Here's a quick reminder to please consider contributing to our American Jewish Experience Hanukkah Album an artifact or personal reminiscence about the observance of Hanukkah.

Alternatively, and of great value, would be album entries chosen from previous TPS Hanukkah materials or suggested Library of Congress resources:

• Hanukkah in the Library’s Collections: Celebrating Freedom, Light and Latkes (Minerva’s Kaleidoscope blog post)
• Today in History: Happy Hanukkah (Primary Source Nexus)
• The Truth Behind the Hanukkah Dreidel: Metafolklore, Play, and Spin (Folklife Today blog post)

Wishing all TPS members and your families the very best for the upcoming winter holidays!

Vanda Vasil’eva (later Vanda Semyonovna Ob’edkova) with her parents, Maria and Semen, in Mariupol in 1938. USC Shoah Foundation

One year after the unprovoked attack against the Ukrainian people, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) will present a special Stay Connected Live program that will feature a discussion of the devastating impact on Ukraine's Holocaust survivors.

The program will air on Friday, February 24 at 9:30 a.m. ET on the Museum's Facebook page.

As the Nazis rounded up and killed thousands of Jews in Mariupol during the Holocaust, Vanda Vasil’eva was just a child who survived by hiding until liberation.

Last year, Vanda died at 91, cowering in a basement in Mariupol, hiding from Russia’s deadly siege. Join us one year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to discuss its devastating impact on Ukraine’s Holocaust survivors.

The USHMM also published a new essay marking the anniversary of the war, Putin and a Tale of Two Photos by Edna Friedberg.

Additional valuable background on the topic of the Holocaust in Ukraine was shared recently in this post by   Mary Johnson   and   Keith Patterson .

If you are not able to watch the USHMM program live, an archived recording will be available to watch on the Museum’s Facebook and YouTube pages

  Holocaust    Ukraine     United States Holocaust Memorial Museum  

Here's signup information about an upcoming professional development workshop focusing on The U.S. and the Holocaust, the new documentary by Ken Burns.

On February 7 at 7 p.m. ET the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) will cohost an event with PBS LearningMedia and the Association of Holocaust Organizations exploring practical strategies for educators to integrate the film’s content into their teaching.

The event will feature teachers who wrote lesson plans on media literacy, immigration, and the refugee crisis; Nazism and antisemitism; and World War II and the Holocaust

Please register for the PD session here.

You may also explore USHMM teaching materials designed to support the Museum’s current exhibition on Americans and the Holocaust

  Holocaust    Media literacy    PBS    Ken Burns  

Here’s an opportunity to explore National Archives primary sources and classroom activities that support teaching about Americans and the Holocaust, the topic of the new exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).

A DocsTeach webinar will be held on Thursday, April 4, 2019, at 7:30 p.m. ET as part of a collaboration between the National Archives Office of Education and Public Programs and the USHMM Levine Institute for Holocaust Education.

Participants will be introduced to document-based classroom activities that support teaching about Americans and the Holocaust. Special attention will be paid to U.S. policy on immigration during the Holocaust, and women activists working to bring refugees to the United States.

Please register here. The webinar is limited to 100 participants. Registration will close at 5 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 2. You will receive connection information for the webinar via email on Wednesday, April 3.

National Archives   Holocaust   Immigration   Social Studies/History

Public opinion polls show that most Americans disapproved of Nazism during the 1930s and 1940s. Yet, the majority of Americans also hoped to stay out of war in Europe, and many opposed admitting refugees fleeing from Nazism. 

An upcoming program from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will examine polls from the era - which are featured in the Museum’s new exhibition Americans and the Holocaust - and explore important questions about the gap between disapproval of Nazism and willingness to act on behalf of victims of the Holocaust.

This Museum event can be attended live in person on November 28 at 7 p.m. ET or viewed online.

Speakers include:
Daniel Greene, PhD, Curator, Americans and the Holocaust
Frank Newport, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, Gallup

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum   Holocaust   polls