This is a book about violent death and destruction, a book about sorrow and despair. But it is also about survival, about solidarity, friendship and the will to live. It is a reflection by the second and third generation of those who survived the Shoah.
This is a story about a modern, middle-class family that was once a part of a small Jewish community. This family was well integrated into the multiethnic community in a part of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which after World War I became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Although similar to other stories of young victims of the Nazis, such as Ana Frank, Eli Wiesel, Imre Kertész, and Miriam Aviezer Steiner, who later became literary icons, Erika Fürst’s story is a unique description of the life of an ordinary family of four in a remote part of Europe and memory.
The new edition in front of you is a redesign of Oto Luthar and Martin Pogačar’s book The Land of Shadows. Natalie Shimony and Yaara Hirsch,
with the help of the Haifa ‘NB School of Design’ Visual Communication students, gave the original book a new design and included students’ artwork on Holocaust memory. They decided to combine the narrative of Erika Fürst with all those who miraculously survived the concentration camps and other forms of persecutions and found their new lives in Israel.
“Because of what happened to her in Auschwitz, Erika could not have children of her own, which is why we believe she should, at least virtually, become part of the community of survivors. The children of the people who escaped death in concentration camps should be familiar with her family story as well. For it is the next generations who, seventy years after Auschwitz, carry on the memory of World War II. It is their reflection on their family’s pasts that makes the Holocaust comprehensible even to those who have never experienced anything like it.”
To stand up against Nazi ideas of biologized “ethnicity" and antisemitism required a heroic disposition in individuals who did not allow themselves to have their basic humanity destroyed by such ideologies, even as the latter were backed by formidable political and religious power and sweepingly popular beliefs. The men and women presented in the first part of the book have already been recognised as Righteous Among Nations for their brave humanitarian acts during WWII, a title bestowed by the Yad Vashem World Center for Holocaust Research, Education, Documentation and Commemoration. Part Two brings the stories about people who were also saving Jews that were not recognised as Righteous yet, but some among them are candidates.
Margins of Memory: Anti-Semitism and the Destruction of the Jewish Community in Prekmurje
The handbook is intended for teachers and gives a general introduction
to the topic. In the first part, the author discusses the wider
historical circumstances and the historical background of
anti-Semitism, related to the national and regional characteristics in
Germany and the neighbouring Austria, Hungary and Croatia. The rise of
Nazism and anti-Semitism are particularly carefully discussed to
provide a wider context into which the Slovenian case is situated. In
the second part, the author gives a factual overview of the Prekmurje
situation, focusing at that on testimonies of survivors.
The handbook provides teachers a detailed insight and offers a good tool to substantiate a Holocaust history class. It is also suitable for advanced students and interested public.
The Land of Shadows: The Memory of the Expulsion and Disappearance of the Jewish Community in Prekmurje
The textbook serves as a complementary resource in history teaching in Slovenian elementary schools, providing a supplement to the patchy teaching resources for the topic of Holocaust
The Land of Shadows consists of two parts; the first part gives a wider overview of the historical background that led to anti-Semitism and eventually the holocaust in Europe, while the second part focuses specifically on the Slovenian situation whereby the life story of Mrs Erika Fürst is used as a central narrative framework.
Art Speigelman’s Maus, Jason Lutes’ Berlin (Book 1 and 2).
The textbook relies heavily on the use of visual material. In order to give a compelling and touching narrative to intrigue the children, it also uses excerpts from two graphic novels: Art Speigelman’s Maus, Jason Lutes’ Berlin (Book 1 and 2).
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