The path to achieve so many of my goals must negotiate through my comfort zone.I wish to make a dent in the lives of others, but this requires that daily I have to do things which are not always comfortable.Speaking about the Holocaust or Leadership are experiences that fulfill my passion, but securing these presentations requires activities that I at times find difficult. No one is going to knock on my door unannounced and request that I come to their organization or group so I have to go out and seek these opportunities. This mission often requires endless hours of communication, and candidly a percentage of these requests are rejected, and many time there is not even a response.It would be so easy to avoid this process, but I know that the discomfort and even rejection are worth it. On the other side of our comfort zones are goals that have merit and meaning.It may never get any easier and putting off the time to at least take a step out of the zone will never be any easier than now. So today may be our day to”go for it”
Author: S. J. Tagliareni
Worthwhile Books by survivors
Holocaust Survivor Books in Education
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18 Books Available
New! The Cybrary is proud to add 4 new books to its collection, including Anne Frank: The Biography, plus Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew, and The Soapmaker (a complete book online)
| Read Selma Metzger Winkler: Her Experience in Nazi Concentration Camps The following account was lovingly compiled by Martin Winkler, grandson of Selma Metzger Winkler, during many conversations with his grandmother. He has worked untiringly to set down the facts and circumstances of her story as correctly as possible, so that future generations will be made aware of the suffering and degradation endured by millions of people — people like Selma and her family — caught in the madness of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. “Lest we forget!”
Read Pearls and Lace: Poetry by Magdalena Klein MAGDALENA KLEIN (1920-1946), the youngest child of a middle-class Jewish family in northwestern Romania, was an eyewitness to the rise of fascism in Europe and the horrors of World War II. The poetic journal Magda kept during those years shows the stark contrast between her youthful love of life and the grim reality of the world around her. Three Books by Ina Friedman (Encouraged for Younger Readers) Ina R. Friedman has explored the impact of the Nazi regime on the lives of young people in three books. Her first, Escape or Die; True Stories of Young People Who Survived the Holocaust describes the courageous and desperate steps young Jews took to escape from the Nazis. Her second book, The Other Victims: First Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis, an ALAYAD “Best Books” and an ABA “Pick of the List,”, examines the Nazis’ attempt to create a master race by wiping out so called “defective traits” and the human suffering caused by the Nazis’ policies. In this third book, Flying Against the Wind: The Story of a Young Woman Who Defies the Nazis, she relates the story of a young German Christian who refuses to accept the hatred and violence of the Nazis. Though she pays a terrible price for her resistance, she remains undefeated in spirit. Courage Under Siege Rywka Rybak/A Survivor of the Holocaust Our first survivor’s story by a woman, this book was written in 1946 but only recently translated. Follow her experiences through the Holocaust. |
How Dark the Heavens by Sidney Iwens Recipient of the Derleth Non-Fiction Book Award, this story is shared as a unique journal, chronicling the 1400 days Sidney spent under Nazi terror in Lithuania.
The Last Sunrise by Harold Gordon Abe’s Story by Abram Korn, edited by his son Joseph Korn Keep Yelling by Maurie Hoffman Jan Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust The Last Witness: The Child Survivor of the Holocaust |
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Leadership is not a solitary task by John Coleman
An inspiring historical story is once again making the rounds at least partially because of its inclusion in Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, David and Goliath. In it, Gladwell tells the story of the French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, which became a safe haven for Jews in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Led by minister André Trocmé, the residents of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon saved between 3,000 and 3,500 Jews (in addition to others seeking refuge) from 1940 until the end of the war, bringing them into the community and hiding them from French and Nazi officials. By any measure, their actions were courageous and inspiring. They were also an example of the power of community in leadership.
We often think of leadership as a solitary task. Buying into Thomas Carlyle’s “great man” theory of history, we speak of leadership in solitary and personal terms. And certainly, history is filled with examples of men and women like Trocmé, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Theresa who took bold individual action. But most real change — even the change driven by those aforementioned leaders — is community-driven and community-focused. Some of the greatest accomplishments in business, politics, and culture have come not from individual initiative alone but from those working in, with, and for community.
First, great leadership often starts in community. When facing great odds or forced to deal with unusual or trying circumstances, few of us are fortified enough to act alone, without counsel or support. This is a point often hammered home by Harvard Business School professor and former Medtronic CEO Bill George, who is a vocal advocate for what he calls “True North Groups.” These are gatherings of peers and mentors with whom we can share. They can counsel us as we face difficult problems and hold us accountable for acting in accordance with our values. Others have advocated similar constructs, such as a personal board of directors. And I’ve noted before the measurable benefits of mentorship. In short, no man is an island, and we are better leaders when we are rooted in a community empowered to counsel us, challenge us, and hold us accountable.
Similarly, great leaders often realize they must act not in isolation but with community. André Trocmé could never have shielded Jewish people in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon on his own; it took the collective efforts of the entire town. Few great changes happen until and unless a critical mass of community members collectively decides to own and execute the solution. William Wilberforce is often credited with leading the antislavery movement in the United Kingdom, for example, but would have accomplished far less without the broad-based support of Britain’s Clapham Sectand a number of antislavery organizations. Steve Jobs was a visionary when he started Apple, but his effectiveness suffered early in his career when he failed to mobilize his Board of Directors behind his vision. And any former management consultant can tell you that the easiest way to fail in a project is to come up with the “right” solution in isolation, without first worrying about getting the input of and ownership by the broader client organization. Ships have captains, but they are only turned when the entire crew works as a community to shift the ship’s direction. One of the easiest ways for a leader to fail is to forget that her power is limited in isolation and nearly endless if amplified throughout the collective intelligence and resources of the community.
Finally, the most inspiring leadership is that done for community. There are certainly moments when we do things purely for ourselves, and that’s not all bad. A distance runner racing to win a marathon is no less admirable if she is racing only to test her own boundaries and achieve an individual victory. But few will follow a leader who is focused solely on his own goals, and many of the most inspiring leadership victories are those done in service of a community.
This is obviously true in the world of nonprofits and human rights. Our greatest heroes are those who sacrificed themselves for the good of their communities — people like Clara Barton, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Harriet Tubman. But it’s also true in business. Marketer Simon Sinek has noted that, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.” Many of the most motivated employee and customer bases are so motivated because they see an element of community service in the work their companies do. Whole Foods, for example, professes a motto of “Whole Foods, Whole Planet, Whole People,” framing their mission in terms of environmental purity and human wellness. They have engaged the employee base with a dedication to Whole Foods customers, to team members, and to outside charities. TOMS is famously founded on the premise of sharing its success (and the prosperity of its customers) with those in need. Zappos has built its reputation on providing excellent service for their customer community. People don’t like to follow leaders who are dedicated only to their own personal glory, but they will sacrifice everything for leaders and communities who give them a higher calling, a greater purpose. And whether in politics or business, leadership for community is almost always the most powerful.
These are old principles, but they are worth remembering. Lofty achievements like those of the little village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon are only achieved in community, with community, and for community. And the more we keep those principles front of mind, the greater chance we have to lead lives that do our communities a service.
John Coleman is a coauthor of the book, Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders. Follow him on Twitter at @johnwcoleman.
Recommended works on the Nazi era
Anthony Read’s top 10 books about Hitler and the Third Reich
Anthony Read’s latest book is The Devil’s Disciples: The Lives and Times of Hitler’s Inner Circle.
- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L Shirer
For me, this is the grandaddy of them all, the standard work by which all others on the subject are still measured. A brilliant and respected journalist, Shirer was actually there for much of the time and it shows. Erudite, comprehensive and detailed, always lively and readable, it is the model of what a popular narrative history should be. My own copy has been read and referred to so often it is falling apart.
- Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock
Another essential benchmark in the study of Hitler and the Third Reich. First published a mere seven years after Hitler’s death, it remains as definitive now as it was then, as Bullock himself proved 40 years later when he incorporated much of it into his equally magisterial Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.
- Hitler (2 vols) by Ian Kershaw
With the benefit of a further half-century of international scholarship and research since Bullock and the other early biographers, Kershaw – despite describing himself as an ‘anti-biographer’ – has produced what may well be the ultimate version of Hitler’s life and of the unique circumstances that made him possible. A masterful achievement.
- The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg
In contrast to the works of professional historians, personal diaries and memoirs putting a human face on the story of the Third Reich are essential to an understanding of life under Nazi rule. Among those on my shelves by anti-Nazis are Berlin Underground by Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, The Berlin Diaries of Marie ‘Missie’ Vassiltchikov, Schlage die Trommel… by my old friend Maria Gräfin von Maltzan, Ich Will Leben by Klaus Scheurenberg, and many others. But my favourite is this account by Christabel Bielenberg, who sadly died on November 2, 2003, aged 94. As she wrote in her introduction: ‘I am English; I was German, and above all, I was there.’
- Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer
This is the other side of the coin, the most readable and least repulsive of the Nazi memoirs. It provides a fascinating glimpse of working with Hitler – but should perhaps be read in conjunction with Gitta Sereny’s aptly titled Albert Speer: his Battle with Truth.
- Letters to Freya by Helmuth James von Moltke
This is one of the most moving testaments of the resistance to Hitler, a series of letters to his wife by a noble man on trial for his life after the July 20 plot. They reveal the intellectual and emotional honesty of Moltke, the archetypal ‘good German’, and his incredible bravery as he approached his execution on January 24, 1945, more concerned with saving his fellow victims than himself.
- The Face of the Third Reich by Joachim C Fest
Unlike my new book, which I conceived as a multiple biography wrapped in a continuous narrative, Fest’s masterpiece is a series of separate essays on leading personalities. Each is a psychological study of an individual, linked to an examination of the relevant aspect of National Socialism and the Nazi regime, all presented with intellectual rigour and considerable insight. A seminal work.
- The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert
The literature on the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the so-called Final Solution is almost as vast as that on Nazism and the Third Reich. Trying to encompass the Holocaust in a single book would therefore seem to be a hopeless task, but Gilbert comes as close as is humanly possible with this deeply compassionate book, never letting us forget that though a million deaths may be a statistic, each one is a tragedy.
- Hitler’s War Aims by Norman Rich
In this impressively comprehensive two-volume study, Rich manages to cover just about every aspect of Hitler’s ambitions and achievements outside Germany, dealing with the ideology, the methods and the results of the great drive for Lebensraum beyond the old Reich.
- The German Dictatorship by Karl Dietrich Bracher
On its first publication in 1969, Bracher’s book was described as ‘the first, correct, full and comprehensive account of the origins, the structure and the machinery of the Nazi dictatorship’. Since then, it has been often emulated but never bettered. For anyone seeking to understand the roots and causes of the Nazi phenomenon, it is essential, and sobering, reading.
Frankl’s Influence continues
By: Maria Marshall, PhD
Psychotherapist , Author
Co-Founder, Canadian Association of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis
Psychotherapist , Author
Co-Founder, Canadian Association of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis
I am told my family on my father’s side comes from Moravia the region of Europe where Viktor Frankl’s ancestors lived. In the XVIII century they migrated from Moravia to Bacska, a territory of Hungary, where they were landowners. On my father’s side, I am told, my Grandfather was Jewish. During WWII he was deported to a work camp. I am told, the rest of his family members, save a few ones who managed to escape, were directly deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. About sixty members on that side of the family perished in the Holocaust.
My Grandfather was married to my Grandmother, who was Catholic. He survived the Holocaust, but he never talked about his experiences as I was growing up. There were letters, objects, and relatives. There were stories that my parents told me never to tell outside the family. This is how I grew up, in a sheltered, happy home, the oldest of seven children.
In the early 70s my father completed his doctoral degree in neuro-psychiatry as a student of Dr. Viktor Frankl. I am told that I was introduced to Dr. Frankl when I was a baby, during one of my parents’ visit in his home in Vienna. Although I do not remember it, this is where my friendship with the “Father of Logotherapy” began.
I read “Man’s Search for Meaning” in my teenage years, in German. Actually, that is how I started to learn German. I absorbed every word, pondered every sentence, and I cried over the passages describing the prisoners’ suffering. I embraced logotherapy with all of my being.
Now, growing up, there comes a time in life when we are individually challenged to choose, and to stand for our convictions, or flee. One such occasion happened to me when I was 17 years old.
At that time I was attending the Secondary Medical School in my home town. We had regular lectures at the school, and attended rotations at various departments of the hospital as student nurse attendants.
It was the time when political meetings were organised more and more frequently in the center of our city, and one such meeting was taking place that afternoon. The meetings were nationalistic gatherings, which fueled intolerance and hate, and which were ideologically fueled by those who sought the destruction of peace, unity and solidarity.
The principal came to our class and informed us that our school will attend this meeting. Many greeted the opportunity as a free afternoon. The principal had the doors of the school and the classroom locked, so as none of the students could leave the property, but had to wait to be collectively part-taking in the demonstrations.
I had a dilemma: I did not want to participate in any way in meetings that I judged to be based on wrong ideology. But I did not want any reprisals or punishment for non-conforming either. With a sudden determination I rose from my seat, I opened the window, and I climbed through and jumped down to the soft green grass. I went to the bicycle racks, I got my bike, and carefully went around the block to avoid the school heading home.
On my way, throngs of workers came out of the factories heading toward the center. I had to push myself against the crowd to make my way home. All the way through I was breathing in the fresh air, and I had this wonderful warm feeling in my heart that I did the right thing. I had a keen awareness of my freedom, at least freedom in spirit. My spirit soared above the situation, and led me home, my body obeyed. All my senses were very alert and concentrated on the task. It was the meaningful choice my conscience dictated… I was reaching for freedom, I was choosing freedom, and I was acting in my area of freedom, choosing hope. As I moved, I was aware that I have been protected, wanted, and loved. I was very grateful that I could, in my own small ways be part of a “greater struggle,” and secretly, I felt proud of it.
Upon arriving home, I was met with my mother’s puzzled and concerned look: “So early home from school?” “Mom, I think it is time we need to leave…” I gasped for air. –It was my first conscious act of defiance to participate in something that I did not believe in, and which later turned out to be the beginning of the civil war in our country…
Many years have passed since then. My parents and I moved to Canada, where a new life with new challenges awaited us. Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy helped to plant a seed in my young soul which proved to be crucial for facing some of those hurdles ahead. I had it solidly anchored in my soul that we have a body, and a mind, and we are spirit. While our body and mind are fragile, and subject to the environment and its limitations, our spirit is free to take a stand toward our circumstances. It is indestructible and lives forever. Even if the access to it may be temporarily blocked, it is there. Nobody and nothing can take away or destroy our spirit, and as a healthy resource it is always there.
This thought helped me immensely when I was a fresh immigrant, when I even had to struggle to express myself in words. I felt my spirit alive, and fresh, guiding me to persist, to show courage, to not despair.
I eventually graduated from University with a Major in psychology. Then, I went on to study Counselling and Human Development with Professor Dr. Robert C. Barnes, who is a proponent of logotherapy in the US. I have been blessed with the opportunity of completing my PhD degree in counselling psychology with Professor Dr. William Hague, who supported my interest in Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy. My Doctoral Thesis used a phenomentological-hermeneutic inquiry to explore the philosophical and practical uses of Logotherapy in counselling psychology. It was accepted for fulfillment of the requirements in September, 1997, the year when Dr. Frankl passed away.
Subsequently, I studied logotherapy with the Viktor Frankl Institute in Texas, and the South German Institute of Logotherapy, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Lukas, the foremost recognised student of Dr. Frankl’s. I obtained my Diplomate in Logotherapy credential with both the Institute in the US and Dr. Lukas in Germany. I registered a psychologist, and worked in clinical practice, using logotherapy.
In 2002, I met my dear husband in England, originally from the Canary Islands, Spain. He was a psychiatrist with an interest in logotherapy. We got married and we lived in England together.
In 2004, we immigrated back to Canada continuing our work on logotherapy and practicing as psychotherapists. We founded the Canadian Association of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis (Canadian Institute of Logotherapy), to promote the study and practice of logotherapy. We have five children ages 8, 7, 5, 4, and 2. We currently reside in Ottawa, Ontario, where we established the Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy. This is our private psychotherapy practice where we offer courses on logotherapy. We authored two books together: “Logotherapy Revisited: Review of the Tenets of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy,” (2012) and “Healing Ministry: Experiences with Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy in Psychiatry, Psychology, Clinical Counselling, and Psychotherapy.” (2013).
Viktor Frankl witnessed that our spirit is the source of our search for meaning, every day, linked to Ultimate Meaning, which shines into our world through everyday events, people, and circumstances. I try to keep this in mind every day, whether I am in my office, serving my clients, or at home, serving my husband and my children.
This is my story in a nutshell. This is my life as it has been this far.
While we all have our own struggles, I feel gratitude for the prophetic words of Viktor Frankl, who reminded me of these truths, and provided some helpful guidelines for the journey ahead.
“True friend is the one who listens to your heart, and reminds you of the melody of it when you have forgotten it” –said Dr. Lukas. Certainly Viktor Frankl is one of those “prophets” and one of those friends who accompanied my life, and who accompanies the lives of all those who seek to know his life-giving and enriching thought and work.
Maria Marshall, PhD, is Registrant of the Canadian College of Professional Counsellors and Psychotherapists. She completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with Honors at the University of Calgary, Alberta. She obtained her Master of Education Degree in Counselling and Human Development at Hardin-Simmons University, in Abilene, Texas. She completed her PhD in Counselling Psychology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. She completed her Diplomate in Logotherapy credential with Dr. Elisabeth Lukas at the South German Institute of Logotherapy in Fuerstenfeldbruck, Germany, and a the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, TX. She is psychotherapist in private practice at the Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy, an accredited member of the International Association of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, Vienna. She and her husband are founders of the Canadian Association of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, and authors of two books on logotherapy:
Marshal, M, & Marshall, E. (2012). Logotherapy Revisited: Review of the Tenets of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy. Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy.
Marshall, M. & Marshall, E. (2013). Healing Ministry: Experiences with Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy in Psychiatry, Psychology, Clinical Counselling, and Psychotherapy. Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy.
Both books are available at: www.amazon.com
Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy
160 Terence Matthews Crescent – Unit F1
Ottawa, ON K2M 0B2
Tel.: (613) 599-3299
More than compromise
Even in my circle of friends there are issues which so divide them that on the surface it appears as though there can e no common ground. Guns,climate change ,gay marriage ,and a host of other hot buttons raise the feeling level ,and ll if not all, most of us hang on to our positions with such tenacity that it may seem like there is no sense in even discussing them. I think what blocks movement toward each other and positions of common ground is the inability to find answers that are far greater than meaningless compromises. In many life issues there are more possibilities than each person merely sharing part of the loaf. At times compromise may be reasonable and certainty beats tone deaf silence or shouting slogans, but in the light of the massive challenges we face as a nation I would hope we would opt for more.
RESOURCES
RECOMMENDED GENERAL SOURCES
- The Cybrary of the Holocaust is an invaluable collection of resources for Holocaust education.
- The Nizkor Project is a vast collection of Holocaust documents. Most are available only by FTP from the Shofar Archives, but these are being gradually converted to Web pages.
- The Holocaust/Shoah Page by Ben S. Austin includes sections on the Nuremberg Laws, the Final Solution, Homosexuals, and the Nuremberg Trials, among others.
- About.com offers links to other Holocaust sites, current events items, and a weekly electronic newsletter.
- Women and the Holocaust: A Cyberspace of Their Own is an excellent collection of articles dealing with often overlooked gender-specific issues of the Holocaust.
VICTIMS
- Anne Frank’s life and times are portrayed at this site. Currently a photo scrapbook and the story of her journal are online.
- Children of the Holocaust are documented by the Anti-Defamation League.
- Jewish women as double victims in a misogynist, racist society is the subject of this essay.
- Handicapped persons were the victims of the T-4 Euthanasia Program, a Nazi plan to kill physically and mentally disabled people.
- The Handicapped. More information on the T4 and 14f13 killing projects.
- Handicapped persons and the euthanasia program are also discussed on this page at “The History Place.”
- Gypsies and the Nazis’ policy toward them are discussed at this site.
- Gypsy mistreatment and murder in the Third Reich.
- Gypsy extermination in the Third Reich.
- Gypsy legal status in the Third Reich.
- Homosexuals and their treatment in Germany both before and during the Third Reich are discussed at this site.
- Homosexuals were subject to torture in the concentration camps as described in excerpts from this book edited by Vera Laska.
- The Five Million Forgotten non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust are remembered at this site.
- Reinhard Heydrich’s biography is available at “The History Place.”
- Rudolf Hess’ biography is also available from “The History Place.”
- Adolf Hitler’s early life is examined at this site.
- Adolf Hitler’s use of language is discussed in a paper at this site.
- The Einsatzgruppen are discussed in detail at this page.
- Einsatzgruppen documents are posted at this site.
- Operation Reinhard: A Layman’s Guide to Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, part 1 by Kenneth N. McVay. Continued in part 2.
- Kristallnacht is the topic at this page by Ben S. Austin.
RESCUERS
- Joseph Andre was a Belgian abbot who helped rescue hundreds of Jewish children and encouraged them to remain in the Jewish faith.
- Germaine Belline and Liliane Gaffney explain how they hid 30 Jews in Belgium.
- Ivan Beltrami was able to use his position as an intern to protect Jews in a hospital infirmary.
- Esther Bem relates how she and her family were hidden in an Italian village.
- Marie Benoit was a French Capuchin monk who arranged for the rescue of thousands of Jews.
- Bert Bochove describes at length how he and his wife Annie saved the lives of many Jews in Holland during the war.
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Righteous Gentile
Suzanne Spaak
(France)
Suzanne Spaak lived in Paris with her husband Claude, a filmmaker, and their two children. She found great fulfillment in raising her family. Spaak, as the daughter of a famous Belgian banker, and sister-in-law of the Belgian foreign minister, was accustomed to a high standard of living. However, she found the German occupation of France intolerable and decided to join the Resistance.
In 1942, Spaak offered her services to the underground National Movement Against Racism (MNCR). In an article in her memory, published in 1945 in the Yiddish newspaper New Press, B. Aronson, who was also active in MNCR, wrote that he and his colleagues had doubted their new member’s ability to help but quickly realized that they had misjudged her. When she joined them, Spaak said, “Tell me what to do… so I’ll know that I am serving in the struggle against Nazism.”
Spaak did not recoil from any assignment; she walked the length and breadth of Paris to find a hospital willing to accept ailing Jews hiding under assumed names. When necessary, she used her high social standing and knocked on the doors of clerics, judges, and authors, reminding them of their duty to act against persecution of Jews and opponents of the regime. In other cases, Spaak functioned as a simple underground operative and typed and distributed leaflets.
Aronson described her single-mindedness and devotion as follows: “Spaak belonged to those idealists who jettison their private lives, personal wishes, and material concerns as soon as a great ideal enters their hearts.”
Spaak was given a position in the “Red Orchestra” intelligence network and devised daring solutions to intelligence agents’ problems. She was specially drawn to saving the lives of Jewish children at risk of deportation.
As the happy mother of two children, Spaak was shaken by the Jewish children’s tragedy and could no longer enjoy her personal life. In early 1943, information concerning preparations for the deportation of Jewish children in UGIF centers became known. Spaak was an active participant in an operation initiated by Pastor Paul Vergara and Marcelle Guillemot that smuggled more than sixty children to safety. She sheltered some of the children in her home until they were all taken to people willing to shelter them. With her comrades’ help, Spaak, at great personal risk, provided the children with ration cards and clothing.
In October 1943, she was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to the prison in Fresnes. Before she was incarcerated, however, she had the presence of mind to give the lists of Jewish children and their addresses to an underground comrade, thus saving the children. On August 12, 1944, less than a week before the liberation of Paris, the Germans murdered Spaak.
On April 21, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Suzanne Spaak as Righteous Among the Nations
Moving toward the future
Viktor realized that focusing on the past and all that he had lost would probably drain him of any hope. The circumstances of his incarceration were so awful that looking backward would lead to his giving up the will to live. Instead he focused on the visual reuniting with his wife and the return of his teaching position.He literally would conjure visions of those moments in the future and these kept his spirit vibrant despite the horrors of being in a concentration camp.It was these daily moments he said that kept him from ending his life either directly or by embracing the electrified fence.
Less dramatic but still critical is the reality that our lives are enhanced by cultivating the dreams and hopes of our future. It requires behavior and action to meet these goals, but it is not just pie in the sky.I draw from Viktor’s wisdom every day, and spend a few minutes each morning and before I retire at night seeing the goals that I have set for myself. Seeing them and feeling what they will bring to my life are the foundations for the actions that their accomplishment requires.
S. J. Tagliareni 