Martyrdom & Resistance, March/April 2009

Vol. 35-N0.4 ISSN 0892-1571 March/April 2009-Adar ll/Nissan 5769 NECHAMA TECH GUEST SPEAKER AT THEAMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON Nechama Tec, Professor Emerita of Sociology at University of Connecticut, received her PhD from Columbia University. A Holocaust scholar for years, her research and publications have concentrat¬ ed on the intricate relation¬ ships between self preserva¬ tion, compassion, altruism, rescue, resistance, coopera¬ tion and gender. Her books help expand and deepen our understanding of the Holocaust by venturing into overlooked territory, such as the Christian rescue of Jews (When Light Pierced the Darkness), Jewish and Christian identity (In the Lion’s Den), Jewish wartime heroism (Defiance) and most recently, gender survival (Resilience and Courage). This fascination with the unexplored began with her own memoir (Dry Tears), which is unusual for its candid exploration of the ways in which a false identity can become all-consuming. Tec’s next book will undertake a comparative analysis of Jewish and non-Jewish resistance during the war. On May 23, 2009 Nechama Tec will receive an hon¬ orary degree from Lafayette College. She is also the recipient of two honorary degrees of Doctor of Humane Letters: Seton Hall University and Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion. In 2002, she was appointed by the President to the Council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. Tec also serves on the Academic Advisory Committee at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. In 1997, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D*.C. In 1995, she was a Scholar-in- Residence at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. Her books have been translated into Dutch, French, Hebrew, German, Italian, Polish and Japanese. Nechama Tec is also the author of over seventy scholarly articles and con¬ tinues to be a frequent lec¬ turer at international and national meetings and con¬ ferences. Over the years Tec’s research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and others. Her book, Defiance, was adapted for the screen in 2008 by Writer/Director Edward Zwick. The motion pic¬ ture stars Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell and Liev Schreiber, and is released by Paramount Vantage. Two of her books have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Resilience and Courage won the National Jewish Book Award in 2003. In the Lion's Den won the Christopher Award in 1993. When Light Pierced the Darkness received the Merit of Distinction Award from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. AUTHOR GAINS NEW EXPOSURE FROM HOLOCAUST FILM BY BEN HARRIS, JTA hen Nechama Tec set out to write a book about the Bielski brothers more than two decades ago, she sought to fill in omissions and correct distortions cre¬ ated by their almost total excision from historical accounts of the Holocaust. "The omission is the conspicuous silence about Jews who, while themselves threatened by death, were saving others," Tec wrote in the opening to her 1993 book, “Defiance.” 'The distortion is the common description of European Jews as victims who went passively to their death." With the release of a major Hollywood adaptation of the book, Tec's efforts to correct the historical record have reached a vast new audience. In its first weekend of wide release, “Defiance,” which stars James Bond hero Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as the Bielski brothers, Tuvia and Zus, grossed more than $10 mil¬ lion, the eighth highest take in the country that weekend. Meanwhile, the book has been released in a new edi¬ tion, with Craig's bellicose mug on the cover, and in audio book format narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. “It is most gratifying,” Tec told JTA in an interview at her Connecticut home. “I think I am very fortunate that it happened.” Like the book, the film version of “Defiance” has restored to public attention a long overlooked part of Holocaust histo¬ ry - the story of the small minority of Jewish victims who dared to fight back against their oppressors. Historians have long known of uprisings at the Auschwitz and Treblinka camps, in addition to the better-known rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto led by Mordecai Anielewicz, but the story of the Bielskis differed fundamentally in that it was successful. For years the brothers, sons of a large peasant family from Stankiewicze in western Belorussia, led a band of forest dwellers that ultimately swelled to 1 ,200. The com¬ munity established a hospital, tannery, school and bath¬ house, while remaining perpetually on the move and car¬ rying out acts of sabotage against German troops. Their efforts are considered the largest rescue of Jews by Jews during the war. Prior to the film, Tec was little known beyond the aca¬ demic world and the tight-knit community of American Holocaust survivors. For nearly five decades she has lived quietly in Connecticut, producing mainly works of Holocaust scholarship and teaching sociology at the University of Connecticut in Stamford, a satellite of the university's main campus 100 miles up the road in Storrs. Now she is the focus of popular attention. Sales of “Defiance” have exploded. The publisher, Oxford University Press, says the book has been the label's top (Continued on page 15) d ■ • ™ : % i!f§»S ил Щ “WOMEN, RESISTANCE & RENEWAL The American Society for Yad Vashem Annual Spring Luncheon Honoring Anna Eriich Stella Skura Thursday, May 21, 2009 the Rainbow Room, Pegasus Suite 49 West 49th Street, New York City H IS ISSUE Germany agrees to increase payments for Holocaust survivors . 2 US to unveil court rulings against Nazis . 3 Scrambling to preserve Holocaust memories . 5 Visiting a mother’s grave at Auschwitz . 6 The wedding gown that made history . . . . . 7 American Society for Yad Vashem YLA Winter Gala . 8-9 The murder sites of the Jews in the occupied territories . 10 American corporate complicity created undeniable Nazi nexus . 11 Holocaust museum chronicles Nazi propaganda . . . 12 Double life of Witold Pilecki . . . 13 Behind fairy-tale drawings, walls talk of unspeakable cruelty. . 16 that is found in . mc£ that comes RECEIVED I MAY “4 2003 Baltimore Hebrew University | A . - - - r May your life he ■ with me sin lessings of a HAPPY PAS,