We Remember – tangential travel

WE ARE HERE! for Upstanders is a global program that promotes universal human rights and inclusive development. We are headquartered in Perth, Australia.

Using the stories of the Jewish Partisans, WE ARE HERE! seeks to inspire in young people the confidence and ability to stand up in the face of prejudice and oppression.

The website: https://wah.foundation

This program is sponsored by a cultural grant from the U.S. Department of State.

PRESS:

THE AUSTRALIAN JEWISH NEWS – 18 January 2019

J-Wire Australia
http://www.jwire.com.au/partisans-song-translated-from-yiddish-to-noongar/

The Partisans’ Song in Noongar:

Audio:

More details on our website: https://wah.foundation

Holocaust educator and specialist Nance Adler of Seattle, Washington will visit Australia in August 2019. Nance will present to teachers, students and community leaders involved in education. We will also run workshops.

Nance’s Partisans’ Project and Lesson Plan have already been translated by our global team into Russian, Lithuanian, German, Polish and Spanish, and are available for free! https://wah.foundation/lesson/lesson-plan/

Professor Lynne Cohen, recently retired vice-chancellor of ECU – Edith Cowan University, has joined our project team. Lynne was also Head of the ECU School of Education in Western Australia

Our international team of educators and collaborators: https://wah.foundation/who-we-are/

Through our network of global collaborators, there are now 27 language translations of the Partisans’ Song. The Partisans’ Song portal: https://elirab.me/znk

In YIDDISH, HEBREW, ENGLISH, POLISH, BELARUSIAN, RUSSIAN, GERMAN, SPANISH, CZECH, DUTCH, ITALIAN, ROMANIAN, FRENCH, SWEDISH, PORTUGUESE, NORWEGIAN, JAPANESE, FINNISH, SWISS GERMAN, SLOVAK, GREEK, AFRIKAANS, UKRAINIAN, SERBIAN, NOONGAR , ARABIC and XHOSA

Recently we arranged translations into Aboriginal Noongar, Arabic and Xhosa, and soon in Zulu, Mongolian and Ladino.

The Partisans’ Song will be sung in Noongar in July at Ellenbrook Senior High School, with planned national media coverage of this World Premiere!

There is a strong theme connecting the Jewish Partisans and William Cooper, the Aboriginal leader who attempted to deliver his protest to the Nazi consulate in Melbourne on 6 December 1938, just after Kristallnacht. William’s petition was eventually accepted by Germany in 2017: http://www.jwire.com.au/uncle-boydie/

The Gandel Foundation, Melbourne has recently announced two scholarships in the name of William Cooper.

Our Melbourne educator, Viv Parry, produced a movie, Ties That Bind, in 2017. Read more: https://elirab.me/ties-that-bind/

This powerful nine minute documentary film features Uncle Boydie, grandson of William Cooper, and Moshe Fiszman, a Holocaust survivor. https://youtu.be/1N700Olmw-U

Ties That Bind is now part of the USHMM’s – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s (in Washington) presentation.

We are writing a lesson plan for this documentary. This will be freely available to teachers and students around the world.

Our North Queensland collaborator, Barbara Miller, has written the book: William Cooper – Gentle Warrior

William Cooper, Gentle Warrior

We are also expanding our global online collaboration classes with World ORT and other schools. World ORT is the world’s largest Jewish education and vocational training non-governmental organisation. Several lesson plans will be offered to a global audience.

ORT students recite Zog Nit Keynmol for Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Partisans’ Song in English recited for us by Freydi Mrocki: https://youtu.be/9gS7c4iNCI0

Our project features in a documentary on South African National Television in 2018: https://youtu.be/NRcGcNGrYWo

The Kristallnacht Cantata by Ron Jontof-Hutter of Melbourne and Israeli composer, Alon Trigger. Here is a 6 minute promo video: https://youtu.be/A3IlzEAwmIk. The full work will be about 35 minutes. This is based on this story of Ron’s grandfather, Otto Jontof-Hutter, and William Cooper: https://www.jwire.com.au/kristallnacht-and-the-righteous-australian-aboriginal-william-cooper/ Otto and William never met or even knew of each other’s existence!

Several orchestras around the world have shown a strong interest in performing the work.

Please contact me at eli@elirab.com
Eli Rabinowitz: bio https://elirab.me/about

About Me

********************************
Projects For Your School:
https://elirab.me/znk

Learn The Partisans’ Song

Recite or sing the Partisans’ Song in your home tongue, or in a language you have learnt. Make a video, which can be as creative as you wish or just a simple recording.

The Power Of Words

The background and context

The ‘Partisans’ Song’ – Zog Nit Keyn Mol – written by Hirsch Glik, 22, in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943, is one of the most powerful songs of resistance and defiance ever written.

Today, 75 years on, long after the demise of Hitler’s murderous regime, the partisans’ song is now sung worldwide to mark the Jewish spirit of resistance.

Words – Michael Cohen, Melbourne MC – Freydi Mrocki
https://youtu.be/SvNoyReKxO0

KEY WORDS FROM THE POEM

“Zog nit keyn mol, az du geyst dem letstn veg…….Never say that you have reached the end of the road……

Mir zaynen do! WE ARE HERE!

“This says that although it looks like the last moments of the life of the Jewish people, it is not, and where the blood was shed, will begin a new, a heroic and a wonderful Jewish life!” https://youtu.be/koA7fpGxRgw

(Quote: Cantor H Fox, LA)

Beis Aharon School, Pinsk, Belarus
https://youtu.be/yN3QGZkmGjY

If you ever get to Novogrudok in Belarus, be sure to visit this most unusual homestead owned by Sergei Koval who initiated and sponsored a memorial sign to Michle last year and now patronizes the Jewish Resistance Museum. Amazing art!

Navahrudak Tunnel – Statue of Michle

Source: elirab.me/navahrudak-tunnel/

A memorial sign to all the Jewish children from Novogrudok who perished during the Holocaust was unveiled at the Jewish Resistance Museum in Novogrudok on September 26, 2017. The monument was sponsored by Sergei Koval, a local Jew, who according to his own words ‘fulfilled the wish of the girl’.

Michle Sosnowski whose picture is in the exhibition of the Museum served as a prototype for the monument. The picture was provided by Jeannette Josse from London who visited Novogrudok in 2005 searching for her roots. Two years later Jeannette sent a book to the Museum in which she incorpoated old pictures into the new ones made during her trip.

Michle happened to be in her family album because she was her mother’s friend. Together with Sheindel Sukharski they tried to escape from the labour camp in Novogrudok but were recognized in the street, denounced, arrested and taken to prison from which they never came out.

It’s a monument to the child whose greatest wish was to live. Dressed up for Purim she will dance forever next to the Tree of Life which incorporates the Star of David from the Novogrudok synagogue.

The ceremony was followed by a panel discussion on Remembrance and Commemoration dedicated to the blessed memory of Jack Kagan, a survivor from Novogrudok and a Bielski partisan, whose efforts to preserve the history of Novogrudok Jews and their unprecedented resistance to the Nazis were recognized by awarding him a title of the Honorary Citizen of Novogrudok in 2011.