On November 12 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:20 p.m., The John Carroll School will host 350 Baltimore-area students and teachers from schools in Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Harford County for “Lessons of the Shoah.” Co-sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council, The Associated and the Ralph & Shirley Klein Foundation, this inter-faith, inter-school program promotes tolerance, understanding and respect among high school students of diverse backgrounds and motivates participants to make a personal commitment to combat prejudice and hatred.

The theme for the 2024 event is “How Children Experienced the Holocaust.” Participants will hear a keynote address by Dr. Lauren Granite, U.S. Program Director for Centropa, an historical institute based in Vienna on life for children in pre-Holocaust Europe. They will also hear testimony from second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors about the effects of long-term trauma, as well as testimony from Richard Grilli whose mother was rescued in the Holocaust. Students will then interact and share thoughts on the causes and effects of the Holocaust on children.

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Schedule

9:00–10:00 a.m.: Opening Program & Keynote Address by Dr. Lauren Granite (bio below)

10:00–11:00 a.m.: Small Group Sessions (speaker list below)

11:00–11:40 a.m.: Lunch

11:40 a.m.–1:30 p.m.: Screening of "One Life"

1:30–2:00 p.m.: Large Group Speaker, Richard Grilli (bio below)

2:00–2:20 p.m.: Closing Program

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Speakers‍

Dr. Lauren Granite, Keynote Speaker. Dr. Lauren Granite is U.S. Program Director for Centropa, an historical institutebased in Vienna that interviewed over 1,200 elderly Jews in 15 Central and Eastern European countries. She has a Ph.D. from Drew University and master’s degree from the University of Chicago. Before joining Centropa in 2010, she spent more than a dozen years teaching Jewish history to adults, college students and teens. She builds Centropa’s network of schools in North America, designs professional development seminars and webinars, and develops programs and teaching tools for Centropa’s educators in the U.S., Europe and Israel.

Heller Kreshtool grew up in a small farming community in central Pennsylvania and is the child of a Holocaust survivor. Heller will share the experience of growing up as only one of two Jewish children there. Heller found out, by accident, about the Holocaust and that his own parents had been two of its victims — facts that his parents tried so hard from which to protect him.
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Alana Snyder is the granddaughter of Bernice Horon, who was born in Czestechowa, Poland. As a teenager, she survived a Jewish ghetto, forced labor camp and concentration camp before being liberated in 1945. After spending time in a displaced persons camp in Sweden, she immigrated to America where she continued rebuilding her life. Bernice never openly shared her Holocaust experiences before writing them down in a journal for her children late in her life.

Jessica Silverman is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Her grandmother, Minnie Osher, was born in Lodz, Poland. As a young teenager, Minnie survived the Lodz Ghetto and four concentration camps: Auschwitz, Kurtzburg and Grossebach, before being liberated in April 1945 from Bergen Belsen. She met her husband Muni in a displaced persons camp in Munich, Germany. They got married in 1946 and a year later their daughter Perla, Jessica's mother, was born. Then, in 1949 they immigrated to America, where they started their new lives together. They lived in New York and built a life for themselves and their family living the American dream. They had two more children, and ultimately eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. Jessica wrote an autobiography of her grandparent's lives, as well as video recordings of Minnie.

Beryl Schuster Hershkovitz's parents are both survivors of the Holocaust. Her mother was born in Biskupicze, Poland, in the Ukraine. As a teenager, her family was taken to a ghetto near her hometown in 1941. After the Nazis took her from the ghetto, she was able to escape imminent death and ran for her life.  She knocked on doors for help, throughout the war until 1944, when the Nazis retreated from her area. She met her husband, Ben, in the town of Livov, Poland. They married in 1946 and immigrated to the United States in 1947, where Deborah had numerous family members. Together, they created new lives with their four children.

Claudia Andorsky's father, Henry Walter, was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921. After fleeing Austria to Lviv, Poland in 1938, he spent most of the war with his brother, Otto, as interpreters in the German army at the front lines. He met her mother in Salzburg, Austria and immigrated to the U.S. in 1946. Claudia’s mother came about two years later.

Richard Grilli's mother, Olga Gabanyiova (née Bergmann), was born in Chotebor, Czechoslovakia and in March 1939, the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. Mr. Grilli's grandmother acted quickly to save her daughter from the impending peril. On the eve of World War II, Sir Winton saved the lives of 669 children, including Mr. Grilli's mother, by finding them homes and arranging for their safe passage to Britain. Olga's transport left on July 31, 1939; it would be the final train the Nazis permitted to leave Czechoslovakia.

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Organizers‍

Louise Brink Géczy, Co-Coordinator of Lessons of the Shoah. In a career spanning five decades, Mrs. Géczy’s honors include two outstanding educator citations from the Maryland State Legislature, a Fulbright exchange in Hungary, finalist for Baltimore County Teacher of the Year, Knights of Columbus Catholic School Teacher of the Year, John Carroll School Teacher of the Year, and the 2009 and 2023 Ponczak-Greenblatt Families’ Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education. She participated in two ADL Catholic educator summer programs, which included two weeks of study in Israel and in the Jewish Foundation for th eRighteous’ Summer Institute at Columbia University. She was also a co-awardee of the Andy Klein Memorial Peace & Justice Grant. In addition to Lessons of the Shoah, Mrs. Géczy coordinates the Genocide Awareness Vigil, Holocaust Remembrance Day at John Carroll which includes first-, second- and third-generation Holocaust testimony and a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. 

Emily Braverman Goodman, Co-Coordinator of Lessons of the Shoah. Emily Goodman is the Director of Holocaust and Countering Antisemitism Programming, where she is responsible for Holocaust commemoration and education programming, the Survivors Speakers Bureau, as well as the implementation of programming to help counter anti-semitism within the Baltimore community. Prior to this Emily worked with the Baltimore Jewish Council (BJC) as a Program Coordinator, working primarily with the Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel. Before joining the BJC, Emily served as a Research Assistant conducting research on cognitive impairment and memory decline at the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Emily holds a B.S. in Gerontology with concentrations on Family & Human Services and Health Science from Towson University.