Lecture in NoHo on
horrors of Auschwitz
Photos shows liberation of Auschwitz camp in Poland. A million people
were murdered there.
BY TODD MAISEL
To mark the 75th anniversary
of the Auschwitz liberation
in 1945, the Sheen Center for
Thought and Culture in Manhattan
brought in noted Holocaust historian
Dr. Robert Jan Van Pelt to discuss
the death camp’s history.
Dr. Robert Jan Van Pelt is one of
the main authorities on the history
of Auschwitz. From 1997-98, he
presided over the team that developed
the master plan to preserve the
Auschwitz camp and participated
as an expert witness in the famous
case against the British historian
and author David Irving (London,
1998-2001).
During his appearance at the No-
Ho center, Van Pelt expressed concern
about Auschwitz visitors who
act with insensitivity, such as taking
selfies on site. He also remarked that
the crowds were so heavy that the
mood and solemness of Auschwitz
was being undermined.
“But then there are some people
that come there and really understand
what they are seeing, the
suffering, the real feeling that they
should have that this is a solemn
place,” Van Pelt said.
Van Pelt went into great detail
about the horror and hate at
Auschwitz.
“In 1942, it became a place to go
to be murdered,” Van Pelt said as he
showed slides of laughing Nazis celebrating
mass murder. He was careful
to note that other races the Nazis
considered to be “subhuman” were
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
also exterminated in the camp, including
more than 150,000 captured
Russians from the Eastern Front.
Auschwitz began as a place of interment,
evolving later into the war
to become the most bloodstained
camp of all, with a capacity to cremate
from 250 per day in the 1938
to 4,500 bodies per day towards the
end of the war.
The death camps became more
brutal as the war wore on with some
people led into gas chambers as soon
as they arrived on massive trains –
mostly those who couldn’t work in
the private rubber plant UG Farbenindustrie
– forcing mostly Jews to
work to feed the Nazi war machine.
Van Pelt was joined by Rabbi
Joseph Potasnik, the Executive Vice
President of The New York Board of
Rabbis, the largest interdenominational
rabbinic body in the world.
Today, Van Pelt said, he is concerned
that anti-Semitism was returning
to the United States and he
said there were early signs of disaster
for the Jews in the 20s and 30s that
led to the Holocaust.
“Anti-Semitic attacks are on the
rise around the country, leaving
members of the Jewish community
feeling frightened and unsafe. In New
York City, anti-Semitic crimes have
jumped 21 percent in the past year.
According to the Anti-Defamation
League, there were 1,879 incidents
of anti-Semitism in the United States
in 2018, including more than 1,000
instances of harassment,” he told the
Washington Post.
HIGHER ED TODAY
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The Census 2020 count may be
the most important and challenging
population survey that our country,
state and city have ever undertaken.
New York has historically been undercounted,
but this decennial tally
is taking place under particularly
challenging circumstances.
Undercounting can deprive us of
our rightful representation in Congress
along with millions of dollars
in federal support for public education.
Census data impacts funding
for the federal Pell Grant program,
adult education grants and a host
of other services that are vital to
CUNY and other institutions of
higher education. The importance of
achieving a fair and complete count
of every New Yorker has prompted
the state and city governments to
commit significant resources and
coordinate stakeholders. On Martin
Luther King Jr. Day, Gov. Andrew
M. Cuomo announced the creation
of the Census Council, co-chaired
by Martin Luther King III, Lucy Liu
and Lin-Manuel Miranda, to act as
the state’s coordinating arm in the
effort.
The law is that every person
should be counted, regardless of citizenship
or immigration status. But
the current climate of fear within
immigrant communities poses a
challenge to that goal; it is a concern
that hits close to home for New
York and especially for us at CUNY.
More than a third of our students
were born outside the country. They
and their families live in communities
that our own faculty experts tell
us are designated “hard to count,”
which include highly mobile people,
non-native English speakers,
undocumented immigrants, people
of color, low-income people and students.
Fortunately, CUNY students,
who reflect the full range of New
York City’s diversity, are uniquely
positioned to help achieve a fair and
accurate census count. A team of 220
students, two thirds of whom speak
a language other than English,
were being trained this month, even
before the spring semester started
this week, to be deployed as part
of CUNY Census Corps. They will
work in paid part-time positions
from January to end of May, getting
out the count at CUNY colleges and
venturing into the hardest-to-count
neighborhoods to ensure that the
people who live in those communities
are acknowledged and counted.
Participation in this missioncritical
task will enable CUNY students
to develop their leadership,
problem solving, teamwork and
communication skills. Equally important,
they will learn firsthand
the vital importance of civic engagement
— a core value of public higher
education.
Our efforts are being guided
by CUNY data resources, including
a mapping tool created by our
Center for Urban Research at the
CUNY Graduate Center that is being
widely used in census outreach
efforts across the country.
CUNY is also proud to be working
closely with NYC Census 2020
to administer and oversee the contracts
that have been awarded to
more than 150 community-based organizations
that will be at the frontlines
of this year’s census-related
education and organizing.
The key to a complete census
count is a determined, full-scale
and efficient partnership among
the leaders of New York State and
City and their institutions. CUNY
is proud to be an important part of
this partnership. We are working
closely with all our government and
civic partners to carry out this very
consequential endeavor.
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14 January 30, 2020 Schneps Media