Lena Jersenius of the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism and Racism (fourth from left back row), Swedish educators and Moreshet director Graciella Ben-Dror (front left), Moreshet chairman Yaacov Gutterman (kneeling center) and Yonat Rotbein (far right), Moreshet programs director.
A group of Swedish educators invited to a Yad Vashem seminar decided to come to Israel a few days earlier and add a 2-day seminar with Givat Haviva to their itinerary.
The teachers, most of whom in the past having participating in and led study groups of students and fellow educators to Poland and Israel, were headed by Lena Jersenus who in the past was the director of SVEKIV, the Swedish Friends of Kibbutzim bringing almost 40,000 Swedish volunteers to Israel over a 30 year period until its closure after the second intifada in the year 2000.
For many years the International Department organized monthly seminars together with fluent Hebrew speaking Lena – a native of Stockholm - for the Swedish and Danish volunteers in kibbutzim and a close relationship formed.
Nowadays Lena is a full time staff member of the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism and Racism and in this capacity organizes courses and seminars on the Holocaust in Sweden as well as study tours to Poland. She also accompanies teachers to Yad Vashem and SCAA organized seminars in Israel.
SCAA have also published a great deal of material as teacher’s aides on the subject of the Holocaust, one of which translated in to a number of languages and entitled “Tell Ye Your Children.”
The Swedish teachers seminar at Givat Haviva, organized by the International Department, incorporated a meeting with the staff of MORESHET, The Mordechai Anielevich Holocaust Study and Research Center, visiting the two permanent exhibitions at the center – ‘Luboml’ and ‘Women in the Holocaust,’ as well as the powerful art exhibition of Holocaust survivor’s daughter, Montreal based Israeli artist Esti Meyer who also came to meet with and explain her art.
Holocaust survivor Yacov Guterman, a director of MORESHET, met with the Swedish visitors and different aspects of education regarding the Holocaust, both in Israel and abroad, were discussed in depth. Guterman’s father Simcha, who perished in the Holocaust, penned a detailed diary scribbled in Yiddish on scraps of paper which he hid inside bottles and concealed in cellars and other hiding places frequented by the family.
Yacov Guterman shows a strip of paper hidden in a bottle
by his father, Simcha during the Holocaust
In recent years Yacov Guterman, a well known illustrator and respected educator, published a book based on his father’s diary – entitled ‘Leaves from the Ashes’ – and participated in a documentary film whereby he returned to Poland in search of missing portions of the diary still hidden in that country.
Guterman also told the Swedes about his own forages in to his Polish and Holocaust past for many years leading groups of Israelis – including IDF officers – on study tours to Poland and Auschwitz.
“My colleagues were really looking forward to meeting Israeli educators dealing with this terribly difficult and sensitive subject and meeting with Yaacov, the Moreshet staff, Esti Meyer and visiting the exhibitions has been very moving, interesting and an extremely important experience for us,” said Lena.
“When we are in Poland we often see Israeli groups there and so we’re interested to know how the Israeli educators prepare themselves and their students for this journey, what their goals are and if there is any continuity once they return to Israel.
“In Sweden we have quite impressive pedagogical guidelines when working in Poland, but we have benefited greatly today in meeting Israelis and to be able to share in their experiences therefore giving us a better understanding of their difficulties in this huge task of teaching Holocaust to today’s youth.” Of the ten educators in Lena’s group, nine have been studying the Holocaust for many years and apart from traveling to Poland are working together with SCAA in developing further pedagogical methods for teaching Holocaust in Swedish schools.
During the groups visit to the Moreshet exhibition featuring Luboml, a shtetl in Poland whose Jewish community was destroyed during the Holocaust, staff member Yisrael Peleg not only explained about the daily life of the Jewish community in Luboml but also sang Yiddish songs that would have been sung in the once vibrant shtetl.
Visibly moved the Swedish educators and Yacov Guterman joined Yisrael in one of the better-known songs. Hardly a dry eye could be found in the small exhibition hall as the Yiddish words filled the air almost bringing alive the Jewish community of yore depicted in the black and white photographs of the Luboml market town that disappeared forever.
Yisrael Peleg explains, sings and answers questions about Luboml
The Swedish educators also visited Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek the home of International Department’s Lydia Aisenberg who worked for many years with Lena during the hey days of SVEKIV volunteers in Kibbutzim. Some years ago Lydia was invited to Stockholm to speak with former volunteers, to high-school students and educators on a SCAA Holocaust studies course.
During the day at Mishmar HaEmek the Swedish guests met with kibbutz member, artist and Holocaust survivor Pnina Talmi and also visited the ‘Emda’ in-house kibbutz museum showing the 86 year-old community’s early years in models, photographs and film as well as a special feature dealing with the attack on the kibbutz during the War of Independence.
Kibbutz born Dafna Govrin (left, blue top) shows the Swedish
educators around the ‘Emda’ museum
The story of Pnina Talmi’s miraculous survival as a child was read to the group prior to meeting the lady herself whom to this day does not know exactly how old she is. The time spent with Pnina was very emotional and the group became totally engrossed in the charismatic Holocaust survivor’s story, about her first years as a young child in the kibbutz and the development of her extremely powerful art work, in latter years drawn with both hands at the same time - whilst keeping her eyes shut!
An art therapist by profession, Pnina herself was no less affected by meeting with the Swedish folks as they with her.
“I am so impressed by all of you Swedish people giving so much of yourselves for the sake of educating others and not letting people forget what happened to us,” Pnina told the group as the day drew to a close with a visit to Pinat HaGola, the Holocaust memorial of Mishmar HaEmek and to pay their respects in the kibbutz cemetery where a memorial plaque to the Gotleib family – the family of Pnina Talmi – is lodged in a large rock face so that she has a place to call her own for the family she lost and no burial place known.
Pnina Talmi meeting with Lena (right) and friends
the Pinat HaGola Holocaust memorial
of Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek
By Lydia Aisenberg
