From her work on Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust survivors project to her RWU classroom, adjunct professor instills the importance of human rights and social justice

Rodrigues, Jill

English

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Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUFeatured News Story The Week at Roger12-15-2015Remembering the Holocaust with Rosalie FranksJill RodriguesRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_newsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Week at Roger at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in FeaturedNews Story by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationRodrigues, Jill, "Remembering the Holocaust with Rosalie Franks" (2015). Featured News Story. 546.https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_news/546 News ArchiveRemembering the Holocaust with Rosalie FranksFrom her work on Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust survivors project to her RWUclassroom, adjunct professor instills the importance of human rights and socialjusticeDecember 15, 2015 Jill Rodrigues ’05BRISTOL, R.I. – Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust ended with liberation of theconcentration camps, but people like Rosalie Franks work to ensure its legacy is never forgotten.In the 1990s, she devoted  ve years to interviewing 92 Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’sSurvivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (now the USC Shoah Foundation), a web archive of51,000 video testimonials from survivors around the world.  Since that experience, Franks – a longtimeadjunct professor of critical writing, literature and philosophy at Roger Williams – has brought backlessons on human rights and social justice to her classroom.What preparation did the Shoah Foundation give you?We trained with scholars of Holocaust studies, who provided additional texts to study. They explainedthe importance of being sensitive to the survivors – that over and above hearing their story, we had toacknowledge the person’s humanity. I would pre-interview each person and then return with all thatbackground information for a second interview, which could last three to seven hours.How did you remain composed while listening to their stories?  It a ected me deeply to hear about the terrible su ering of another human being. Sometimes I wouldbe very sad for days a er an interview. But that meant I empathized with the person.But these weren’t just stories of tragedy?  In many instances, they were stories of resilience, determination and growth. Love for their families keptthem going. Their faith kept them going. That was their source of strength.Tell me the story of the man who escaped a concentration camp.  Kurt Thomas, a young man from Czechoslovakia, was working on a farm in Poland when Germanyinvaded the country. He was taken to Sobibór, an extermination camp, where a group of prisonersplanned a breakout. One man climbed the fence and cut the electri ed barbed wire, while otherskilled the camp leaders. During the turmoil, Kurt escaped and  ed for two or three days, not knowingany of his surroundings. Meanwhile, the Germans had rounded up and shot others who had run. Bysheer luck, Kurt ended up in the same town where he worked and found the Polish farmer, who hid himin the pigsty until the war ended. The Gestapo came around several times and questioned the farmer,but he never betrayed Kurt. (Watch two of her unabridged interviews with survivors – Kurt Thomas andJoseph Singer of Germany.)Why choose video as the medium?  Visual histories allow us to witness a person’s emotional response, to see their sadness and perplexityin telling it.Is there an art to creating visual histories?  You have to be a careful listener who knows when to say nothing but also knows how to shape theinterview so it remains coherent and interesting. You search for details and the richness of the meaningof the experience being described.Where would you conduct the interviews?  I interviewed most survivors in their homes, and occasionally they would be in a location like auniversity. Many took place throughout New England and in South Florida, two were in Washington,D.C. and some in Europe.Did you work directly with Steven Spielberg?  I did not work with him, but Steven Spielberg requested to watch the full video of one of my interviews– a 97-year-old survivor, at the time of the interview, named Erich Leyens. His family had been takenfrom Germany and separated; a er the war, he learned from Anne Frank’s father – who was his friend –that his niece had survived and was living in America.What compelled you to be a part of this project?  Listening to a survivor’s story tells them, ‘You matter. What happened to you will be remembered, andbecause you had the courage to tell your story, people can learn from your experience.’ I felt I wasmaking a contribution to the survivor and to future students who would learn about this historicalevent. And in the process, I felt it was providing meaning to my life – that I played a small role in helpingall of us remember.How should people today honor the lives lost to the Holocaust?  People need to remember what happened to the Jews and to millions of other people so that it neverhappens again. We must commit ourselves to ensuring that society – here, now – teaches people of allages the importance of safeguarding democracy and respect for diversity.Is that why you design courses around those themes?  I want students to develop their own sense of values, and I use readings from Plato, Langston Hughesand Holocaust survivors to introduce them to that process. (For in-depth reading into Holocauststudies, Franks recommends these memoirs and historic accounts). Through literature that examinesethics, human rights and racism, we ask questions like: ‘What are you willing to stand up for?’What is your role as liaison between Boston-based Facing History and Ourselves and Palm BeachFellowship of Christians and Jews, which recently bestowed upon you the 2015 John C. RandolphAward for your dedication to teaching and inspiring respect for diversity to generations ofstudents?  My responsibility is to designate teachers to be trained in the Holocaust Studies Program at FacingHistory and Ourselves, which educates teachers about the Holocaust and strategies they can use tomotivate and inform students. We reach out to high schools in the entire Palm Beach County area andselect teachers in history, social studies and journalism, for example. I also facilitate the annual writingcontest for all middle and high school students; they write an essay to answer a question such as,‘What is the meaning of morality?’What is o en overlooked about the legacy of the Holocaust?  The impact on the children and grandchildren of the perpetrators – they feel an overwhelming sense ofshame. They were deeply saddened by the horror of what their families had done. What we do lives ona er us. The good that we do lives on. But the evil that we do a ects not only the people perpetratedagainst, but future generations.

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Remembering the Holocaust with Rosalie Franks

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