Local student publishes graphic novel set during the Holocaust

I was very impressed by Christopher Huh, a local seventh-grader whose response to learning about the Holocaust was to create a graphic novel. From Washington Jewish Week:

Photo from
Washington Jewish Week,
attributed to Dahlia Huh

When Christopher Huh's seventh-grade history class turned to the topic of the Holocaust, the thirteen-year-old was riveted. The story of the systematic persecution and attempted genocide by the Nazis of Jews and other groups shocked him deeply.
"I had never seen anything like it," Huh said. 

The class completed their unit on the subject and moved on, but Huh still had it on his mind. He started checking out books and looking up information online about the Holocaust, the Nazi movement and related subjects, amassing more and more knowledge as he went. 

"I was very interested in learning more about the Holocaust," he said.
Huh wanted to express his feelings about what he had learned as well as organize some of what he learned in a way that would be easy to understand. He turned to the idea of drawing, one of his other interests, as a way to do just that, creating an illustrated fictional account of a Holocaust survivor and his family. 

"It helped a lot with remembering what I learned," he said. 

"We stood speechless at what we saw.
(from page 25)"
www.keepingmyhope.com

As the story he created began to grow, Huh showed some of his story to friends and family, who encouraged him to work on it more and turn it into a whole book, something he could share with others, especially others his age. 

"I wanted to share what I had learned," he said. 

A year and a half later, Huh's book, titled Keeping My Hope, was complete. The book is the result of long hours of reading, museum visits and other research as well as countless hours of illustration that took a lot of dedication Huh remarked. 

"I went to the drawing board that I have every day and drew," he said. 

"(from page 78)"
www.keepingmyhope.com

Keeping My Hope tells the story of Ari, a teenager in Poland when the Nazis come to power, and of the upheavals he and his family experience as they face the daily horrors of the Holocaust. The story is told by the much older Ari to his granddaughter in a first-person account that lends real immediacy to the story that although fictionalized comes from the all too true trials that millions faced. Ari's story covers many aspects of life for Jews under the Holocaust. Propoganda, ghettoization and life in the concentration camps are all discussed. 

"So many terrible things happened, I still find it hard to understand," Huh said. 

Even more than the basic facts, the hardship of daily life, dealing with the black market and how the Nazi's forced some concentration camp inmates to do some of the looting of the prisoners are all a part of the story. The corruption of the Nazi regime was one of the many aspects of the story that Huh said he found particularly interesting to learn and write about in his book. 

Huh said he plans to keep writing and drawing in the future and would like to see his book perhaps make its way into the curriculum of Montgomery County schools as a way to get and keep students interested when they study the Holocaust. 

"It's really important to keep people from forgetting what happened," he said.

'via Blog this'

Remembering Miep Gies

Friday marked the anniversary of the passing of Miep Gies.  In case you don't know her by name, Miep Gies was "one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and four other Jews from the Nazis in an annex above Anne's father's business premises during World War II."

This past Thanksgiving morning, my wife and I watched Freedom Writers, a movie about an inner-city school teacher who attempts to inspire her English students.  One of the things the teacher does is teach her students about the Holocaust, even bringing them to meet Holocaust survivors.

At a certain point in the movie I started to get a little incredulous about the plot.  I decided to look it up and discovered that the movie was actually based on a true story.

When I watched the following scene, I was deeply moved.  The speech Miep Gies (played here by actress Pat Carroll) gives these students is so very powerful.

From myhero.com:

During Miep's lecture to our class, one student who had been particularly inspired by her story stood up and told her that she was his hero. She got very upset and said, "I'm not a hero; I simply did what I had to do, because it was the right thing to do." That became a mantra, for me and for my students. What better guiding principle can you have for making choices than simply to do the right thing? 

After watching this movie and this scene, I resolved to remember women and men like Miep Gies who left an extraordinary impact for good on the world, simply by doing what was right.  Maybe by knowing their stories and counting them as heroes, I might be influenced a little more in that direction myself.

Yom HaShoah: Make a difference in someone's life

Today is Yom HaShoah.  In addition to remembering and memorializing victims of the Holocaust, I hope we will all do something make a tangible difference in the lives of those who are still with us.  Judah Gabriel said it well in "Help! We Need More Than Lip Service.":

Today is Holocaust Remembrance day, and surprising to many, thousands of Holocaust survivors are still alive today. And, if you can believe it, many of them live in abject poverty. It’s pretty freakin’ sad that the people who endured the worst kinds of torture and persecution are the ones still suffering now, while the rest of us live comfortably and securely.

Instead of writing some nice lip service on your Facebook wall about Holocaust Remembrance, how about donating a few bucks to Chevrah Humanitarian? Chevrah is a group that sends food and aid to Holocaust survivors and other poor in Israel and the former Soviet Union. I trust this group intimately, having known the founder for several years, knowing him to be an upstanding and righteous man.

...
So, do something good for a change. Make a donation to Chevrah, even if it’s just few bucks. It will help Holocaust survivors. 

You heard the man.