{"id":2687,"date":"2022-11-09T11:59:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T16:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ramapo.edu\/holocaust\/?page_id=2687"},"modified":"2025-07-17T17:10:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T21:10:56","slug":"kristallnacht_stories_22","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ramapo.edu\/holocaust\/kristallnacht_stories_22\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristallnacht Story Maps (Fall 2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Collection of Holocaust-Survivor Testimonies<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey recorded 136 video testimonies with Holocaust survivors between 1990 and 2011. Most took place between 1990 and 1995. One survivor left two testimonies and two survivors share a single screen. Though the primary language of most of the videos is English, two survivors elected to tell their stories in Yiddish.<\/p>\n

The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies<\/a> at Yale University maintains our collection, which comprises a fraction of their nearly 4,700 testimonies. Thanks to the archive\u2019s generosity, Ramapo students, faculty, staff, and visitors have on-campus (and VPN) access to all of the Fortunoff testimonies via Potter Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kristallnacht Mapping Project, Fall 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"B\u00f6rnerplatz<\/a>

B\u00f6rnerplatz Synagogue in Frankfurt burns on Kristallnacht via Wikicommons<\/p><\/div>\n

Students in Dr. Jacob Ari Labendz\u2019s<\/a> Fall 2022 course on the history of the Holocaust used free, online narrative-mapping tools via Esri<\/a> to create presentations based upon testimonies from survivors who witnessed\u00a0Kristallnacht<\/em> and settled in our region. Students also drew from the material they covered in class. Each Story Map follows the entire lifepath of a single survivor and includes clips from their testimonies. A map traces their movement through Europe and beyond.<\/p>\n

Thirty-one of the testimonies in our collection reference Kristallnacht<\/a>, <\/em>a nationwide pogrom that Nazis and their supporters perpetrated against Jews in Germany on November 9 and 10, 1938. With the protection of police and fire brigades, members of the SA (Strumabteilung<\/a><\/em>), the Hitler Youth<\/a>, and Nazi officials in civilian garb burned 267 synagogues, ransacked 7,500+ Jewish-owned businesses and homes, sent 30,000 Jews (mostly young men) to concentration camps, and murdered 91 individuals. The two nights, which witnessed widespread acts of savagery and humiliation, as well as the confiscation of Jewish community archives, served as a turning point in Nazi Germany\u2019s treatment of the Jewish minority.<\/p>\n

On November 9, 2022, Ramapo students presented<\/a> their mapping projects at a public commemoration of the eighty-fourth\u00a0anniversary of Kristallnacht<\/em>, hosted by Congregation Beth Haverim Shir Shalom<\/a>, just down the street from Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ. (See the program for the commemoration below.) This project demonstrated to students the enduring, local legacies of Nazism, while forging ties of empathy, solidarity, and learning between Ramapo and our regional community\u2014a key element of the Center’s mission.<\/p>\n

The company that owns StoryMaps discontinued the application and rolled it into their subscription-based package. Unfortunately, we lost access to these exciting and resonant assignments. The PDF versions we downloaded do not do justice to the original maps.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Peter

Peter A. by Ryan Kvopka<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Jack<\/a>

Jack A. by Dale Schambelan<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Anne<\/a>

Anne B. by Faith Keener<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Judith<\/a>

Judith B. by Shannon DeCicco<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Golly<\/a>

Golly D. by Micky Steidle<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Irena<\/a>

Irena F. by Ivan Martinez<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Hella<\/a>

Hella H. by Keila Fane<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Laure<\/a>

Laure K. by Lindsay Tyrrell<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Moses<\/a>

Moses L. by Jeffrey Horn<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Irma<\/a>

Irma M. by Bella Gregory<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"David<\/a>

David S. by Niall Steinberg<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Henry<\/a>

Henry S. by Amanda Williams<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Hildegard<\/a>

Hildegard S. by Nick Kruger<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Norbert<\/a>

Norbert S. by Lionel Chen<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Jerry<\/a>

Jerry W. by Skylar McMahon<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Program from the Commemoration on November 9, 2022<\/em><\/strong>\"Commemoration<\/a><\/p>\n

Coverage by Local Media<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Larry Yudelson, “And the Undergraduates Shall Teach Them<\/a>,”\u00a0Jewish Standard<\/em> (11\/02\/22)<\/p>\n

Logan Williamson, “Kristallnacht Remembrance in Mahwah to Feature Ramapo Student Research<\/a>,”\u00a0Mahwah Patch<\/em> (11\/03\/2022)<\/p>\n

Pictures from the Commemoration<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\t