On Tuesday, April 21st, District 113 observed Genocide Commemoration Day. As stated by Principal Holly Fleischer, it is “a time for our community to honor the memories of those affected by genocides throughout history.”
This year, during periods 3A and 3B, classes poured into the auditorium to listen to Marty Zak, a second-generation Holocaust survivor, and to learn about his family’s rich history.
To begin the assembly, members of the Genocide Awareness Club, Freshman Maya Schondorf and Sophomore Phoebe Berkowitz, gave a brief introduction about Zak and the importance of remembrance.
In an emotional presentation, Zak described the grueling conditions in which his family members endured throughout the Holocaust.
“The Holocaust deniers are out there and the survivors are dying,” Zak said, stressing the importance of sharing these stories. Zak then played “Imagine” by John Lennon to share the message of peace and love, setting the tone for the rest of the event.
Zak asked the crowd to imagine being in those times: living in the ghettos, being marked as a Jew with a number, and not knowing when the next meal would come. That is what his family had to endure. He described in vivid detail the brutal conditions of the concentration camps, and how not only Jews but homosexuals, political activists, those with disabilities, and more faced this abuse.
“The Holocaust was the systematic persecution and murder of 6 million Jews and approximately 5 million non-Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators,” Zak said.
Zak also shared videos that included members of his family. These videos he showed were from the USCShoahFoundation, which was founded by Steven Spielberg to preserve stories of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. Spielberg was inspired to create the foundation when Holocaust Survivors visited him on the set of his 1993 film, “Schindler’s List.” The USC Shoah Foundation has the largest collection of video testimonies from Holocaust survivors, among them Zak’s mother and father. Along with the videos, he shared details about their stories and the steps they had to take for a chance to see another day. Zak stressed the importance of sharing these stories of survival in order to never forget the tragedy of the Holocaust, which still remains as important today as it was when the war ended.
After the presentation, Berkowitz, one of the speakers who opened the assembly, said, “Mr. Zak’s speech this past Wednesday was an absolutely invaluable piece of insight into the importance of remembrance. We are living in a time of immense antisemitism and mass political polarization and it is through family stories, personal experiences, and connection that we combat hatred and division.”
Berkowitz also spoke about why it is important to honor those who lost their lives in genocides throughout history.
“It is important because as a society we cannot truly progress into the future if we do not acknowledge the past… it is imperative that students and citizens alike partake in the global responsibility of understanding and solidarity…..Through Holocaust remembrance, each member in the HPHS community is taking the simple yet powerful act of acknowledgment to better understand and honor victims of hatred and genocide and to ensure we uphold the sentiment of Never Again.”