attending community college. He plans to attend Columbia University to complete his undergraduate degree. He speaks to civic and religious groups about his experiences in Iraq and about his beliefs that forgiveness and non-violence are the paths to sustainable peace.

One day soon, Munir said he hopes to establish a foundation in the U.S. that would fund educational and recreational programs for the youth of Iraq who are open and eager to hear his message of hope.

“I want to plant seeds that will bring forgiveness and peace in Iraq,” Munir said.

–By Chris Kelley, for the Dallas Holocaust Museum; Photo by Paula Nourse

Posted in Close Up:, community, DHM, Museum programming, tolerance | Leave a Comment
03 Jul 2013

Hope for Humanity Dinner Set for October 30

Father Patrick Desbois

Father Patrick Desbois

Father Patrick Desbois, President of the Yahad-In Unum Association, will receive the Museum’s 2013 Hope for Humanity Award. Local Holocaust Survivors will also be recognized.

Fr. Desbois, who has devoted his life to confronting anti-Semitism and furthering Catholic-Jewish understanding, will be honored at the Museum’s Hope for Humanity Dinner on October 30 at the Dallas Fairmont Hotel, 1717 North Akard Street. The Hope for Humanity reception starts at 6 p.m. Dinner begins at 7 p.m.

Fr. Desbois has dedicated his life to preserving the memory of Ukraine’s former Jewish community and to advance understanding of the crimes committed during the Holocaust. To date, his organization has identified 800 of the estimated 2,000 sites of mass burial.

Tickets will be $350 (limited availability). Table prices begin at $3,500. For further information, please contact Development Director Maria MacMullin at 214-741-7500.

Posted in heroes, Hope for Humanity, survivor, tolerance, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
03 Jul 2013

Sign of the Times: Museum’s New Herald Historically Proportioned

The new sign at the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance

The Museum has installed a new sign on the Pacific Street/DART side of the building at 211 N. Record Street. The 16-foot long sign (and 16 inches tall) meets the exacting historical proportions required by Dallas city ordinances governing the West End Historic District. The sign, which uses high performance cast vinyl lettering, provides new and needed visibility for Museum visitors who park in adjacent parking lots. The sign took months of planning and one day to install.
Posted in community, DHM, schools, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
29 Jun 2013

July Events Promise to Enlighten and Embolden Museum Visitors

Rita Blitt

Rita Blitt

July 1:  Rita Blitt’s Reaching Out from Within: Stories of Perseverance 

Rita Blitt is an international, award winning painter, sculptor and filmmaker.

“When I create, I feel like I’m dancing on paper.” says Blitt about her passion for art. She began painting as a child and has lived a life filled with creativity and achievements.

Today, her paintings, drawings and sculptures have been featured in exhibitions in Singapore, Israel, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Norway. She also has permanent exhibits in museums, galleries and public settings around the world.  She collaborated with other artists to create films including “Blur,” “Visual Rhythms” and “Caught in Paint,” which was shown at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.  Blitt also authored The Passionate Gesture and Reaching Out From Within.

Her work goes beyond the aesthetically pleasing to her efforts to make the world a better place. “Kindness is Contagious, Catch It!” is a poster Blitt created as a gift to the STOP Violence Coalition, but its world-wide popularity resulted in her presenting prints to every member nation of the United Nations. The Blitt family underwrites the Blitt Family Creative Arts Center at Synergy Services, a violence prevention and intervention center in Parkville, Mo.

Thirteen of Blitt’s colorful and dramatic pieces of sculpture and paintings, an exhibit entitled “Reaching Out from Within: Stories of Perseverance through Art,” will be on display at the Museum from July 1 through August 25, 2013.

July 11: Iraqi war translator Munir Captain

Join the Dallas Holocaust Museum on July 11 as Iraqi war translator Munir Captain shares his stories of despair, freedom and hope.

From 2003 to 2009, Munir Captain and his brother, Omar, served as translators to U.S. forces in their native Iraq.

New residents of North Texas, these brave men still have family in Baghdad, so their personal stories are not only current but relevant as family members in Iraq have faced reprisals for the brothers’ decisions to support American forces and their decision to live as refugees in the U.S.

The brothers bring interesting perspectives on the importance of the regime change in Iraq, the nature of the long insurgency there, the character of the American soldiers, the prospects for Iraq going forward and their own assimilation into American life.

Hear Murnir Captain speak at the Museum theater, 211 N. Record Street Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.

Posted in art, community, DHM, exhibit, Genocide education, Holocaust, Jewish Identity, tolerance, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
14 Jun 2013

A Play for the Ages: The Timekeepers Demonstrates What it Means to be Human

Actors Karl Lewis (Benjamin) and Jeremy W. Smith (Hans) bring an often forgotten story of the Holocaust to the stage.

Actors Karl Lewis (Benjamin) and Jeremy W. Smith (Hans) bring an often forgotten story of the Holocaust to the stage.

What divides us as human beings should not be stronger than what unites us. Yet, history is filled with examples where differences, especially in matters of truth and justice, have produced tragic results.

Conflict over what we share in common—and who we are as individuals—well, this is the stuff of compelling stage drama. Make the setting a World War II concentration camp during the Holocaust, at a Holocaust Museum, and the drama is groundbreaking.

Such is the case with The Timekeepers, a limited-run play now at the Dallas Holocaust Museum Theater on select nights through June 22. The subject matter is strictly for adults. Tickets are available online.

Directed by veteran Texas artistic director Joe Watts, The Timekeepers tells the story of a young-ish German homosexual and a conservative elderly Jewish man who are forced to work together in a camp, repairing watches for the Nazis.

At first, inmate #70649, a character named Benjamin played by veteran Dallas actor Karl Lewis, who wears a yellow star on his camp uniform, won’t even speak to his new colleague. Hans, inmate #2202, whose pink upside down triangle brands his character, played by actor Jeremy W. Smith, a SAG member with television credits, takes the rejection in stride, as though accustomed to it.

Fomenting—and sometimes mediating—the relationship is Capo, a petty thief and camp inmate who oversees the watch repair shop, played by actor Eric Hanson, who makes his debut theatrical performance in the production.

Benjamin was a highly regarded watchmaker in Berlin prior to his deportation. He is expert at repairing watches that Nazi guards confiscated from new camp arrivals. Hans lied about his mechanical abilities—he knows nothing about repairing watches—to avoid certain death as a failed laborer in a camp cement plant.

As is often the case in life where obvious differences overshadow commonalities upon initial meetings, time and humor eventually washes away prejudice and indifference and the two men discover each has a passion for a shared interest: opera.

The two men become friends and even rehearse scenes from an opera that they will perform at a show for the Finnish branch of the Red Cross who will be visiting the camp in a few days.

However, when the show is suddenly cancelled, their common passion for opera instantly disappears and pride and prejudice overtakes each again and erupts in a raw, disturbing, enlightening and all too familiar scene from daily life even today.

To say more about the play by Dan Clancey would spoil an incredibly impactful production by Theatre New West.

In introducing the play, truly a first-of-its-kind production for the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance, President and CEO Mary Pat Higgins noted how the Museum is committed to telling the stories of all Holocaust victims.

“Homosexuals are among the Holocaust’s forgotten victims,” she noted. “The Timekeepers, while fiction, is based on a larger story and it allows us to bring the ‘forgotten’ into the light.”

The play continues Fridays and Saturdays, June 14, 15, 21 and 22 at 8 p.m. Talk back sessions with the director and cast will occur after Friday night performances.

By Chris Kelley, for the Dallas Holocaust Museum

Posted in bullying, community, DHM, Genocide education, heroes, Holocaust, Museum programming, reflection, review, survivor, tolerance, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
12 Jun 2013

For USHMM Scholar and Editor Geoffrey Megargee, the Holocaust Remains a Shocking Topic of Research

For years following World War II, many citizens of Germany claimed that they had no idea that Jews had been targeted for extermination during the Nazi regime. The Holocaust that took the lives of 6 million Jews and another 5 million “undesirables.”

However, new research that shows the number of Nazi ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories actually totaled about 42,500—rather than the 7,000 originally believed to have been established—made that claim specious.

“This really makes us question the claim by some that they didn’t know what was going on,” said Mary Pat Higgins, President & CEO of the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance. “Given the new numbers we’re seeing, German citizens would have encountered an  incarcerated Jew on a regular basis.”

Indifference to the suffering of other fellow beings was at the core of a special lecture on June 6 at SMU’s Dallas Hall by Dr. Geoffrey Megargee, Senior Applied Research Scholar at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s (USHMM) Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, where he is the project leader and editor-in-chief for the Museum’s seven-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, the first two volumes of which are complete.

The task of documenting and cataloging the Nazi ghettos and camps began in the year 2000. The numbers are staggering: 30,000 slave labor camps (many on the grounds of privately-owned German factories); 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels where women were forced to live; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers. In Berlin alone, researchers have documented 3,000 camps and so-called “Jew houses.”

The existence of many individual camps and ghettos was previously known only on a region-by-region, fragmented basis. Using data from 400 contributors, researchers are now documenting the scale of the Holocaust for the first time—where they were located, how they were run, what conditions were like inside them and what their purposes were.

Living conditions in the camps varied based on their location, purpose and the personality and psychological nature of the camp’s overseer and the expectations placed on guards.

“It’s hard to form a picture of the treatment without sounding like a cliché. It certainly was no Hogan’s Heroes.”

Some of the camps represented the worst of human behavior—medical experiments performed on children and women at Auschwitz-Birkenau by Dr. Josef Mengele, for example.

In other camps, researchers discovered how other camp inmates went without food, medical treatment, and warm clothing  so that younger or more vulnerable others would have a better chance of survival.

“Nothing about any of this is neat,” said Dr. Megargee. “We’ve had to make it neat in order to describe it. What’s clear is that Jews were always at the bottom of the heap.”

Five more volumes of the series are planned between now and 2025. The program was supported by community partners, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Embrey Human Rights Program at SMU.

By Chris Kelley, for the Dallas Holocaust Museum; Photo by Paula Nourse

Dr. Geoffrey Megargee speaks to a large crowd at SMU's Dallas Hall

Dr. Geoffrey Megargee speaks to a large crowd at SMU’s Dallas Hall

Posted in book, community, DHM, Holocaust, Museum programming, Uncategorized, USHMM | Leave a Comment
31 May 2013

Don’t Miss Summer 2013! Programs, Plays and Presentations All Part of Museum Lineup

Dr. Geoffrey Megargee

Dr. Geoffrey Megargee

June 6: USHMM Researcher to Detail Findings on Vastly Larger Number of Death Camps, Other Nazi Facilities During Holocaust

Thirteen years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the dismal task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.

Historians anticipated there would be 7,000 camps and ghettos, but what they found has shocked even scholars, proficient in the history of the Holocaust.

Dr. Geoffrey Megargee was at the heart of the research project that led to the shocking discovery of not 7,000, but 42,500 camps and ghettos across Europe.

This story captured world interest when released in the New York Times in March 2013.

Now you can hear Dr. Geoffrey Megargee tell the story “How the Holocaust Just Got A Lot More Shocking.”

Join the Dallas Holocaust Museum Thursday, June 6, at 6:30 p.m. in Dallas Hall at SMU McCord Auditorium, as Dr. Megargee shares the details of the research and the discoveries, and learn what impact this will have on Holocaust studies. There is no charge to attend the lecture, however, please RSVP at RSVP@DallasHolocaustMuseum.org .

Lev Aronson

Lev Aronson

June 11: “Concert in the Atrium” to Celebrate Life of the Late Lev Aronson

The Dallas Holocaust Museum presents “Concert in the Atrium” on Tuesday, June 11, at 1:30 p.m. in the atrium of the Museum, 211 N. Record Street.

The concert will feature cellists who are in Dallas for the The First Annual Lev Aronson Legacy Festival Week at SMU, among them festival creator and renowned cellist, Brian Thornton.

Lev Aronson, the world-renowned cellist and Holocaust survivor, was an incredible, blossoming solo cellist in his day. When he was interred in labor and concentration camps in World War II, and his prized Amati cello taken from him, he began to “think-sing” the concertos he knew from memory, establishing a sense of time and patience that gave him the strength to survive.

After the war, Aronson became the principal cellist in the Dallas symphony and he was renowned worldwide as a teacher of cello. “It is my turn to help keep his memory alive,” Thornton says of his beloved teacher.

Thornton is a member of the Cleveland Orchestra and creator of the Lev Aronson project, a CD showcasing beautiful melodies for cello and piano created by Lev Aronson.

The Timekeepers

The Timekeepers

June 12: Ground-breaking Play The Timekeepers Begins Limited Run

Dan Clancy’s award-winning play The Timekeepers is a Holocaust drama set at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in World War II Germany.

It tells the story of prisoners Benjamin, a conservative, elderly Jewish watchmaker put to work at his trade by the camp commander, and Hans, an outrageous young German homosexual who’s been assigned as Benjamin’s assistant. In spite of their dire circumstances and vast differences, the men form a strong bond over their shared love of opera and their wicked sense of humor.

The Timekeepers has played in London, Israel, Ireland, Canada, Poland, Germany and New York, and has generated glowing reviews.  Dealing with the Holocaust in a way that accentuates the private experience of a horrific tragedy affecting millions, it became the most performed Israeli piece of theater in the world.

The Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance, Theatre New West and theater director, Joe Watts, are collaborators for the production, which will be held June 12 through June 15 and June 21 and 22.   June 12 is a special  “pay-what-you-can” night.  Admission for the remaining performances is $20.  Tickets can be purchased through Event Brite at http://thetimekeepers.eventbrite.com

The curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. and, for Friday and Saturday performances, at 8 p.m. The play will be performed in the Museum theater. The adult content of this production is not suitable for young children.

Rita Blitt

Rita Blitt

July 1: New Special Exhibit Opens Featuring “Stories of Perserverance”

Rita Blitt is an international, award winning painter, sculptor and filmmaker.

“When I create, I feel like I’m dancing on paper.” says Blitt about her passion for art. She began painting as a child and has lived a life filled with creativity and achievements.  Today her paintings, drawings and sculptures have been featured in exhibitions in Singapore, Israel, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Norway. She also has permanent exhibits in museums, galleries and public settings around the world.  She collaborated with other artists to create films including “Blur,” “Visual Rhythms” and “Caught in Paint,” which was shown at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.  Blitt also authored The Passionate Gesture and Reaching Out From Within.

Her work goes beyond the aesthetically pleasing to her efforts to make the world a better place. “Kindness is Contagious, Catch It!” is a poster Blitt created as a gift to the STOP Violence Coalition, but its world-wide popularity resulted in her presenting prints to every member nation of the United Nations. The Blitt family underwrites the Blitt Family Creative Arts Center at Synergy Services, a violence prevention and intervention center in Parkville, Mo.

Thirteen of Blitt’s colorful and dramatic pieces of sculpture and paintings, an exhibit entitled “Reaching Out from Within: Stories of Perseverance through Art,” will be on display at the Museum from July 1 through August 25, 2013.

Come hear Iraqi War translator Munir Captain on July 11, 2013

Come hear Iraqi War translator Munir Captain on July 11, 2013

July 11: Iraqi War Translator to Share his Stories of Despair, Freedom and Hope

Join the Dallas Holocaust Museum on July 11 as Iraqi war translator Munir Captain shares his stories of despair, freedom, and hope.

From 2003 to 2009, Munir Captain and his brother, Omar, served as translators to U.S. forces in their native Iraq.

New residents of North Texas, these brave men still have family in Baghdad, so their personal stories are not only current but relevant as family members in Iraq have faced reprisals for the brothers’ decisions to support American forces and their decision to live as refugees in the U.S.

The brothers bring interesting perspectives on the importance of the regime change in Iraq, the nature of the long insurgency there, the character of the American soldiers, the prospects for Iraq going forward and their own assimilation into American life.

Hear Munir Captain speak at the Museum theater, 211 N. Record Street Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.

 

--By Shelia Huffman, for the Dallas Holocaust Museum

Posted in community, DHM, exhibit, Jewish Identity, tolerance | Leave a Comment
21 May 2013

For Carl Wilkens, the only American who remained in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide, “I’m Not Leaving” is a clarion call to action

Carl Wilkens speaks to at the Dallas Holocaust Museum on May 16, 2013

Carl Wilkens speaks at the Dallas Holocaust Museum on May 16, 2013

For 100 days in 1994, between early April and mid-July, more than 500,000 people were murdered in the East African state of Rwanda.

The Rwandan Genocide was a genocidal mass slaughter of the Tutsis by the Hutus. Some estimates of the death toll ranged up to 1,000,000, or as much as 20% of the country’s total population at the time.

The genocide was the culmination of longstanding ethnic competition and tensions between the minority Tutsi, who had controlled power for centuries, and the majority Hutu peoples, who had come to power in the rebellion of 1959–62.

Throughout the tragic ordeal, Carl Wilkens, a humanitarian aid worker from Chicago, was the only American to remain in the country. Wilkens moved his young family to Rwanda in the spring of 1990 to work for the humanitarian agency of the Adventist Church. During the genocide, he remained there with his wife, two children and two young Tutsis who would have been slaughtered had he not kept them safe in his home.

Three weeks into the genocide, Carl—at great personal risk—traveled to an orphanage near the Rwandan capital of Kigali, to bring water to the thirsty and starving children living there. Unbeknownst to him at the time, the children were also targeted for mass slaughter. However, his presence at the orphanage, along with negotiations with the would-be killers, resulted in hundreds of lives being saved.

On May 16 at the Museum, Carl Wilkens shared his incredible story in a special presentation, “Rwanda through the eyes of the only American to witness the 1994 Genocide.” More than 120 guests packed the Museum’s theater to hear the presentation, among them several survivors of the Rwandan genocide who lost loved ones to the unspeakable violence.

“The young woman and young man we kept in our home never asked me to stay,” said Wilkens, who been urged by close friends, his employer and the U.S. government to leave Rwanda immediately. “We could not leave.”

He downplayed his role in saving lives during the genocide. “I didn’t do anything by myself. I did it with others as part of a group,” he said. “None of us are God-like heroes on our own. But all of us can be an Upstander for 15 minutes.”

Wilkens said tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the U.S. government or the U.N. would have permitted non-Rwandans to drive Rwandan citizens out of the small country to the safety of neighboring countries prior to the violence. Rwanda is a small country about the size of Maryland but densely populated with 11.7 million residents (2012 estimate).

Wilkens has written a book about the experience, I’m not leaving (ImNotLeavingRwanda.com), and a new 35-minute documentary by the same name will be released later this year.

For the past nine years, Wilkens and his wife, Teresa, have been travelling the U.S. and abroad to share their experiences with the aim of building bridges to peace.

Slowly, Rwandans are rebuilding their country and healing through the power of forgiveness, he said. He last visited Rwanda in January.

“We are not defined by what we don’t have or lost,” Wilkens concluded. “We are defined by what we do with what we have.”

–By Chris Kelley for the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance; Photo by Paula Nourse

Posted in book, community, DHM, Genocide education, Museum programming, reflection, tolerance, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
08 May 2013

For those who heard Polyphony on May 5, a new appreciation of common ground through common sound

Award-winning musicians from Polyphony (l-r), Yamen Saadi, violinist; Ron Trachtman, pianist; Hagit Bar Sella, cello.

Award-winning musicians from Polyphony (l-r), Yamen Saadi, violinist; Ron Trachtman, pianist; Hagit Bar Sella, cellist.

Their goal: to bridge the divide in Israel between Arab and Jew.

Their means: the power of music.

On Sunday, May 5, the talented young musicians of the Polyphony Foundation—performing at the Episcopal School of Dallas at a concert benefitting the Dallas Holocaust Museum—proved just how powerful their sound can be.

A standing ovation at the concert’s conclusion for the five musicians from various backgrounds—one as young as age 10—symbolized not only the skill of the performers, but the majesty of the message: Even in one of the world’s most tension-filled regions, music can serve to bridge differences.

“When you share a common interest with someone, it’s remarkable how your differences become less important,” said Mary Pat Higgins, president and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust Museum, in her introductory remarks.

Polyphony began as the dream of a young music teacher in Nazareth, Israel, who happened to be Arab.

Nabeel Abboud Ashkar decided one day that he could make a difference in creating tolerance through education, and, with a colleague, opened a musical school for local young musicians all faith backgrounds—Jewish, Christian and Muslim.

“If we can reach out to young people and their parents, we can change young hearts and minds and influence others to follow suit,” Nabeel told the audience of more than 100 at Sunday’s performance. “Today, we have created a place of harmony where young people, both Arab and Jew, come together around classical music.”

David Margalit, a 10-year-old boy, on violin, and Nasif Francis, a 12-year-old boy, on piano, began the program by performing Mozart’s Piano sonata in E minor.

Ron Trachtman, a professional concert pianist in Israel and abroad, later in the program played a stunning Chopin Scherzo no. 2 op. 31.

But it was the truly remarkable young violinist, Yamen Saadi, 16, who seemed to steal the show with his playing of Saint-Saen’s Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso. In March of 2012, Saadi won first prize at the prestigious Paul Ben Haim Competition in Tel Aviv.

Through the common language of music, the students and teachers of Polyphony teach all of us to look beyond out differences to see the culture, connection and humanity we all share.

Special thanks to Episcopal School of Dallas for the use of the Bray Theater on May 5 and to Betty Jo and David Bell for coordinating Polyphony’s visit to Dallas. Also, thanks to generous sponsors Fulbright & Jaworski LLP and Alison and Michael Weinstein.

The Young Leadership Committee of the Dallas Holocaust Museum served as the Event Host Committee, chaired by Richard Krumholz and includes members Michelle Mantel Bassichis, MD, Jason Downie, Robert Hoodis, Stephanie London, Erin Patton and Alison Weinstein.

On May 16, the Dallas Holocaust Museum will present an unforgettable program: “Witness for Rwanda, An Evening with Carl Wilkens.” In 1994, Carl Wilkens was the only American who chose to remain in the country after the genocide began. Come hear the full story at 6:30 p.m. on May 16.

Polyphony Co-Founder Nabeel Abbhoud Ashkar assists Nasif Francis, 10, on the violin as pianist Ron Trachtman assists David Margalit, 12, on the piano.

Polyphony Co-Founder Nabeel Abbhoud Ashkar assists Nasif Francis, 10, on the violin as pianist Ron Trachtman assists David Margalit, 12, on the piano.

By Chris Kelley, for the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance; Photos by Paula Nourse

Posted in community, Jewish Identity, Museum programming, tolerance, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

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