The JFCS Holocaust Center is proud to co-present several upcoming programs with the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco.
All events take place at the Jewish Community Library, 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, unless indicated. Free garage parking is available on Pierce between Ellis and Eddy (click here for a map).
Saved by Language
A presentation by Susanna Zaraysky
Tuesday, October 20, 7:00 P.M.
Moris Albahari, a Jew from Sarajevo, managed to survive the Holocaust because he spoke Ladino, the language of much of the Sephardic diaspora. After he ran away from a train carrying Yugoslav Jews to the Nazi deathcamps, Albahari was able to communicate with an Italian colonel who helped him escape to a partisan refuge. Later, he was able to communicate in Ladino to a Spanish-speaking American pilot, leading the pilot to a safe partisan airfield. Susanna Zaraysky, the co-producer of the documentary Saved by Language, will use clips from the film and examples of Sephardic music to speak about the history of Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) and the state of the language today.
Stumbling Stone: A Novel
A presentation by Julie Freestone & Rudi Raab
Sunday, December 13, 1:30 P.M.
Julie Freestone, a former East Bay journalist, was born in the Bronx to Jewish immigrant parents. Rudi Raab, a retired City of Berkeley police officer and Medieval German scholar, was born in Germany to a high-ranking Nazi eight days after the end of World War II. They met through an accident of fate when Julie interviewed Rudi while reporting a story. Life partners for more than twenty years, they wrote Stumbling Stone as a work of fiction inspired by their own real-life histories. Part romance and part mystery, the novel explores the tangled legacy of Nazism and the Holocaust and bridges the gaps the couple found in the historical record. It also serves as a literary memorial to one German who refused to adhere to the Nazi party line and paid dearly.
Documenting the Vilna Ghetto Library
A presentation by Judy Baston
Sunday, January 31, 1:30 P.M.
Vilna—known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania—had a strong cultural tradition that endured even after the Vilna Ghetto was established by the Nazis in 1941. One of the most important cultural institutions in the Ghetto was the Vilna Ghetto Library, with thousands of readers. When Judy Baston discovered that her three young cousins in the Vilna Ghetto had been on the list of library patrons, she was stunned to realize that the grimness of their daily lives had been relieved by the stories in the books they read. Further research led her to uncover additional archival documentation: lists of readers, lists of workers at the library, and even a list of those who did not return books. Reports from two Ghetto librarians provide a detailed look at which authors and titles were read by Vilna Ghetto Library patrons.
Erased: Babi Yar, the SS, and Me
A dramatic reading with songs performed by Corey Weinstein with Saralie Pennington and Tom Herz
Sunday, February 7, 1:30 P.M.
Born in 1944, Corey Weinstein grew up in the aftermath of the Holocaust and was shaped by the memories of his community. Erased is built around fifteen original or adapted songs. It tells the story of Weinstein’s journey in 2008 to Babi Yar, on the outskirts of Kiev, and recalls the devastating events of 1941 in the wake of the murderous Einsatzgruppen assaults. The play ends in the present with Weinstein’s personal resolution of these tragic events.
When Europe Was a Prison Camp: Father and Son Memoirs, 1940–1941
A presentation by Peter Schrag
Sunday, February 28, 1:30 P.M.
In a compelling approach to storytelling, this book weaves together two accounts of a family’s escape from occupied Europe. The first is a memoir written by the father, Otto, in 1941; the other was begun by the son more than forty years later. Peter and his mother escaped from Belgium before the roundup of Jews began; Otto was interned in southern France, but escaped before the start of massive deportations to death camps.
