Learn & Remember is an annual, month-long, program produced in partnership with the San Antonio Public Library Foundation each January. This program consists of an exhibit and a series of lectures or performances that all center around a chosen theme. This year's theme will be Isolation, and the exhibit will focus on the ways in which the victims of the Holocaust were isolated both socially and physically during the Holocaust.
This year the exhibit will be hosted on the museum website beginning on January 1st and will include printable supplemental materials for students and teachers. Each section of the exhibit will feature quotes and video clips from Holocaust survivors discussing their personal experiences relating to that section of the exhibit, and video clips, produced by Jewish Family Services, discussing the scientifically known effects of these types of experiences. The online exhibit is made possible in part by a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and will remain accessible on the HMMSA website after the conclusion of the program.
The presentations this year will be held virtually, and can be accessed through the San Antonio Public Library website. The presentations will include presentations by Dr. Roger Barnes of the University of the Incarnate Word, Dr. Edward Westermann of Texas A&M-San Antonio, Pieter Kohnstam and Evi Blaikie from the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, and HMMSA docents, Gene Festa, Liz Reichman, and Reyna Stovall.
Opening Event – to be presented online
Week of January 4, 2021
Date dependent on availability of speakers (Ramiro Salazar, Howie Nestel, Mayor Ron Nirenberg, Representative from Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Public Speaking Programs – all to be presented online
Speaker: Dr. Roger Barnes
Organization: University of Incarnate Word
Presentation Title: Isolation at Wobbelin Concentration camp
Presentation Dates/Times:
Wednesday, January 6th at 7:00 pm
Wednesday, January 13th at 7:00 pm
Wednesday, January 20th at 7:00 pm
Speaker: Gene Festa
Organization: Docent from Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio
Presentation Title: Life in the Secret Annex: Challenges for survival for Anne Frank
Presentation Dates/Times:
Thursday, January 7th at 7:00 pm
Sunday, January 10th at 3:00 pm
Thursday, January 14th at 3:00 pm
Speaker: Liz Reichman
Organization: Docent from Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio
Presentation Title: Hiding: In the Attic and in Plain Sight
Presentation Dates/Times:
Wednesday, January 6th at 3:00 pm
Tuesday, January 12th at 6:00 pm
Thursday, January 21st at 10:00 am
Presenter: Dr. Edward B. Westermann
Organization: Texas A&M University-San Antonio (Professor of History)
Presentation Title: Isolation and Social Death in Nazi Germany
Presentation Dates/Times:
Monday, January 11th at 2 pm
Monday, January 11th at 7 pm
Presenter: Reyna Stovall
Organization: Docent from Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio
Presentation Title: Jews Hiding in Plain Sight
Presentation Dates/Times:
Thursday, January 14th at 7:00 pm
Thursday, January 21st at 7:00 pm
Presenter: Pieter Kohnstam
Organization: Holocaust Survivor from Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect
Working Presentation Title: Holocaust Survivor’s Story of Isolation (to be translated into Spanish)
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, January 19 at 6 pm
Additional Information: This program will be presented in Spanish; Mr. Kohnstam is a Holocaust Survivor who lived in the same apartment complex as Anne Frank and then escaped to Buenos Aires
Closing Event – to be presented online
Date and Time: Wednesday, January 27th at 6 pm (International Holocaust Remembrance Day)
Speaker: Evi Blaikie
Organization: Holocaust Survivor from Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect
Speaker Bio: Evi Blaikie was born just a year before the outbreak of WWII in Paris, France, to Hungarian Jewish parents. When the Germans invaded, her parents were deported and she was smuggled to Hungary to live with her mother's relatives. In 1944, when the Germans invaded Hungary, Evi, her mother, who had escaped from deportation, went into hiding for a harrowing year until they were liberated by the Soviet Army. Following liberation, and the disappearance of her father and most of her family, Evi and her mother returned to France, where she was placed in the Anna Szenes orphanage. Two years later they immigrated to England where Evi was sent to the Norwood Jewish orphanage, but managed to get a scholarship to the prestigious Saint Martin-in-the Field Hight School for girls. In 1991, Evi was instrumental in founding a group called the Hungarian Hidden Children of NY, Inc. In 2003, she published her memoir, Magda's Daughter, followed in 2010 by, Remember Us, an anthology of short stories by Hidden Children. Her wartime experiences are shown in the just released documentary of the same name.