Holocaust event promotes awareness, remembrance April 30

Holocaust event promotes awareness, remembrance April 30

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

By any standard Oded Hod, Rice chemistry postdoctoral associate and father of two young girls, is a busy man. But his hectic schedule didn’t stop him from teaming up with Rice students Katherine Gomer and Christopher Schmidt to put together the second Holocaust Awareness and Remembrance Event at Rice University, which will be held April 30 at 6 p.m.

The student group arranged for noted scholar Shlomo Aronson to present a lecture about the history of the Holocaust, and two artists will display their works on the subject.

AVRAHAM SAPIR

ODED HOD

KATHERINE GOMER

One of those artists, Avraham Sapir of Israel, is making his first visit to the U.S. He’ll bring with him 14 paintings that express his firsthand experience of the Holocaust. Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1931, Sapir is the only member of his family who survived the Nazi concentration camps. He went into hiding when the rest of his family was transported to Auschwitz, the largest of the death camps.

Hod’s family was in hiding during that time as well. His grandmother had arranged for herself, her husband and two daughters to hide in the homes of strangers.

“I put myself in my grandmother’s shoes and don’t know if I would have that kind of strength,” Hod said. “The thought of separating from my wife and daughters makes me break down and cry. And to hide them in the homes of strangers — well, I don’t know if I could do that.”

Hod said his daughters Ophir, 3, and Ariel, 1, are the center of his world, and that when he and his wife, Adi, had them, he learned what was important in life: family.

It was a lesson that his grandmother had learned decades before when she did everything she could to keep her family safe. She instructed her daughters to pretend they were Christian children, and that action saved their lives.

“At least once, my grandmother got information that said the home where my mother and aunt were was going to be raided,” Hod said. “My family left and the next day, everyone in that home was murdered.”

Individual stories

Hod’s family survived the raids, and after the war they moved to Israel, where his mother would eventually meet his father. His father’s sister married Sapir, who had also relocated there.

“This event at Rice where we will remember and honor Holocaust vicitims is deeply personal to me,” Hod said. “It is my nation’s history and my family’s history. I feel an obligation to my family to share the stories with others.”

Hod said that it is hard to comprehend the Holocaust just by looking at the numbers or facts. He said the only way to understand it is to learn the individual stories behind it.

“Once you can absorb part of the Holocaust, you can begin to understand what really happened,” Hod said. “You take an individual story, and you multiply that by six million.”

When Hod was approached by the Israeli Consulate and the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Tolerance to help plan a Holocaust remembrance event, his uncle’s artwork inspired him to sign on. He said it was his dream to share his uncle’s artwork with the U.S. The very idea of an exhibition at Rice motivated Sapir to continue painting. When Sapir’s wife, Hod’s aunt, passed away a few years ago, Sapir became a shell of his former self.

“The Holocaust destroyed him once, and the death of my aunt destroyed him for a second time,” Hod said. “But this event has gotten him going again. He is painting. He is living.”

Sapir’s artwork, mostly created in the 1980s, has been exhibited in Tel Aviv, Israel, and in the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, where one of his paintings is part of the museum’s permanent collection.

“We are bringing in the artwork to appeal to the heart,” said Hod. “And the lecture to appeal to the mind.”

Examining the past

The lecture, “Hitler, the Allies and the Jews,” will be presented by Aronson, who wrote a book of the same name. He will examine the relationships and issues at the time of the second world war. Aronson served as a consultant to the Interagency Working Group in charge of implementing the U.S. Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. He also was a scholar in residence at the U.S. National Archives and a fellow at the Library of Congress. 

“In order to know where we are going, we must first know our history,” said Gomer, a Hanszen College junior. “Through an examination of the past, we may recognize similar destructive patterns and current world crises, such as the ongoing genocide in Darfur.”

Gomer, a political science major, said she is passionate about studying cultures and languages. This fall she will add Russian to her repertoire, which already includes Spanish, French, Portuguese and Hebrew.

“Too many times we make the mistake of separating people by religion, race, gender or nationality,” Gomer said. “There must be a worldwide awakening about the common binds that tie all people together. Oded, Chris and I strive to teach that the Holocaust is not a Jewish issue, it is a human issue.

“As a global community, we must learn and educate about the Holocaust so that such atrocities will never be repeated,” Gomer said.

Hod is returning to Israel this fall to accept a faculty position at Tel Aviv University. He trusts the event will continue in good hands.

“Katherine and Chris have done an amazing job,” Hod said. “I know they’ll continue to make this an annual event.”

Gomer has said she plans to do just that and keep “Yom Hashoah,” Hebrew for ”day of remembrance,” a tradition at Rice. 

About the event

Aronson will speak at 7:30 p.m. April 30 in Grand Hall at Rice Memorial Center following the 6 p.m. art exhibition opening and 7:15 p.m. reception in the center’s Farnsworth Pavilion. The events are free and open to the public.

The art exhibit will feature 28 works from both Sapir and Houston artist Saul Balagura. It will also be open for viewing from 9 a.m. to noon May 1, 2 and 4.

Balagura is a self-taught Colombian-born artist who, after retiring, opened an art studio in New Mexico and another in Houston. With his “Holocaust Series,” he hopes to use his voice to keep the memory of the Holocaust victims alive. Balagura’s poetry will accompany his paintings in the exhibit at Rice.

Because of special security arrangements, patrons should plan to arrive early for the lecture. The following security precautions will be in place:

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