What a week - it's gone by fast and furious. Yesterday (Thursday) I got everything together and I sent a copy of a photograph of the young Jewish boy named Paul to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Sara is their person who researches these types of request and she has all the information I know about Paul. Say a prayer for her and for Roy - that the doors would open for him to meet with Paul again and find his peace.
On Tuesday I went to Rock Island HS where I met with a group of kids from the Special Education Department. They will be writing and illustrating the first set of Civil Rights stories for me. They will write about two local people who were proactive in the Civil Rights movement and famous people like Rosa Parks, Emmitt Till, General Benjamin David (Commander of the famous Tuskegee Airmen), etc.
The students are amazed at these stories and they are becoming "real" to them. That is my hearts desire - for them and their young readers to have this experience where it becomes real to their hearts and minds. Many fought for their rights to be educated and get a good job - now use the gifts and talents God has given you and go for it!
My new best friend is Bernice Jones who is one of the most real and transparent people I know. She went from the MOP TO THE TOP (which will be the name of her book, by the way). Her story follows (I know this is too long for a BLOG but it's too good not to tell too!
Blessings from Debbow
Bernice Jones
Bernice was born in Princeton, Illinois near the Lovejoy Underground Railroad. When she was young, her family moved to Joliet, Illinois. Her mother was an alcohol and left her father (a World War I veteran) who had abusive tendencies. Bernice decided at age sixteen to run away to stay with her Grandmother in East Moline, Illinois. Bernice’s mother was in East Moline also and they were able to build a relationship. Bernice fell in love and married but soon afterward her husband found out news he was adopted and went crazy. She wasn’t going to live with abuse so she picked up and moved back to Joliet where she became the city’s first female cab driver.
When she returned to the Quad Cities, she married again – this time to a good husband - and the couple was blessed with two sons. Sadly, her husband passed away and Bernice’s dreams were shattered once again. As a widow of a veteran of World War II she had first rights to jobs at the Rock Island Arsenal. Early in her career, Bernice worked as a janitor at the Arsenal. She asked permission and was able to take old Army Regulation books home to read at night.
She was not satisfied doing this type of work but knew it would take action on her part to change it. She worked hard to earn her GED or high school equivalency. This education and her hard work allowed her to climb the ladder of success and becoming the Equal Opportunity Officer at the Rock Island Arsenal.
In her own words Bernice shares: I went to a lady and asked about taking a Bible study and she cried. She was thirty-seven years old, has seven children and she said “I cannot read”. Oh she had her diploma but she still couldn’t read. This should not be happening in the 21st century. I am now tutoring this young lady and you cannot imagine how she has grown to realize she can formulate words and sentences. But that’s where we need to be… where the need is. We need to come out of our comfort zones. Come out of our comfort zones, look around. Many people are like, I call them can sitters. They get all they can, can all they get and sit on the can. They don’t do nothing for nobody. And it is time out, time out for can sitters. They need to get up, stand up, lead out, even if nobody else will follow. You need to take the initiative. If you see the need, then you need to take the initiative to do something. Cause if you wait on somebody else, somebody’s going to try to discourage you. “Oh girl you know, you don’t have no degree. You don’t have no degree. You didn’t go to college, you can’t do this.” So be it. My GED is the Grace of God, Enthusiasm and Divine Direction.
My GED has taken me to this day working in race relations all over this country. I felt I had an inferiority complex until I realized that the highest ranking white male in this country cannot get the education I got. As a black female born up in a racist, sexist society, I have an education that they can’t even touch. They can’t touch it. And they are most inadequate in a multi-cultural society in dealing with the problems that we face every day. They don’t know where we came from and they cannot relate to it. But when we cross fertilize and we give them the information which brought us over.
And another thing we’ve done, we’ve departed from our first love. We know it was only by faith that we’ve come this far, but so many of us will not even put our feet inside a church. And that is where much of our strength came from. As black people our leadership was our pastors in our churches. Dr. Martin Luther King was a pastor. They had our interests at heart. I don’t think it is too much different today except they’ve become somewhat parochial. “If you don’t belong to my church …”
We are notorious for building barriers. We got to start building bridges, folks. We’ve got to bring somebody along with us. You know it is lonesome at the top … Bang!
I’ve been asked what this label under my name tag means: “From the Mop to the Top”. That means I started as a janitor, I ended up being the Equal Opportunity Officer with my GED. That is what that means. I’ll quit by saying this. It’s a parable, it’s a story and I’m going to leave it for you to ponder. “There was a migratory bird that stayed in the Midwest too long. The snow and the sleet and the rain had burdened him down with ice. He fell into a pasture and when he fell, he was sitting there almost at the point of death. A horse came by and dumped on the bird. He began to ruffle his feathers, you know, he got warm. And it felt so good he began to sing. Along came the barn yard cat and ate the bird. Now the moral of the story is … the one that put you in the mess may not be your enemy and the one that takes you out may not be your friend.”
Bernice claims to have graduated from Knocks College – meaning the school of hard knocks. She knows the only thing that kept her out of college was she quit school. But she was determined not to stop at that point and succeeded with her GED. Today she admonishes all young people to stay in school. It’s not the total answer but it’s the key that opens the door to the future.
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Two Short Stories - Warning - May Bring Tears
Yom Hashoah was very special last Sunday night at the Tri Cities Jewish Center in Rock Island. Esther Schiff - the last of my friends named Esther - and her husband Saul sat in front of us. Young children from throughout the synagogue came forward to meet her, have a picture taken with her and get her autograph. It happened more times than I could count - before the meeting and after.
Now you must remember this is the Esther who didn't go speak in the schools due to nightmares. She didn't get the compassion from the kids - the teary eyed hugs and encouragement - until Sunday night. She was treated like a National Treasure and I was blessed to be a witness to it. She cried - I cried.
An article was in the Rock Island Argus about my children's book project last Saturday. After reading the article, a prison camp liberator by the name of Art Kouski from Port Byron called me. He wanted to meet and share his story with me. I had coffee with him yesterday and he is P&P (precious and prepared)! He has taken writing classes over the years so he could document his experience.
Roy's platoon liberated a work camp where people were worked until they died. They were used to man a factory in Ludwigslust, Germany. His story:
"They all wore striped suits and were marched into town each morning and returned at night. They lived in terrible conditions, were emaciated, full of lice and had no sanitation. When someone died they carried him out and threw him on the pile. The weaker ones could not compete for food so they wasted away. When someone tells you these things didn't happen or they weren't so bad, I can assure you I seen what I am telling you about with my own two eyeballs."
"The soldiers could not trust the German people in the city and there was a shoot on site curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The survivers from the work camp were killing the German civilians and vice versa. Our orders were to round them up and take them to a camp where they could be helped. The last thing they wanted to do ws go to another camp but for their safety, we had to do this. "
"I found a young 12 or 13 year old boy in a striped suit who could speak several languages. He said he would help me round up these people if I would let him go. He could talk them into coming with us and this way, we gathered up a lot of them.
When we decided we had most of them, I broke my promise by telling him to get on the truck too. I will never forget the hate in his eyes for my deception. I probably saved his life. His name is Paul and he is a survivor so he may be still living. I would sure like to meet him and explain why I let him down all those years ago."
We rounded up all the civilians in town, old men, women and children at gun point and made them dig graves in the park in front of their government building. They brought over 200 of the dead from the camp. There was a service held for them and I still have copies of the Chaplain's message.
Most of the people were buried in a mass grave at the camp. I heard 1,080 bodies total."
Deb - I will be talking to Roy's grandaughter Brittany, a high school student in the Chicago area, about writing his story in children's story book form. In addition, I've talked to Sara from the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC who works in archieves. She is going to go on a search for Paul and see if she can find him. If so, Roy will find peace with the little boy he saved so long ago. He told me it still haunts him and he would like to find closure.
Please say a prayer - we need a miracle.
Now you must remember this is the Esther who didn't go speak in the schools due to nightmares. She didn't get the compassion from the kids - the teary eyed hugs and encouragement - until Sunday night. She was treated like a National Treasure and I was blessed to be a witness to it. She cried - I cried.
An article was in the Rock Island Argus about my children's book project last Saturday. After reading the article, a prison camp liberator by the name of Art Kouski from Port Byron called me. He wanted to meet and share his story with me. I had coffee with him yesterday and he is P&P (precious and prepared)! He has taken writing classes over the years so he could document his experience.
Roy's platoon liberated a work camp where people were worked until they died. They were used to man a factory in Ludwigslust, Germany. His story:
"They all wore striped suits and were marched into town each morning and returned at night. They lived in terrible conditions, were emaciated, full of lice and had no sanitation. When someone died they carried him out and threw him on the pile. The weaker ones could not compete for food so they wasted away. When someone tells you these things didn't happen or they weren't so bad, I can assure you I seen what I am telling you about with my own two eyeballs."
"The soldiers could not trust the German people in the city and there was a shoot on site curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The survivers from the work camp were killing the German civilians and vice versa. Our orders were to round them up and take them to a camp where they could be helped. The last thing they wanted to do ws go to another camp but for their safety, we had to do this. "
"I found a young 12 or 13 year old boy in a striped suit who could speak several languages. He said he would help me round up these people if I would let him go. He could talk them into coming with us and this way, we gathered up a lot of them.
When we decided we had most of them, I broke my promise by telling him to get on the truck too. I will never forget the hate in his eyes for my deception. I probably saved his life. His name is Paul and he is a survivor so he may be still living. I would sure like to meet him and explain why I let him down all those years ago."
We rounded up all the civilians in town, old men, women and children at gun point and made them dig graves in the park in front of their government building. They brought over 200 of the dead from the camp. There was a service held for them and I still have copies of the Chaplain's message.
Most of the people were buried in a mass grave at the camp. I heard 1,080 bodies total."
Deb - I will be talking to Roy's grandaughter Brittany, a high school student in the Chicago area, about writing his story in children's story book form. In addition, I've talked to Sara from the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC who works in archieves. She is going to go on a search for Paul and see if she can find him. If so, Roy will find peace with the little boy he saved so long ago. He told me it still haunts him and he would like to find closure.
Please say a prayer - we need a miracle.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Debbow - A New Blogger - My Three Esthers
It doesn't seem possible - time does fly. It was April 2002 when I went to my first Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance. My daughter Cassie asked me to take her to the synogogue to hear a Holocaust survivor speak. It was a school assignment for extra credit and seemed very worthwhile. I was eager to learn as well.
While there I saw we had local Holocaust survivors in the Quad Cities. There were ten or twelve at that point in time. But the three who captured my heart were three Jewish women who shared the same name - Esther!
Queen Esther is one of my favorite characters in the Bible. Now, standing before me, lighting candles in remembrance of the six million Jews who perished, were three strong, beautiful women who survived this horrible time in world history. As I read their short bios in the program, I realized their stories were very different but all miraculous stories of survival.
I attended the Holocaust Remembrance each year and saw "my three Esthers". It came to the point were I couldn't stop myself. I wanted their stories preserved for the next generation. Finally - I approached Allan Ross, Director of the local Jewish Federation. I told him my idea was to introduce the women to classrooms of children asking them to write/illustrate a children's book about her life story. My area teachers agreed to work with them on this task.
The first writing clinic was at Morningstar Academy, a local Christian school. You could have heard a pin drop when Esther Avruch told the children her story. When her voice broke while telling them her loss of a mother, father, sisters, brothers and even an infant nephew, we all cried together. When she finished there was a mad rush as children came from all directions to give her hugs. That day - the Holocaust became real to a group of children.
The books they wrote were incredible and their artwork especially moving to me. I couldn't choose which one should be published so I asked local Jewish businessman Sam Gilman which one he would choose. He was touched by the book written by Molly Meyer.
Next I took Esther Katz into schools and groups to speak. The story book we chose to publish for her was written by a young Jewish girl - Megan Svoboda. Her own family members had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. She was homeschooled at this time and privledged to have visited concentration camps in Europe with her family. Her work was exceptional and I know Esther would have been pleased. Sadly she passed away in July of 2005 while books about her were being written.
But she died knowing this project was at hand and her story would be told! I promised her I would not let her Grandmother, Faye Goldstein, be forgetten. Faye suffocated on the cattle car on the way to Auschwitz. She will be remembered for generations to come as it is told by Megan and her photograph included in Megan's book.
Esther Schiff was eager to have a book written about her but as I scheduled speaking engagements, she began to have nightmares about her time in Nazi Germany. She requested she meet a student one on one so our son, Michael, went to talk to her . He wrote a simple story about her life and our exchange student, Laura Kase from Germany, illustrated the book. It was a powerful experience for this young German girl to help say "Never Again".
In 2006 we printed the books with grant monies and put them in 200 local schools and libraries. The teachers gave me feedback confirming these books about the survivors in our midst made the Holocaust real to the readers.
Meanwhile, Allan Ross suggested more subjects for books - he suggested Christians who risked their lives to give aid to the Jewish people (Righteous Gentiles) and our soldiers who were tasked with liberating concentration camps. Such powerful stories!
Today young authors continue to step up to the task of writing and illustrating these important stories. We will have twenty books in the series called A BOOK BY ME by the end of this school year. Our plan is to take the books into the marketplace through Never Forget Publishing in just a few short months. I am out of my comfort zone but this is too important to not go to the next level.
The vision has spread to other states and other countries through my work with International Student Exchange. I have International authors from Austria, Germany, Italy, Oman, Romania, and Yemen - just to mention a few.
I thank these young people who are using their gifts and talents to document these important stories. I have come to believe it's not just an assignment but an EXPERIENCE that changes their lives. These very important stories will live on and on ... through their work.
As we are about to attend our Quad Cities Holocaust Remembrance this Sunday, I think of our recent loss, Esther Avruch. She passed away just a few weeks ago and my heart is heavy. But knowing her story is being shared gives me great satisfaction.
So, today, dozens of writing clinics later, where it will end I do not know. But this I do know ... it all started with the Quad Cities Three Esthers or "my three Esthers" as I fondly call them.
I thank God for their friendship. They continue to be an inspiration to me as they kept their faith even through unimaginable trials. They held no bitterness in their hearts. They raised their families and looked forward - not back except to say "never again".
May their stories continue to be told on a larger scale to the next generation ...
"for such a time as this".
Sincerely,
Debbow
http://www.abookbyme.com/
http://www.iseheartland.com/
While there I saw we had local Holocaust survivors in the Quad Cities. There were ten or twelve at that point in time. But the three who captured my heart were three Jewish women who shared the same name - Esther!
Queen Esther is one of my favorite characters in the Bible. Now, standing before me, lighting candles in remembrance of the six million Jews who perished, were three strong, beautiful women who survived this horrible time in world history. As I read their short bios in the program, I realized their stories were very different but all miraculous stories of survival.
I attended the Holocaust Remembrance each year and saw "my three Esthers". It came to the point were I couldn't stop myself. I wanted their stories preserved for the next generation. Finally - I approached Allan Ross, Director of the local Jewish Federation. I told him my idea was to introduce the women to classrooms of children asking them to write/illustrate a children's book about her life story. My area teachers agreed to work with them on this task.
The first writing clinic was at Morningstar Academy, a local Christian school. You could have heard a pin drop when Esther Avruch told the children her story. When her voice broke while telling them her loss of a mother, father, sisters, brothers and even an infant nephew, we all cried together. When she finished there was a mad rush as children came from all directions to give her hugs. That day - the Holocaust became real to a group of children.
The books they wrote were incredible and their artwork especially moving to me. I couldn't choose which one should be published so I asked local Jewish businessman Sam Gilman which one he would choose. He was touched by the book written by Molly Meyer.
Next I took Esther Katz into schools and groups to speak. The story book we chose to publish for her was written by a young Jewish girl - Megan Svoboda. Her own family members had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. She was homeschooled at this time and privledged to have visited concentration camps in Europe with her family. Her work was exceptional and I know Esther would have been pleased. Sadly she passed away in July of 2005 while books about her were being written.
But she died knowing this project was at hand and her story would be told! I promised her I would not let her Grandmother, Faye Goldstein, be forgetten. Faye suffocated on the cattle car on the way to Auschwitz. She will be remembered for generations to come as it is told by Megan and her photograph included in Megan's book.
Esther Schiff was eager to have a book written about her but as I scheduled speaking engagements, she began to have nightmares about her time in Nazi Germany. She requested she meet a student one on one so our son, Michael, went to talk to her . He wrote a simple story about her life and our exchange student, Laura Kase from Germany, illustrated the book. It was a powerful experience for this young German girl to help say "Never Again".
In 2006 we printed the books with grant monies and put them in 200 local schools and libraries. The teachers gave me feedback confirming these books about the survivors in our midst made the Holocaust real to the readers.
Meanwhile, Allan Ross suggested more subjects for books - he suggested Christians who risked their lives to give aid to the Jewish people (Righteous Gentiles) and our soldiers who were tasked with liberating concentration camps. Such powerful stories!
Today young authors continue to step up to the task of writing and illustrating these important stories. We will have twenty books in the series called A BOOK BY ME by the end of this school year. Our plan is to take the books into the marketplace through Never Forget Publishing in just a few short months. I am out of my comfort zone but this is too important to not go to the next level.
The vision has spread to other states and other countries through my work with International Student Exchange. I have International authors from Austria, Germany, Italy, Oman, Romania, and Yemen - just to mention a few.
I thank these young people who are using their gifts and talents to document these important stories. I have come to believe it's not just an assignment but an EXPERIENCE that changes their lives. These very important stories will live on and on ... through their work.
As we are about to attend our Quad Cities Holocaust Remembrance this Sunday, I think of our recent loss, Esther Avruch. She passed away just a few weeks ago and my heart is heavy. But knowing her story is being shared gives me great satisfaction.
So, today, dozens of writing clinics later, where it will end I do not know. But this I do know ... it all started with the Quad Cities Three Esthers or "my three Esthers" as I fondly call them.
I thank God for their friendship. They continue to be an inspiration to me as they kept their faith even through unimaginable trials. They held no bitterness in their hearts. They raised their families and looked forward - not back except to say "never again".
May their stories continue to be told on a larger scale to the next generation ...
"for such a time as this".
Sincerely,
Debbow
http://www.abookbyme.com/
http://www.iseheartland.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
