Witnesses to History Speak in Local Schools
In addition to providing seminars and workshops for individual teachers, schools, and school districts, Facing History and Ourselves is committed to lifelong partnerships. Our program associates are eager to assist teachers in planning and implementing lessons around our core case studies, as well as a wide variety of other histories – from the genocide of the Armenians to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are available to visit classrooms, speak and plan via telephone and email, and engage in any way that fits a teacher’s needs.
As part of our dedicated follow-up service, we connect teachers and their students to a network of speakers who are able to visit classrooms or school assemblies to share their individual testimonies. Below are the stories of two of our “Witnesses to History” who regularly speak in Facing History and Ourselves classes in the Bay Area.
Gloria Lyon
Gloria Hollander Lyon was born January 20, 1930 in Czechoslovakia. She is a survivor of seven camps during the Holocaust, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, and Ravensbrück. The Nazis took the Hollanders from their home when Gloria was 14. Her father, a prominent Jewish farmer, also operated a family-owned store in Czechoslovakia.
In “Telling Their Stories: Oral History Archive Project,” students at the Urban School of San Francisco say, “Gloria’s green eyes, her faith in God, and her continuous determination to see her family at the end of the tragic experience, kept her alive.”
After the war Gloria married a German-Jewish refugee, Karl Lyon. Gloria and Karl have two children and nine grandchildren, and run a quaint and popular bed and breakfast in San Francisco.
View an interactive oral history of Gloria Lyon, created by students at the Urban School of San Francisco
Paul Schwarzbart
A perennial favorite in classrooms, churches, synagogues and temples, and community centers throughout the Bay Area, Paul Schwarzbart tells the unique story of a child survivor. Paul vividly recalls as a young boy looking out his window at the national flag atop a nearby school, and one day, without warning, the Nazi flag replaced it. “From that moment on,” he remembers, “everything deteriorated rapidly.”
During World War II, Paul was hidden in the Ardennes by the Jewish underground at a Catholic boys’ school near Luxembourg. He survived the Holocaust by assuming the role of a Belgian Catholic. Paul also became a model student, Cub Scout leader, and even an altar boy.
Paul’s story is recounted in two resources available from our lending library, the book Breaking the Silence … Reminiscences of a Hidden Child and the video Shattered Dreams/A Child of the Holocaust. Those who are in our network of educators may contact Karen Weinstein at 510-786-2500 ext 221 or Karen_Weinstein@facing.org. To become eligible to borrow materials from our extensive library, one must attend a workshop or seminar. We lend all materials free of charge.
