Neuberger Holocaust Education Week begins on Monday November 4 and runs through Sunday November 10. It is held annually to coincide with the commemoration of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), the pogrom organized by the Nazis on November 9-10, 1938. Thousands of Jewish businesses were vandalized, hundreds of synagogues burned to the ground and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
Join the Montreal Holocaust Museum on November 10 at 6 pm in commemorating the legacy of Kristallnacht, the pogrom organized by the Nazis on November 9 and 10, 1938.
With the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933, life for Jews under their occupation became increasingly difficult and dangerous. After the events of Kristallnacht, more and more Jews sought refuge in other countries. In exceptional cases where individuals were able to flee, many families were torn apart, and parents made the heartbreaking decision to send their children to safety alone.
Journalist and author, Julian Borger, explores the topic of Jewish refugees, in his deeply personal new book, I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children and the Adverts that Helped Them Escape the Holocaust.
In 1938, Jewish families scrambled to flee Vienna. Desperate, they bought advertisements in the Manchester Guardian pleading for their children to be taken into the safekeeping of readers. The right words in the right order could have meant the difference between life and death. Eighty-three years later, Guardian journalist Julian Borger discovered the advertisement that saved his father, Robert, from the Nazis. Robert had kept this a secret, like almost everything else about his traumatic Viennese childhood until he took his own life. Borger traces the remarkable stories of his father, the other advertised children, and their families, each thrown into the maelstrom of a world at war.
As part of its Canadian launch, Julian Borger will be in conversation with Tarah Schwartz to discuss his book at our Kristallnacht commemoration on November 10th.
The ceremony portion of the evening will include musical pieces and commemorative prayers.
This is a hybrid event, and in-person and online tickets can be reserved through Jlive (https://jlive.app/events/6012)
The in-person event will be taking place at the Montreal Holocaust Museum – 5151 Chem. de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine.
