Leon Bass Visits New York Schools
In 2008 Facing History and Ourselves and the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust formed a Small Schools Network with 12 schools around the country to provide Facing History’s classroom materials, support and professional development services to further their work to promote tolerance, active citizenship and critical thinking. The schools use Facing History’s content and pedagogy at several grade levels, and across different disciplines The network also provides funding to bring speakers to network schools throughout the country.
On January 7th Leon Bass, an educator and a Holocaust witness, spoke at two of the network schools, East Side Community High School and the Facing History School in New York City. In upcoming months he will be speaking at several more schools, including New Haven Academy in Connecticut, Blackstone Academy in Rhode Island and Iroquois Freshman Academy in Kentucky.
Leon Bass was a nineteen year old Sergeant in the US army when he was sent to help with the liberation of Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp in Germany. His lectures focus on his two experiences in the United States Army in 1945—being a black second class citizen in America while fighting her war, and witnessing the aftermath of the Nazi’s final solution.
In New York he spoke about seeing “the face of evil” when he was a witness to the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945, and realizing that “human suffering was not relegated to just me.” When he returned home and went to college, racism was still a very harsh reality and he joined the civil rights movement. After graduation he went on to become a principal in an underprivileged Philadelphia high school and encouraged his frustrated black students to see the “face of evil” in their own struggles as well as in the genocide he had witnessed and in all circumstances in which human beings turn against their neighbors because they are different. Leon articulated to the students the profound challenges and rewards in “facing evil without becoming it yourself,” urging them to stand up for themselves and for each other. “You’re an amazing group,” he told them, “and I love you, because you’re important to our future.”
Leon’s reception at the schools was emotional and respectful—“You could hear a pin drop,” said Stacy Abramson, Director of New York Operations and Strategic Partnerships at Facing History who accompanied Leon to his East Side visit. “The bell rang and no one moved from their chairs—the principal let everyone stay for twenty more minutes to ask questions, and kids came up to him and told him he was their hero.”
Ben Wides, a Facing History teacher at East Side whose students were present on Thursday, wrote to David Levy, Senior Program Associate at Facing History, after the event: “…I wanted to thank you myself for the extraordinary experience of having Leon Bass speak at East Side. He is an amazing speaker and an exceptional human being; it was not only an honor to host him but an incredible educational moment for everyone present, myself and the rest of the staff included. And the level of emotional and intellectual engagement was so evident on the faces of my students... nothing can be more gratifying as a teacher. Many students afterwards commented on how moved they were; one often disaffected, disengaged student pronounced the experience "amazing." In our debriefing the next day, one of my students said his whole opinion of WWII (as an unnecessary war) was changed by Leon's presentation.”
East Side’s Principal, Mark Federman, shared Wides’ enthusiasm, writing, “We are proud to be part of Facing History and honored to be part of the Network. Thanks for your kind words and appreciation of our community.” Facing History School teacher James Gray echoed Mark and Ben’s sentiments, telling multiple staff that Leon was the best speaker the school had ever had. He was very impressed by how captivated and engaged his ninth-grade students were by the lecture. Bass also managed to visit the staff at the New York office of Facing History and Ourselves. It was a special day in New York—Leon’s lived experience, spanning so many historical moments, is enough to impress anyone. But it was his empathy, openness, and moral courage that moved and inspired all the students, educators, and Facing History staff who heard him speak that day.
