Thursday, April 8 was Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a day to remember and reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust, where six million Jews and millions of other innocent victims – Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others – were systematically murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. At Crestwood we honour the memories of those lives stolen away, and we welcome those who survived the Holocaust into our community. Their stories represent extraordinary resilience, and we are proud to feature them in our ongoing Crestwood Oral History Project (https://ohp.crestwood.on.ca/ohp/), where hundreds of stories can now be accessed. Last week we added the story of Maxwell Smart, who overcame an adolescence spent hiding in the forests of Poland, and is now an acclaimed Montreal artist. Max’s story can be found here – https://ohp.crestwood.on.ca/ohp/smart-maxwell/. Mr. Masters’ American History 11 class conducted a zoom interview with World War Two Jewish American veteran Hilbert Margol on Wednesday of this week, learning about his role in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, memories and images which are as sharp in his mind today as they were 75 years ago. This coming Sunday we will hear from Ted Bolgar, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau. It is our shared responsibility to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust can never be erased from our collective memory, and we hope these ongoing conversations will create a new generation of witnesses in our own students.
