The convergence this week of significant days for Jews should not be a solemn or somber season but a time of hope, celebration and education as a Jewish holiday intersects with Holocaust observances, according to a Boulder resident whose family left Europe in the late 1930s.
Barbara Steinmetz, 87, said Passover is about “going toward freedom” while the recent annual Holocaust observances in northern Colorado “shines a light on what happened” under Germany’s Nazi regime in the 1930s and ’40s.
“It’s a time of hope, and it’s a road to freedom, betterment,” Steinmetz said of Passover. “I view it as a time to reflect on what is possible for human beings.”
Passover is a major Jewish holiday celebrated in the spring and commemorates the emancipation of Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. Passover begins before sundown Monday and ends at nightfall April 30.
The Holocaust Memorial Observances Committee of Greeley and Northern Colorado hosted its annual “Voices from the Holocaust” series April 14-21. The series, which includes speakers, films and educational programs, ends with a Klezmer concert at noon Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 929 15th St., Greeley. Klezmer music was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust.
The Holocaust observance in Greeley began about 40 years ago with a memorial service held by the Greeley Interfaith Association. Representatives from Aims Community College, the University of Northern Colorado, local churches and the city of Greeley eventually joined the effort to remember a critical time in world history, and the programming grew.
This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day is May 6, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The internationally recognized date corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. The date marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
Educators Selena Naumoff and Erin Christian presented on “The Holocaust in Comic Books” as one of the events in the northern Colorado series this year. Naumoff works at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, and Christian teaches language arts at Ken Caryl Middle School in Jefferson County Schools.
In 2020, the Colorado General Assembly passed a bill requiring public high school students to complete a course including Holocaust and genocide studies as a condition for graduation.
Rabbi Moshe Halfon of Mt. Sinai Congregation in Cheyenne, Wyoming, said the Holocaust studies in public schools brings the teaching “forward to talk about homophobia and racism and fear.”
Halfon is the interim rabbi at Beth Israel Congregation in Greeley, and he was an officiator at an interfaith memorial service April 14 at the start of the “Voices from the Holocaust” series.
“There are so few actual survivors left, and we have to keep on telling the story,” Halfon added.
Naumoff and Christian’s presentation Saturday morning included a review and discussion of comic books for students of different ages, and all showing “nods to Jewish figures,” as Naumoff said.
Christian said the comic book is an effective medium for teaching the Holocaust because the books provide a visual element that is attractive and engaging for students working at different academic levels.
“Seeing is believing,” Christian said. “They see the effort in the art. And it provokes conversation, artistic choices and the story element.”
Led by dictator Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party systematically murdered 6 million European Jews from 1933-1945 because of hate and antisemitism. Millions of other groups of people were also targeted including Black people, gay men, bisexual men and people with disabilities, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Steinmetz, born Barbara Bandler in Hungary in 1936, was one of the “Voices from the Holocaust” presenters this week. Steinmetz spoke Monday and Tuesday at Eaton High School, the Eaton Public Library, Union Colony Civic Center and Aims Community College.
Steinmetz was a refugee with her parents and sister as they sought to leave Europe in the early 1940s. Steinmetz’s father, Alexander Bandler, saw tensions rising and wanted to take his family away. Bandler sent applications and referral letters to 13 different countries seeking refuge including the U.S.
The Dominican Republic under dictator Rafael Trujillo responded and opened to Jews because of a desire by Trujillo to have agricultural workers and to “whiten” the country’s population, according to a video on Steinmetz’s life.
The family settled in the Dominican Republic in 1941 where Barbara and her sister Anni were educated and protected by Franciscan nuns in a Catholic boarding school for girls. The family emigrated to the U.S. in 1945.
Alexander Bandler worked in the hotel business in Europe and in the Dominican Republic. Margaret Bandler, Barbara’s mother, was a chemist and pharmacologist by training. In the U.S., Alexander and Margaret worked menial jobs until Alexander Bandler eventually became a chef and later a salesman.
Steinmetz said this week her family would not have survived without assistance from the Dominican Republic government and learning how to farm where they lived.
“We can’t eradicate what happened,” Steinmetz said. “We can shed a light on it and learn from it and say, ‘That’s not what we want to be today.’ We don’t want to persecute people and call them names. It shines a light on what happens when we call out people for those things. I hope we learn and can change.”
Steinmetz said in her talks with students she tells them the persecution of people can begin with demeaning another person. It’s the same as when a politician such as former president Donald Trump tries to drum up support with such a comment, she said. She also mentioned authoritarian leaders Vladimir Putin, Benito Mussolini and Hitler.
“You say those things, and you forget the values we learned as children,” Steinmetz said. “You don’t pay attention to the core that’s inside of us.”
