National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education

06/12/2024

Please consider attending this event on June 27th co-hosted by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania.

To learn more and register, visit casp.org/reckoning

06/12/2024

Shavuot or the “Feast of Weeks,” is celebrated seven weeks after Passover (Pesach). Shavuot combines two major religious observances. First, is the grain harvest of the early summer. Second, is the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai seven weeks after the exodus from Egypt. Today, the holiday focuses on the community. Similar to any other observed religious holiday, there are several traditions. The most notable custom in celebrating Shavuot is the tradition of eating milk and cheese products. Happy Shavuot!

06/06/2024

Today is the feast day of Blessed Odoardo Focherini, martyr.

Odoardo Focherini was an Italian Roman Catholic journalist who helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust by providing them with false documents to escape the N**i regime. When his operation was discovered in March 1944, Focherini was arrested and moved among various N**i camps including what would be his final stop, Hersbruck concentration camp where he would die from an untreated leg infection. He had saved a total of 105 Jewish lives.

Focherini’s final words were reported as: "I declare that I die in the purest Roman Catholic faith and in full submission to the will of God".

Yad Vashem recognized him as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1969 for his efforts. On June 15, 2013, Focherini was beatified in Modena under Pope Francis.

06/03/2024

CALLING ALL EDUCATORS 📢

We invite you to join us for our free 2024 summer teacher’s workshop, held in partnership with Echoes & Reflection! It will be held in-person on Chatham University’s Shadyside campus, with courses led by Lynne Ravas, veteran educator, Generations Speaker, and Echoes & Reflections facilitator. A total of nine Act 48 credit hours will be available.

Both days will include vetted resources and ready-made lesson plans that teachers can use in their classrooms immediately. While we encourage you to attend both sessions, the option is available to register for only one of the two days. There will be free parking, and lunch will be provided. Check-in is at 8:30 a.m. on each day.

Learn more and register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/908246167737?aff=oddtdtcreator

This program is generously supported by The Jack Sittsamer Holocaust Endowment Fund for Teacher Training.

06/03/2024

Join us on June 18 at Chatham University as we welcome Clare Drobot for her first public talk with the Holocaust Center!

Clare knew her paternal grandparent’s, Wanda and Jan Drobot—affectionately Yay and Nana—as Polish immigrants living near her childhood home in Northern Virginia. But when Wanda passed away in 1998, Clare began an unexpected journey exploring their shared and individual histories. Both Wanda (née Salomea Wander) and Jan (originally Jakub Djament) were Holocaust survivors who raised their children as Catholic in post-WWII Poland. This is the story of Clare’s search to uncover her family’s past and understand the legacy of her Grandparent’s survival.

Learn more and register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/899388464107?aff=oddtdtcreator

Generations programming is generously supported by the Sylvia & Martin Snow Family Fund.

05/30/2024

"How do you lead your daily lives and at the same time participate in one of the largest killing machines in the history of mankind?"

A N**i’s photo album shows top officers at Auschwitz singing, socializing, and lighting a Christmas tree at a time when hundreds of thousands of Jews were ki...

05/20/2024

In 1984, the Cambodian government declared May 20th a National Day of Remembrance, to commemorate the victims of the genocide in Cambodia that took place between 1975 and 1979.

It is estimated that well over 2 million people (over 20% of the population) were murdered during this period, from ex*****on, disease, exhaustion, and starvation.

May this day remind us of the importance of our shared responsibility to prevent future genocides and mass atrocities.

05/18/2024

Albert Farhy grew up amidst the rise of the N**i regime in Eastern Europe. He was lucky, he says because most Bulgarians helped the Jewish people.

Please take time to reflect and learn from such a great story of survival and strength!

This is the first survivor account of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education's "Eva Fleischner Oral History Project". This video contains Alber...

05/14/2024

in 1941, the deportation of foreign-born Jewish men in Paris began. On May 14, summons were sent using a green postcard to Jews of Czech, Austrian, and Polish descent with instructions to report to specific locations to have their papers examined. Upon arrival, they were forbidden to leave and taken into custody. Approximately 5000 Jews were loaded onto buses, driven to the Gare d'Austerlitz train station, and herded onto four special trains bound for the detention camps of Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers.

05/13/2024

It is our pleasure to share our latest video in the Eva Fleischner Oral History Project, the first in a new series of interviews with the children of Holocaust survivors. In this 17-minute production, Daniel Stern recounts the harrowing tale of his parents' journey to escape the reach of the N**is during World War II, a trip that included stops in six countries and took over 16 years to complete. Daniel was born along the way and arrived in the United States with his parents when he was 12.

This video of Daniel Stern is the first in a series of interviews with the children of Holocaust survivors. Daniel recounts the harrowing tale of his parent...

05/11/2024

05/11/2024

Judah Samet, a Holocaust, and Tree of Life survivor, was 6 years old when the N**is came to his house and told them to pack. His family spent 10 months at Bergen-Belsen in Germany before being liberated in 1945. His father died of typhus a few days later.

After the war, Samet went to Israel, where he served as a paratrooper. He relocated to Pittsburgh in the 1960s. Samet worked at his father-in-law’s jewelry shop and later owned it.

Samet didn’t talk publicly about his Holocaust experiences for decades. But by the 1990s, with the release of the epic film “Schindler’s List” and with older survivors dying of old age, he told himself, “My God, who’s going to tell this story?”

Please listen to Judah's story of strength and resiliency!

In this video, we interviewed Judah Samet, a Holocaust, and Tree of Life survivor. Born in Hungary on Feb. 5, 1938, Samet was 6 years old when the N**is came...