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Over the last few months IHE has had the honor to do work ranging from the premiere of our commissioned play When We Go Away by J.R. Dawson, to resuming our SAC Museum exhibit for school students.
Our goal is to ensure that the tragedy and history of the Holocaust are remembered, that appropriate, fact-based instruction and materials are available to students, educators, and the public to enable them to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and that, as a result, we inspire our community to create a more just and equitable society. 
Happenings in Holocaust Education
When We Go Away
The stories of Holocaust survivors Dr. Fred Kader, Rachel Rosenberg, Helena Tichauer, and Katherine Williams were interwoven into a new play by playwright, J.R. Dawson - commissioned by IHE - and premiered in November 2021.
Using minimal set and costuming, the play asks us to focus on the stories: how they connect to each other, to us, and ultimately what will happen we the storytellers go away.
Both a call to remember and to act, When We Go Away not only informs the audience but asks it to become part of the story
As part of the Portraits of Survival programing, IHE welcomed Buey Tut, the Founder and Executive Director of Aqua-Africa. Tut was born in Maiwut County of Sudan and spent the first ten years of his life during the conflict between what would become Northern and Southern Sudan. Tut shared about his life, the organization he founded and how these experiences have shaped him. His work is both powerful and greatly needed in this world.

To end the week of programming, there was a showing of Syndrome K - a documentary that recounts the narratives of three Roman Catholic doctors who saved Jews by convincing Nazis that they were infected with a contagious and deadly disease called 'Syndrome K.' 
Portraits of Survival
Portraits of Survival is a Holocaust exhibit, featuring a black and white photo gallery of individuals from Nebraska’s Holocaust survivor and military liberator community. It was created in conjunction with the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht by the creative talent of David Radler. Radler also graciously gave time to spend the evening discussing the project with the community this year.
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Week of Understanding 2022
The Week of Understanding is an annual educational initiative created by the Institute for Holocaust Education and the Omaha Public Schools. The week is designed to deliver Holocaust survivor testimony to a maximum number of students in one school week. 
This year, we intend the Week of Understanding to be a hybrid event offering both in-person and virtual events to accommodate as many of our speakers, students, and teachers as possible. During the week of March 21-25, 2022, we will be streaming at least six speakers into schools across Nebraska.

2022 Student Essay Contest
2022 is the 20th year of the student essay contest! Last year we had over 400 entries, and we look forward to surpass this number in 2022! For more information regarding the essay contest, please visit our website.
Educator Spotlight
Mary Traphagan
Mary Traphagan has been teaching for 28 years, starting at Crawford High School and now teaching at Chadron Middle School. During her career, she has been to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany and to the USHMM in DC several times, also taking students with her on these trips.
Traphagn became interested in studying The Holocaust when she was in middle school. She recounts seeing pictures of concentration camps and was horrified by the images. She says “I could not believe that people would actually do this to other people. I began reading anything I could about the subject, my mother encouraged me in my studies and would clip out newspaper articles to assist me. She did that until she died. When I began my study, I did not realize that I was part Jewish on my father's side... I have been trying to answer my original question ever since I started and I don't think we'll ever have a definitive answer.”

Traphagan has been involved with IHE for eight years, ever since applying to work with us after a presentation at Chadron State College. She has done presentations to retirement groups, library groups, Rotary and recently at Chadron State College.
" I enjoy studying before, during and after effects of the Holocaust. When I was a teacher at Crawford High School, I wrote and created my own Holocaust class that was a semester long. Many students will still tell me it was one of their best classes. I just took it as planting seeds of "Never Forget". "
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Upcoming Third Thursday Lunch and Learn Series
December 16, 2021
On December 16, from 12-1PM - IHE, in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Omaha Dorothy Kaplan Book Discussion Group, is excited to welcome author and law professor Pam Jenoff to discuss her most recent book The Woman with the Blue Star. Set in Krakow, Poland during WII and the Holocaust, the book deals with themes of friendship, survival, and the experiences of European Jews throughout the Holocaust. 

According to Penoff’s personal website, during her time working at the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland, Penoff “developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust.
Working on matters such as preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland, Pam developed close relations with the surviving Jewish community.” Penoff’s background in these realities positions her to have a unique and nuanced lens in discussing these histories. 
January 20, 2022
For the first Third Thursday event of 2022, IHE will host our very own Executive Director, Scott Littky, and our Education Coordinator, Kael Sagheer, on January 20th from 11:30-1PM. The presentation, titled What is Holocaust Education?,
will delve into important discourse regarding what Holocaust education is, and how IHE sees it evolving over time. 

Presenters will discuss issues such as: what Holocaust mandates are, and the issues which arise as a result of mandating, the appropriateness of Holocaust analogies, and why Holocaust education is important for us now and in the future. Information will also detail what opportunities there are for us to educate the broader community about Holocaust education, what are the right ages to start teaching Holocaust material, and what standards are out there versus the curriculum being taught. 
February 17, 2022
The February 17, 2022 Third Thursday will be an examination of Approaching Nazism and Jim Crow in the Classroom, by Dr. Jake Newsome from 11:30-1PM.

Dr. Newsome is the Manager of Civic Learning for Campus Communities at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC. He develops resources and programs to engage college and university students across the country with the history of the Holocaust through the lens of civic engagement. As part of his work at the USHMM, Dr. Newsome co-developed a program for college audiences that explored the histories of race and society in Nazi Germany and Jim Crow America. This presentation will offer insight into the design and outcomes of the USHMM's campus program as well as educational resources the USHMM has created on the topic. 
For more information regarding Third Thursday programming at IHE, to RSVP for a program, or if you have any comments or concerns please reach out to Scott Littky, Executive Director of IHE, at slittky@ihene.org 

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The Institute for Holocaust Education provides educational resources, workshops, survivor testimony, and integrated arts programming to students, educators, and the public. The IHE provides support to Holocaust survivors in our community.
We are grateful for your generosity and care of Holocaust Education.
What We Are Reading
“I wanted to understand what genocide can tell us about how such intense hate systemically engulfs a whole society and how its spread can be systemically prevented. What I learned is that a combination of long-stewing resentments, explicit dehumanizing propaganda, and official sanctioning of violence fuel explosive hate. A genocide doesn’t just spontaneously erupt, even one as ferociously fast-burning as the Rwandan genocide was. The flames are strategically, societally fanned. And what I find deeply troubling about the lessons of Rwanda for the United States and the rest of the world is that the embers of hatred are being stoked in so many places today in so many similar ways. . . . Maybe Rwanda and Nazi Germany and Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia weren’t bizarre aberrations but merely examples of how any culture in any country might turn monstrous.”