Farzeen Foda

Senior News Editor

 

The Holocasut has been extensively documented in numerous forms - through print, film and documentaries yet all modes share a common theme: they focus heavily on the stories and recollections of just a few of the millions of people affected by the tragedy that has been seen as one of humanity’s greatest failures.

In an effort provide a more in depth insight into the Holocaust and the experiences of the survivors who have lived to tell their story, the USC Shoah Foundation, founded by world renowned producer Steven Spielburg and Branko Lustig, a Holocaust survivor and Oscar Award-winning producer, has donated the Visual History Archive to McMaster.

The archive, offered through McMaster University’s online network for access from the University campus as well as through remote access to McMaster’s Virtual Privacy Network, is intended for use by students, faculty and researchers.

The archive is one of the largest of its kind, and McMaster is the only Canadian university to offer the collection of nearly 52,000 testimonies from Holocaust survivors coming from a variety of groups targeted by the genocide.

The archive contains testimonies from Jewish survivors, Jehovah’s Witness, homosexual, liberators and liberation witnesses, rescuers and aid providers, political prisoners, Sinti and Roma survivors, as well as participants of war crime trials and survivors of Eugenics policies.

Interviews were conducted in 52 different countries with approximately 3,000 of those interviews in Canada, 34 of which were conducted in Hamilton. The Visual History Archive houses interviews from survivors as well as letters written by Holocaust victims in a variety of languages.

Bringing a collection of this sort to McMaster has been an ongoing effort since 2009, and to commemorate those efforts, a launch event was held on Nov. 3 in CIBC Hall. The event saw prominent speakers from the McMaster, Hamilton and the Jewish community.

Notable speakers included University president Patrick Deane, University librarian Jeff Trzeciack, Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina, the Consul General for the Republic of Croatia, and the president of the Hamilton Jewish Federation, as well as Lustig himself, who served as a strong driving force behind the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive.

Many of the speakers drew on their own experiences, emphasizing the impact of the Holocaust within Hamilton and the obligation to preserve the individual stories of each survivor.

Mayor Bob Bratina spoke of his journey to his grandfather’s home town where he learned of how the Holocaust swept through the town, taking with it some of his own ancestors.

Lustig, who was met with a standing ovation following his speech, explained the gruelling experience he endured during the Holocaust as a preteen boy, and how it led him to embark on a career in film and create the Visual History Archive.

Lustig sees his efforts as his way of giving back to the people he sadly left behind during his traumatic experiences in the concentration camps. “I do my best to fulfill my promise to these people in Auchwitz,” he said, after explaining his tumultuous experience being shunted between concentration camps around Europe.

From such experiences, and the Archive’s letters and interviews, history is made. Although written in different languages, it is these pieces of history that compose, outline, and chronicle humanity’s greatest example of unquestionable vileness and wretchedness.

And yet within each paragraph, each sentence, and each letter, comes the hope of eventual unity and peace that transgresses any boundary, any language, or any culture.

Dina Fanara

Assistant News Editor

 

Led by professor Sam Vrankulj, the students of Labour Studies 2A03 (Unions) were given a rare opportunity to participate in a Policy Resolution Convention simulation on Nov. 1.

The event normally occurs whenever a union changes a resolution and allows all members to vote on the changes made in a union-wide gathering.

According to Vrankulj the exercise was part of the department’s “innovative approach for teaching students about unions.”

Each class member is placed in either a Union Local role, representing a specific type or worker within the union, or a Union Committee, responsible for organizing one aspect of all Union Locals.

Each group was responsible for presenting a policy resolution to be approved or rejected by the rest of the class, as well as a support and opposition for a pre-assigned resolution of another group. The union created within this classroom environment is called the Canadian Union of Diversified Workers (CUDW).

According to Vrankulj, “The primary goals of the course are to provide students with some insight into the collective action dilemmas faced by unions, the tensions involved in achieving consensus around policy and bargaining issues amongst diverse groups of workers and the reasons why unions see collective action and involvement in politics as crucial for advancing the interests of working people.”

This is the sixth year that the convention simulation has run. As per tradition, Vrankulj invited influential members of local union life to guest-host this event.

Guests included Matt Root, president of CAW Local 555, which represents McMaster support staff, Tom Atterton, secretary of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, and Mary Long, president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council. Long is proudly the first female elected to the position of president.

While the experience was designed to provide students with experience of the inner workings of a union, playful twists were also placed on the event.

Humourous false names were given to the executive board: Ida Know as Union Trustee, Bill Fold as National Secretary Treasurer, Les Ambishus as Vice President, Ivona Powers as President, Ike Ountem as Convention Teller, and finally, Hugh Morless as Sergeant at Arms.

These positions were held by the two class teaching assistants, Professor Vrankulj, and the three guest hosts.

Also, donuts and carbonated beverages were provided for the entire class by Vrankulj.  This was explained to be part of the Union culture, and a staple at all Union meetings and gatherings.

In her introductory speech to the convention simulation, Long explained to the class that the goal of this conference and class’s experiencial setup is to define union priorities, balance membership needs and preserve “the rights that our parents and grandparents struggled to win.”

Vrankulj added, “The participation of union leaders in the simulation increases learning by enhancing realism, and building student familiarity and understanding of the local labour movement while simultaneously cultivating crucial links between the broader labour movement and the Labour Studies Programme.”

 

Christina Pugliese

 

The Silhouette

 

In imagining where a pivotal career might begin, a ramshackled bar on the side of a cratered Ugandan highway is probably not what comes to mind.

For Dr. Richard Heinzl, however, it was on such a roadside by the Kenyan-Ugandan border where he first encountered a group of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) physicians – an experience that ultimately led him to establish the Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian relief organization, Doctors Without Borders Canada.

On Wednesday, Oct. 19, Heinzl visited McMaster at an event hosted by the McMaster Global Health Committee of McMaster Medical School.

Heinzl recounted his decision to take an elective in a rural Kenyan hospital after completing his first year. “I worked there for about three weeks and it was great,” a down-to-earth Heinzl told the group of ambitious students.

“But Kenya was actually a pretty prosperous country at that time. And right next door was Uganda, which was not doing well at all.”

As an idealistic 22-year-old, he ventured to Uganda, with merely a VISA, passport and name of a Canadian contact in hand. It was not long after that a truck filled with a high-spirited group of MSF workers approached. Heinzl recalled, “That’s when I fell in love with the organization.”

Three years after graduating, Heinzl, moved by his experience overseas, succeeded in founding the Canadian chapter of the international medical relief organization. Though he has now served in more than 80 countries threatened by public health emergencies, Heinzl is in no rush to settle down, explaining new initiatives underway within the organization.

Heinzl further explained the unique approach he takes in his work, noting that many projects conducted by previous groups have failed to involve the community or utilize findings to meaningfully improve the lives of the people.

He credited the Internet as a valuable tool in international aid. “The Internet is a treasure. It connects people with the rest of the world,” said Heinzl, noting the rise of the cellular phone.

Currently, 80 per cent of the population has access to a cell phone. “Cell phones give people access to information, which is just as important for health as are antibiotics or C-sections, for example,” said Heizl.

In fact, Heinzl recalled “dreaming up” the usefulness of cell phones and the Internet many years ago while working in remote areas. “You cannot simply go out into the hall to get a consultation from your colleagues when there are virtually no other doctors in the country.”

He added that “it is breathtaking to inquire what lies ahead,” regarding the future of globalized medicine.

Before concluding, Heinzl extended the dialogue to students, showing a genuine fascination with their experiences in international health.

“If I can share one lesson with you, it would be to follow what you love. Any one of you can dream up a country you want to go to, or an idea that you want to make happen, or a program that you want to create.”

After all, he said, “there is a world waiting for you.”