Join Western’s new Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity for an annual Kristallnacht Commemoration. Haven’t yet heard Noemi’s infamous potato story? This is your chance. Don’t miss out on this event on November 9.
By Chris Beswetherick
The world will always study the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors, the primary sources of information on the subject, will not be here forever.
On November 9, Noémi Ban, one of the living Holocaust survivors, will come to Arntzen 100 at 6 p.m. and share her experiences from Auschwitz and life before and after the Holocaust.
As this is one of the last generations with living survivors, witnessing Noémi Ban relate her experiences spreads knowledge about the Holocaust. Learning from a source like this event will teach accurate information which can be studied over long periods of time, by anyone who sees Ban speak.
The subject should not be obsolete, and Western has helped assure the legacy of learning by hosting lectures and a new holocaust, genocide and ethnocide institution.
The Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity hosts Noémi Ban as part of the on-going lectures the institute has scheduled for their inaugural year. Western declared Ban a Doctor of Humane Letters, an honorary degree, for her contributions to Western.
Ban started experiencing the Holocaust when her little sister caught news of Nazis coming to their hometown and wondered if it would affect them. Everyone in her family felt scared. The very next day, March 19, 1944, Nazis arrived and concentrated Jewish families together. Ban had a small home, only a few rooms, and the ghetto German Nazis forced multiple families to move into Ban’s home. Those placed there had to sleep in the hallway or the kitchen or be crammed in a bedroom.
After living in this Jewish ghetto for a few months, Ban met someone creating fake IDs. Ban could have easily left and been free from the Holocaust. However, as the eldest child of her family, she started considering everyone closest to her.
Ban and her family had such strong traditions built-into their lifestyles. Every Sunday they would pray and celebrate together. Their Jewish heritage created strong familial bonds and Ban simply could not have abandoned them. Ray Wolpow, a retired professor and co-author of Ban’s book “Sharing is Healing,” believes her family’s traditions and relationship was, in some ways, similar to modern ones, meaning, making the decision to escape and therefore leave your family during a catastrophe like the Holocaust seem impossible. She stayed in the ghetto, and then was moved to a death camp.
In “Sharing is Healing,” Ban recounts her experience of living in Auschwitz in language meant for sixth graders. Co-written with Dr. Wolpow, the story is both easy and profound to read. Physically reading the book might not take very much time for an average college student. Emotionally, though, the book asks the reader to reread and clarify and understand what Ban is trying to share. She describes situations clearly; the image of the scene appears in the reader’s head. Of her arrival in Auschwitz, she describes how the Nazis sorted through lines of people, pointing each individual in one of two directions. This is where she sees her family for the last time.
“This is the last time they saw each other,” Wolpow said. “With their eyes they say ‘take care.’ Noémi told me this was the last time her family was all together.”
In the cover of her book, she stands under the gates to Auschwitz, or more uniquely known as “The Gates of Hell,” where a cattle car delivered her and her family. In the spot she stands, Wolpow said that Ban thought about being with her family for the last time.
After escaping the Holocaust Ban moved to Budapest, where she started learning to be a teacher. Then, she moved to the United States where she began teaching for several years. After winning state-education awards like “The Golden Apple,” and teaching for many years, Ban retired and now lives in Bellingham.
The Ray Wolpow Institute is the successor to Ray Wolpow’s own Holocaust and genocide studies, the Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Ethnocide Education (NWCHGEE). They support the study of the Holocaust, and are now searching for a candidate to fill a professorship spot in the institute. Now Western, like many accredited schools, teaches about genocide, ethnocide and crimes against humanity, in hopes to ultimately prevent their recurrence.