As some of you may know I work with youth. I work in a youth organization that has kids from the ages of 12-19, and we currently have about 60 in our program. Part of the mandate of our program is to teach Leadership, care for the environment, physical fitness and “to develop in youth the attributes of good citizenship”. Now what do we mean by good citizenship you ask, well I will tell you! We mean we want our kids to fully participate in Canadian Society, we want them to vote, we want them to care for their communities, we want them to contribute positively to our nation and we want them to protect the rights of others.
Recently we as the adults of the program have run across some unique challenges. First of all we are competing with the electronic era, why bother going out into the wilderness when I can just play Farmville? Play sports, sure I have a Wii and can play boxing, fencing and archery! Interact with others, I have Facebook chat! The electronic lure of the videogame and the internet has made it really hard for us to engage the kids. The rewards of our program take longer to achieve and often involve a lot of work, both intellectually and physically. A large bulk of the kids we see today would rather just play Call of Duty or whatever is popular today.
We have also come across the problem of making the kids understand how lucky they are. You see they go to school every day in relative safety, they might have a kid they don’t get along with, but for the most part they are safe. They can walk anywhere without getting shot at or having an explosion in the road. They get to have friends, go to the mall and the movies. They can date whomever they like, grow up to be whatever they want. When they get to the age of 18 they can have a say in our political system, they can choose whatever faith they want and read whatever they want. They have so much freedom without really understanding what it means to be free. They also know freedom, but often do not understand what a huge responsibility they have being free.
In order to try and get this point across to them, to help them understand the gift they have living in this great nation (Canada) we decided to show them what happens when that freedom is gone. To this end I contacted a local Jewish Center and asked them if they had a Holocaust Survivor to come and talk to us. Fortunately they had three who were still well enough to do the talks and one who was willing to travel to talk to us. This particular organization had started doing the talks in the early 1990’s when it was discovered that a high school teacher in Alberta was teaching students that the Holocaust had never happened.
The Holocaust educator brought the survivor to visit us on a dismal rainy day. The kids had had a full morning of working to prepare for our year end wrap up. They had just had some pop and pizza and were all buzzed up and hyperactive. We sat them down, explained to them who was coming and what behavior we were expecting from them and then we brought in the survivor. She was a very calm woman, and as soon as she had introduced herself she launched into her story and held our kids enthralled.
Born in 1940 she lived in what was then the Soviet Union, she told us her background as her mother had told it to her, having no memory of her first two years. Her mother had told her that they had lived in that particular village for several generations, and they lived on the same land as their cousins and her grandparents. The family owned a small textile factory that made cloth and thread. They were well known and well liked by their neighbours. Then in 1942 the Soviet army retreated, the army as they retreated warned the Jewish residents to come with them since the Germans were coming. The survivor's family refused to go, not understanding the threats.
When the German army and SS troops came they immediately took records of all the Jewish people in the town and began to move them out of the town to the Concentration Camps. The survivor's family was given protective papers because they ran a textile factory and the German army needed the cloth. Several months later the family got word that their protection was about to be revoked and they were to be deported. Some of the cousins ran into the woods and joined the partisans. The rest of her family slit up and went into hiding. Her father and older brother went one way and she and her mother another way.
She and her mother were hidden on a farm in the barn. They could only come out at night to take quick walks behind the barn, and the rest of the time they were hidden in the hay stacks. German troops would come by every once in a while and would shove their bayonet's through the hay, the survivor mentioned that she is not sure how close they came to her and her mother. A few months into being in hiding her family was betrayed by a neighbour and her grandparents, father and brother were caught and murdered. One of the neighbours told the Germans that had caught her father that they knew he had a wife and daughter.
The family hiding them had to send them away for fear of being discovered (those who were caught hiding Jewish people were murdered as well, along with their families).So taking a little food the survivor's mother tied her to her back and walked into the woods. hey spent a few months in the woods, and the survivor remembered her mother taking her and swishing her through the snow. At the time she thought it was a game but it turned out to be to keep her from freezing to death. While attempting to get out of the area they were caught by the SS.
... to be continued
Recently we as the adults of the program have run across some unique challenges. First of all we are competing with the electronic era, why bother going out into the wilderness when I can just play Farmville? Play sports, sure I have a Wii and can play boxing, fencing and archery! Interact with others, I have Facebook chat! The electronic lure of the videogame and the internet has made it really hard for us to engage the kids. The rewards of our program take longer to achieve and often involve a lot of work, both intellectually and physically. A large bulk of the kids we see today would rather just play Call of Duty or whatever is popular today.
We have also come across the problem of making the kids understand how lucky they are. You see they go to school every day in relative safety, they might have a kid they don’t get along with, but for the most part they are safe. They can walk anywhere without getting shot at or having an explosion in the road. They get to have friends, go to the mall and the movies. They can date whomever they like, grow up to be whatever they want. When they get to the age of 18 they can have a say in our political system, they can choose whatever faith they want and read whatever they want. They have so much freedom without really understanding what it means to be free. They also know freedom, but often do not understand what a huge responsibility they have being free.
In order to try and get this point across to them, to help them understand the gift they have living in this great nation (Canada) we decided to show them what happens when that freedom is gone. To this end I contacted a local Jewish Center and asked them if they had a Holocaust Survivor to come and talk to us. Fortunately they had three who were still well enough to do the talks and one who was willing to travel to talk to us. This particular organization had started doing the talks in the early 1990’s when it was discovered that a high school teacher in Alberta was teaching students that the Holocaust had never happened.
The Holocaust educator brought the survivor to visit us on a dismal rainy day. The kids had had a full morning of working to prepare for our year end wrap up. They had just had some pop and pizza and were all buzzed up and hyperactive. We sat them down, explained to them who was coming and what behavior we were expecting from them and then we brought in the survivor. She was a very calm woman, and as soon as she had introduced herself she launched into her story and held our kids enthralled.
Born in 1940 she lived in what was then the Soviet Union, she told us her background as her mother had told it to her, having no memory of her first two years. Her mother had told her that they had lived in that particular village for several generations, and they lived on the same land as their cousins and her grandparents. The family owned a small textile factory that made cloth and thread. They were well known and well liked by their neighbours. Then in 1942 the Soviet army retreated, the army as they retreated warned the Jewish residents to come with them since the Germans were coming. The survivor's family refused to go, not understanding the threats.
When the German army and SS troops came they immediately took records of all the Jewish people in the town and began to move them out of the town to the Concentration Camps. The survivor's family was given protective papers because they ran a textile factory and the German army needed the cloth. Several months later the family got word that their protection was about to be revoked and they were to be deported. Some of the cousins ran into the woods and joined the partisans. The rest of her family slit up and went into hiding. Her father and older brother went one way and she and her mother another way.
She and her mother were hidden on a farm in the barn. They could only come out at night to take quick walks behind the barn, and the rest of the time they were hidden in the hay stacks. German troops would come by every once in a while and would shove their bayonet's through the hay, the survivor mentioned that she is not sure how close they came to her and her mother. A few months into being in hiding her family was betrayed by a neighbour and her grandparents, father and brother were caught and murdered. One of the neighbours told the Germans that had caught her father that they knew he had a wife and daughter.
The family hiding them had to send them away for fear of being discovered (those who were caught hiding Jewish people were murdered as well, along with their families).So taking a little food the survivor's mother tied her to her back and walked into the woods. hey spent a few months in the woods, and the survivor remembered her mother taking her and swishing her through the snow. At the time she thought it was a game but it turned out to be to keep her from freezing to death. While attempting to get out of the area they were caught by the SS.
... to be continued
