Dear Friends and Supporters:
Happy New Year! We hope that 2023 is off to a happy, healthy start for all of you.
As we prepare for the new year, the Board of Directors and staff at the Holocaust Education Resource Council are proud of all that has been accomplished to educate and look at the past for a better future.
Dr. Bernice Lerner is the author of “All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen,” and other writings on the Holocaust and virtue ethics. As director of Boston University’s Center for Character and Social Responsibility, she lectured widely and taught courses on character education and the Holocaust. Most recently, she served as Dean of Adult Learning at Hebrew College in Massachusetts.
After World War II, the Swedish government took in and provided medical treatment for 7,000 sick survivors of Bergen-Belsen. In September 1945, the government issued an order for schooling to be offered to those under 18 who had missed years of study on account of the war.
In a Jan. 23 presentation at Congregation Shomrei Torah, Dr. Lerner will show photographs of teachers and students at an “Internat” school her mother attended. She will share the complex process of recruiting distrustful adolescents, the challenges of teaching the “environmentally damaged” (many of the orphaned and homeless teens were bitter and disillusioned), and the instructors’ formidable goals and “experimental” methods.
This program is co-sponsored by Temple Israel, Congregation Shomrei Torah, and Tallahassee Jewish Federation. Please join us on Jan. 23.
Along with expanding HERC’s footprint with a new international traveling exhibition in April, “Anne Frank – a History for Today,” our education staff continue their work serving teachers and students across North Florida. We are grateful to have you with us on this journey into our next evolution.
The HERC mission is sustained financially by our supporters and benefactors, without whom we could not maintain or grow our programs. If you wish to make a tax-deductible charitable gift, please visit our website to learn more about the impact your gift can have.
Gifts of any size help us move forward!