"The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy"
A new one-hour documentary film based on Susie Davidson's 2005 book (Ibbetson Street Press, Somerville, Mass.), "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II"
featuring Boston-area Holocaust survivors, WWII liberating soldiers, children of survivors, Holocaust educators and others, narrated by Jordan Rich of WBZ, poetry by Sonia Weitz, Harris Gardner and Regie Gibson, art by Samuel Bak, music by Ronnie Earl, the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation's Hawthorne String Quartet, Glenn Dickson, Rosalie Gerut and WWII photos and footage.
Running Length: 1:03 (1:06 with end credits) DVD, Dolby Stereo, Aspect ratio 16:9 USA; English
Information: 617-566-7557; Susie_d@yahoo.com, www.IRefusedtoDie.com


LEAD OP-ED BY SUSIE DAVIDSON: BOSTON HERALD, Saturday, April 18, 2009:

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2009_04_18_Holocaust_tales_retold/srvc=news&position=also

BOSTON GLOBE G SECTION, Page 1, April 21, 2009:

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/04/21/holocaust_remembrance_day/

BOSTON GLOBE, Review by Linda Matchan: Dec. 14, 2008:
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/12/14/a_movie_to_keep_their_stories_alive/

JEWISH ADVOCATE, Review by Dan Kimmel: Dec. 4, 2008 (unarchived; reprinted below)


UPCOMING AREA SCREENINGS:

Sunday, August 16, 7-10 p.m. (two showings at 7 & 9)
Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St., Cambridge, Mass. Admission: $4 or best offer Information: robchalfen@hotmail.com, www.zeitgeist-outpost.org, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Monday, August 17, 7-10 p.m.
Oak Point Veterans' Association, Middleboro Information: pkreitzberg@juno.com, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Sunday, October 25, 7-10 p.m. (two showings at 7 & 9)
Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St., Cambridge, Mass. Admission: $4 or best offer Information: robchalfen@hotmail.com, www.zeitgeist-outpost.org, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Other screenings pending.

Past Screenings:

South Shore Premiere
Monday, April 13, 7 p.m.
Sharon Community Center, Ballroom, 219 Massapoag Ave., Sharon
The Sharon Adult Center presents the South Shore Premiere of "The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy" a new one-hour documentary film by Susie Davidson, shown on a large screen, at the Sharon Community Center.
RSVPs preferred by April 6 to guarantee seating. Send checks, made out to FSCOA, Attention Nancy, Sharon Adult Center, or buy in advance at the Adult Center until Friday, April 10 by noon, or they will be held at the door. Light refreshments served. Co-sponsored by the Friends of the Sharon Council on Aging, in cooperation with the Sharon Recreation Department.
Admission is $5; students free. Information: 781-784-8000, or mbooks@townofsharon.org.

Sunday, April 19, 10 a.m.-noon
Congregation Ahavath Torah, 1179 Central St., Stoughton
New documentary film by Jewish Advocate correspondent Susie Davidson, "The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy," narrated by Jordan Rich of WBZ and featuring Izzy Arbeiter, Stephan and Michael P. Ross, Andy Tarsy, Sonia Weitz, Samuel Bak and others, with music by Ronnie Earl, Glenn Dickson, Rosalie Gerut and the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation. Admission: $8.00 to go to synagogue [$5.00 for ATC Sisterhood members]; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18.
Information: (781) 344-8733, atorah.org, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, (617) 566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Sunday, April 19, 7 p.m.
Congregation Agudat Achim, 268 Washington St., Leominster
Admission by donation; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18.
Information: (978) 534-6121, lrieser@ravlou.net, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Monday, April 20, 7:30 p.m.
Temple Emunah, 9 Piper Rd., Lexington. Admission by donation; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18.
Information: (781) 861-0300 or bglickman@mindspring.com, or Susie_d@yahoo.com,617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Tuesday, April 21, 7 p.m.
Temple Beth Zion, 1566 Beacon St., Brookline
Admission by donation; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18. Information: (617) 566-2277 or office@tbzbrookline.org or Susie_d@yahoo.com, (617) 566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com http://www.tbzbrookline.org/reality/adult.php?page=12860

Thursday, April 23, 7 p.m.
Temple Israel South Shore, 9 Main St., North Easton
Admission by donation; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18. Information: (781) 341-2473 or marsolash@msn.com, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Monday, April 27, 12:15-1:45 p.m.
Bridgewater State College, 131 Summer Street, Bridgewater (Maxwell Library).
The public is welcome. Campus-wide screening in conjunction with United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Traveling Exhibit "Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings," also at Maxwell Library. Open to the public.
Information: (508) 531-1000, rleavitt@bridgew.edu.

Friday, May 1, 11 a.m.-noon
JCC Kosher Lunch Program, Hebrew Senior Life, 1550 Beacon St., Brookline
Lunch follows at noon ($5, RSVP by April 29). Entertainment with Mel Simons follows at 1. DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18. Information/RSVP: (617) 558-6596 or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Sunday, May 3, 9:30 a.m. (followed by Yom HaAzmuot and Yom HaZikaron observances)
Temple Emeth, 194 Grove St. at Putterham Circle, Chestnut Hill
Admission by donation; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18. Information: (617) 469-9400, www.templeemeth.org, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Wednesday, May 6, 7 p.m.
Etz Hayim Synagogue, 1 Hood Rd., Derry, New Hampshire
Admission by donation; DVDs and books available for sale, $10 or two for $18.
Information: 603-432-0004 or rabbi@etzhayim.org, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Tuesday, May 12, 7-9 p.m.
Larz Anderson Auto Museum, Brookline
Brief presentation and short viewing as part of The Brookline Commission for the Arts (BCA) reception to recognize the two individual artists (who include Ms. Davidson), and arts organizations who were awarded grants for arts and cultural programs in the Town of Brookline for 2009. Information: www.BrooklineArts.org.

Friday, June 19, 6:30 p.m. (pre-Shabbat screening)
Congregation Shirat HaYam, Nantucket, Mass. Information: Susie_d@yahoo.com, www.shirathayamnantucket.org, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Sunday, July 5, 7-10 p.m. (two showings at 7 & 9)
Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St., Cambridge, Mass. Admission: $4 or best offer Information: robchalfen@hotmail.com, www.zeitgeist-outpost.org, or Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, www.IRefusedtoDie.com.

Other area screenings pending. Check IRefusedToDie.com or SusieD.com for updates.


MORE FILM INFORMATION:
The film, narrated by WBZ's Jordan Rich, features interviews with Holocaust survivors and WWII liberating soldiers, and prayers with Rabbi Moshe Waldoks (recently named one of the Top 25 Pulpit Rabbis in America by Newsweek Magazine), as well as music by Klezmer bandleader Glenn Dickson, the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation's Hawthorne String Quartet, blues musician Ronnie Earl, and singer Rosalie Gerut.

Also appearing: "2Gs" (children of Holocaust survivors) Boston City Councilor Michael P. Ross and Atty. Andrew M. Fischer, as well as Holocaust educators Andrew H. Tarsy, Chief Institutional Advancement Officer, Facing History and Ourselves, Tatyana Macaulay of the Strassler Center at Clark University, and Sonia Weitz of the Holocaust Center, Boston, North, in Peabody.

Holocaust survivors include Israel Arbeiter, Samuel Bak, Edgar Krasa, Stephan Ross, Sonia Weitz and Rosian Zerner. The film also features Armenian filmmaker Apo Torosyan and local poets Harris Gardner and Regie Gibson, and children from Lexington, Mass.

World War II veterans and camp liberators Ellsworth "Al" Rosen, Cranston "Chan" Rogers and Phil Minsky.


***********************************************

Boston Globe G section, p. 1, April 21, 2009:

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/04/21/holocaust_remembrance_day/

Holocaust Remembrance Day
By June Wulff
Globe Staff / April 21, 2009a
According to local author and filmmaker Susie Davidson, even though her documentary "The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy" ends with a pronouncement that the world hasn't changed or learned, "the final song in the end credits is very lovely and upbeat." "We Are Here" by Rosalie Gerut celebrates that "the survivors are here, have children and grandchildren, still dance, and still embrace life," according to the filmmaker. Davidson's one-hour film about local Holocaust survivors features Ida Rozenberg who escaped a Siberian work camp on a handmade raft. Tonight's screening is followed by a panel discussion. 7 p.m. Suggested donation of $5, $3 for students and seniors. Temple Beth Zion, 1566 Beacon St., Brookline. 617-566-2277.

Boston Herald, lead op-ed, April 18, 2009:

This is the first time I've seen the links between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust in a Boston paper. Please feel free to circulate.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2009_04_18_Holocaust_tales_retold/srvc=news&position=also Holocaust tales retold

By Susie Davidson / As You Were Saying . . . Saturday, April 18, 2009

“You can’t understand Israel unless you understand the role of the Holocaust in Israeli identity. And if you don’t understand your enemy, you can’t make peace.” - Tom Segev

Every Friday, Ben Kuchinsky and Ida Rozenberg don vinyl gloves and dish out lunch at the Hebrew Senior Life building in Brookline.
Ida doles out food with a vigor that at age 92 still reflects what they never could take from her. As a young woman, she escaped from a Siberian work camp with 13 others on a handmade raft. Her family gone in the madness of the Holocaust, she had nothing to lose but six days spent on the Volga River.
“No food, no water,” she said, her ice-blue eyes vivid with recollection. “The lice ate us alive.”
The group made it to Kazakhstan, where she hid under the blankets of farm animals. When she returned to Poland as a newly-married woman hoping to find traces of lost relatives, former neighbors warned, “We don’t need Jewish people anymore. If you don’t leave, we will kill your baby.”
Ben’s memories are so harrowing he keeps them hidden, except in artwork and life-sized collages that pronounce “Never Forget” amid Jewish stars dripping with blood.
Ida and Ben are two of many Holocaust survivors who come every Friday for the camaraderie, lunch and entertainment. In heavy Yiddish accents they mirthfully kibbitz - until the subject of Holocaust denial or Israel-bashing comes up.
Recent news has been tough for those who live upstanding Jewish lives. The Bernard Madoff scandal, corruption among Israeli politicians, lax kosher meat labor practices and a controversial war in Gaza are bad enough. Yet the sum total has too often diminished, or outright denied, the Holocaust.
In a March 30 Associated Press story about a Palestinian youth orchestra shut down after performing for Israelis (including Holocaust survivors), historian Tom Segev said of Israel’s detractors: “You can’t understand Israel unless you understand the role of the Holocaust in Israeli identity. And if you don’t understand your enemy, you can’t make peace.”
I would expand this role to Jewish identity as a whole. Ancestral genocide is collectively, universally wounding to all ethnic groups. And though I may not always personally agree with all Israel does, who can judge what drives people with histories to be hypervigilant at all social cost?
Yet as a result, the Holocaust has undeniably lost its impact. It is too easy for some to denigrate and even dismiss a terrible period in Jewish history, the veracity of which can clearly be seen in the crinkled, buoyant yet readily moist pairs of eyes at Hebrew Senior Life.
The stories must also live on because genocides continue, and in fact, are inextricably linked. Hitler’s quote about world ambivalence regarding the Armenians is well known, but in “Germany and the Secret Genocide,” filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian documents SS soldiers who had previously joined with German diplomats in covering up the 1915 massacre, when some Nazi tactics were pioneered. The Aegis Trust for genocide prevention quotes Rwandan genocide survivor Beatha Uwazaninka: “Some classmates wore the Nazi symbol, saying they would do to us what Hitler did to the Jews.”
The Legacy Partners Project, spearheaded by Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz of Peabody’s Holocaust Center, Boston North, pairs survivors with teachers and individuals who commit to continuing their stories and artifacts. These and other such initiatives have become imperative.
Ida Rozenberg’s husband, Paul, ran a tailor shop in Brookline Village. Every day, she makes her bed with fancy coverings, while showing off the glass works of her son Henri, a Faneuil Hall Marketplace vendor. Following the deaths of their spouses, she and Ben enjoy companionship. On this, and Yom Hashoahs to come, her fortitude and spirit deserve nothing less than validation, respect and perpetuity.

Susie Davidson wrote “I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II” and has just released a one-hour documentary film based on the book, "The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy." For local screenings, please visit www.SusieD.com.


DIRECTOR AND FILMMAKERS

Writer/Director: Susie Davidson has written regularly for the Jewish Advocate and the weekly Tabs since 2000. She has contributed to the Boston Sunday Globe, the Boston Herald op-eds, and the Forward, and is a poet with over 150 publications to date. She has authored "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II (2005)," "Jewish Life in Postwar Germany: Our Ten-Day Seminar (2007)," and edited and produced "In Gratitude and Hope: Remarks of German Consul General Wolfgang K. Vorwerk (2008),” which chronicles the remarkable, post-war relationship Vorwerk established with Boston’s Holocaust survivor community.

Davidson produced two major events in 2008 with Armenian community leaders at the Armenian Library and Museum of America in Watertown, and will be producing a Jewish-themed poetry event at the Boston Public Library in the spring with Boston’s Poet Laureate, Sam Cornish. Davidson will speak at the Holocaust Education Center in Milwaukee on Nov. 13. She is a co-coordinator of the Boston chapter of COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (www.BostonCOEJL.org), and spearheaded an ongoing drive to green all Mass. state synagogues (23 have pledged to date). She is also a board member of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, an umbrella group of community organizations that advocates for environmental and consumer safety legislature.

co-Producer: Marc Theriault is a graduate of Berklee School of Music and a music and drama teacher and Special Assistant to the Principal at Sharon Middle School, Sharon, Mass. He has created documentary films since the 1980s. Among his films is a study of early Peace Corps volunteers that can be viewed at ww.ps4610.com.

co-Producer: Joshua Fleetwood is a FinalCut Pro filmmaking instructor at Brookline Cable Access TV and a graduate of the New England School of Photography.

Film Editor: Ben Avishai has produced video materials for the new midwest Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois, which opened in April, 2009 and featured former President Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker, as well as video materials for the History Channel and work that was shown on the Oprah Winfrey show.

----------------------------------

Press Clippings

Dec. 14, 2008: Boston Globe review by Linda Matchan:

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/12/14/a_movie_to_keep_their_stories_alive/

A movie to keep their stories alive
Boston-area subjects speak of unspeakable
By Linda Matchan, Globe Staff | December 14, 2008

Susie Davidson of Brookline is a geriatric care manager, journalist, poet, self-described "grass-roots organizer" - and most recently, a filmmaker. She's just completed her first film, "The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy," a documentary about Boston Holocaust survivors which will be screened at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Dec. 22.

The film is based on her 2005 book "I Refused to Die," a compendium of stories of Boston-area Holocaust survivors and soldiers who liberated the concentration camps. Though Davidson is Jewish, her passionate interest in the Holocaust is unusual given that she has no family connection to it - "just a lot of empathy," she says - and that she'd never even met a Holocaust survivor until 2002, when she wrote an article about the New England Holocaust Memorial for the Jewish Advocate.

"I decided that with Holocaust denial on the increase and global genocide on the rise, I would try to tell their stories," said Davidson, 53. "We've seen from the film 'Paper Clips' [a documentary about students in Tennessee who created a memorial to Holocaust victims] how broad an impact a film can have."

Davidson's film, coproduced with local filmmakers Marc Theriault and Joshua Fleetwood, includes interviews with Israel Arbeiter, who helped establish Boston's Holocaust memorial; artist Samuel Bak, whose paintings deal with his Holocaust experience; and educator Sonia Weitz.

"This is really rough stuff. It can really unravel you and affect you on a very deep level," says Davidson, who says she encouraged some survivors to tell their stories for the first time. "I convinced them that we can't let their stories go with them. Many tears were shed, on both sides."

Bak spoke of being saved at one point by his father, who made fake rubles out of copper and used them to pay off Nazi officers. Rosian Zerner was saved when her parents dug a hole beneath a barbed-wire fence at the Kovno Ghetto and pushed her to safety by telling her to run into the woods.

The film will be screened at the Coolidge Corner Theater on Dec. 22 at 7 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. www.coolidge.org

Linda Matchan can be reached at l_matchan@globe.com.


Dec. 4 Jewish Advocate review by Dan Kimmel:

THE MOVIE MAVEN: MOVIE REVIEW
THE HOLOCAUST: MEMORY AND LEGACY
By Daniel M. Kimmel
For those who have read many books and seen many movies on the Holocaust, it sometimes seems as if it has all been said. As this column has shown, though, there are many stories to be told and many that have yet to be told.

Yet there’s another issue that we sometimes forget: for later generations and for the general public, it’s often a story that has to be told from the beginning. “The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy” is a film by author (and Jewish Advocate contributor) Susie Davidson, based on her 2005 book about Boston-area Holocaust survivors I Refused to Die.

In a little over an hour Davidson introduces the subject, from what the Holocaust was to the liberation and thereafter. More importantly, she provides a record of survivors talking about their experiences, also including the voices of some veterans involved in the liberation of the camps. One of them provides the reason for the film: when there are people who claim it never happened, or that six million deaths can be explained as the result of disease, it’s important to hear from the people who were actually there. It’s no longer some vague historical event involving unimaginable numbers. It’s something that actually happened to this person and to this one and to this one as well.

While the newsreel footage (used sparingly) is shocking, particularly for the uninitiated, it’s the personal stories that have the greater impact. There’s the woman who sees Josef Mengele condemning the weak to the gas chambers with the flick of a wrist, who is told by her mother to pinch her checks so as to appear healthy. There’s the soldier who knows the end of the war is so close that the Germans are surrendering faster than they can accept them, who discovers a camp where the fleeing soldiers set fire to the barracks with the inmates still inside.

There are the Jewish survivors in Poland or Ukraine trying to go home and getting told that they’re no longer wanted, and that if they try to stay they will be killed.

Davidson’s subject is as much how to memorialize this tragic chapter of history, as well as simply telling the basics. We see paintings by Samuel Bak, vividly interpreting the images of the Holocaust. We meet educators trying to convey lessons to future generations, like Andrew Tarsy of Facing History and Ourselves.

Perhaps most important, “The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy” shows us that as difficult as the subject is to comprehend, much less explain to people far removed from the experience, there are people striving to do so. It is horrible, as one of the survivors note, that the world has learned nothing, and that genocide continues to occur.

On the other hand, she remains hopeful as she witnesses people responding to the genocide in Darfur today who insist that we can no longer remain silent.

“The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy” will be shown one night only at the West Newton Cinema on December 11. It will be followed by a discussion.

(Daniel M. Kimmel, a Boston-based film critic and author, reviews Jewish films for the Advocate. His latest book is I’ll Have What She’s Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies. He lectures widely on a variety of film-related topics and can be reached at daniel.kimmel@rcn.com.)


Boston Globe column on Israel Arbeiter, a Holocaust survivor who appears in the film and book:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/10/01/a_new_year_an_old_agony/
A new year, an old agony
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Columnist | October 1, 2008

NORWOOD - Even though Israel Arbeiter has done this hundreds of times, his eyes are red and brimming. Speaking in a thick Polish accent, the 83-year-old retired tailor is reliving the gut-wrenching separations, the horrific murders, the miraculous escapes. He is layering sickening detail onto already-unspeakable crimes, as if it all happened days ago. He is 17 again, back in the marketplace in Starachowice before dawn on Oct. 26, 1942. He is surrounded by hundreds of other Jews from the ghetto, being sorted into two lines by the German soldiers in the darkness.
"It was a most horrible scene than anybody can ever imagine," he says. "The screaming, the crying. The young mothers didn't want to leave their children, but they would put the children in the other column.
"I snuck over to the other side to be with my mother and my father and my youngest brother. I said, 'Whatever happens to my parents, let it happen to me.' My father said, 'Go over there and save yourself. . . And if you will survive, remember to carry on with Jewish life and traditions.' "
German soldiers ordered Izzy, two of his brothers, and the other able-bodied young men to run to a labor camp outside town. They shot the stragglers. The rest of his family was herded onto cattle trains bound for Treblinka. "They were murdered that same day," Arbeiter says, the words catching.
He spent the next few years crammed into filthy camps all over Poland, being worked and starved to the brink of death. Every few weeks, people around him were marked for execution. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Arbeiter remembers Josef Mengele, "the Angel of Death," personally separating the weak from the able-bodied. He would go down the line, making assessments, tilting his thumb ever so slightly. Right. Left. Life. Death. "How many times my life was this far away from being selected out of existence," Arbeiter says, holding a thumb and forefinger nearly together.
He never thought more than five minutes into the future. "The only way out of Auschwitz was through the chimney," he says.
But miracle after miracle spared him. He was liberated by French troops on his 20th birthday. A couple of years later, Izzy and his two surviving brothers came to Dorchester. Here he found prosperity, and immense responsibility.
For six decades, Arbeiter has been telling anyone he could of the things he has seen. He gathered together the first local Holocaust survivors group. He testified at war crimes trials in Germany. He pleaded with the US Congress to help survivors recover lost bank accounts and insurance policies. He helped establish the Boston Holocaust Memorial.
"There is never enough remembering," he says. Without survivors like him, the Holocaust is abstract, historical. But this patient, dapper man knows his ranks are dwindling. He, like many in the Jewish community, worries that the horror of the Holocaust will ebb as survivors pass away.
On Monday, Arbeiter was sitting in a large room at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Norwood. A permanent exhibit there commemorates his life and millions of deaths in the hopes of keeping the memories of those years vivid. He was surrounded by snapshots of his family before the Nazis invaded, and of the narrow wooden shelves that passed for beds in Birkenau, and of the gas chambers.
His whole awful story is laid out on the walls for children to file past in wonder.
"They dedicated this room in my honor, but it's not for me," he says. "I don't know how long I'll be here. It's for the children." He was heading into Rosh Hashana, the high holiday on which people make a point of visiting the graves of those they loved. Izzy Arbeiter's parents, like millions of others, have no graves where he might pay his respects.
He is their monument.

Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at Abraham@globe.com.

Nov. 11 Film Premiere:
Two documentary films on the subject of genocide and human rights, "The Holocaust: Memory and Legacy" narrated by WBZ's Jordan Rich and based on a book by Susie Davidson, and "The Morgenthau Story", directed by Apo Torosyan, on Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide, will premiere at the Studio Cinema, 376 Trapelo Rd., Belmont. Mid-film panel discussion, moderated by Jordan Rich, with Andrew Tarsy, Chief Institutional Advancement Officer Facing History and Ourselves; Sharistan Melkonian, Chair, Armenian National Committee of Eastern Massachusetts; Dr. Aristotle Michopoulos, Professor and Director of Greek Studies at Hellenic College, Brookline; and Elyse Rast, Holocaust Programs Coordinator, Jewish Community Relations Council and the New England Holocaust Memorial, as well as World War II veterans and concentration camp liberators Cranston Rogers and Phil Minsky; Holocaust survivors, and the films' producers, directors and writers. $7 admission includes refreshments; theatre concessions (including U Kosher popcorn) also available (free drink and popcorn refills). Three wi-fi computer stations for patrons. Information: www.IRefusedtoDie.com, www.aramaifilms.com, Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557; apotoros@comcast.net, 978-535-1206; or the Studio Cinema at 617-484-9751.

TALKS WITH AUTHOR Susie Davidson and WWII veteran Chan Rogers (with occasional appearances by Holocaust survivor Edgar Krasa):

Local journalist, author and poet Susie Davidson appears with WWII veteran Chan Rogers regularly at various state locales. "I Refused To Die," contains the stories of twenty local Holocaust survivors and ten local World War II veterans who liberated the camps, as well as poetry and essays. Davidson also brings copies of her new book, "Jewish Life in Postwar Germany: Our Ten-Day Seminar" as well as her chapbook of poetry, "Selected Poetry of Susie D" (all Ibbetson Street Press, Somerville). Please see below for synopsis of typical book reading.

Medway resident and WWII veteran Chan Rogers helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp. An MIT graduate and prominent area civil engineer, Rogers was featured in a July 24, 2007 Page One story in the Boston Globe.

Holocaust survivor and Terezin concentration camp cook Edgar Krasa occasionally joins them. The book is the only such compilation of area Holocaust survivors.

"I Refused to Die" received a 2004 Massachusetts arts grant and has liner notes from Congressman Michael Capuano and State Secretary of Veterans' Services Thomas G. Kelley. It has been featured on PBS' "Greater Boston with Emily Rooney," on WBZ, WBUR/NPR, and in many newspaper articles.

Davidson is a correspondent for the Jewish Advocate and has contributed to the Cambridge Chronicle, the Brookline Tab and other weeklies, the Boston Sunday Globe and the Forward.

by Susie Davidson

ISBN: 0-972-46014-4 Recipient, 2004 grant, Massachusetts Cultural
Council/Brookline Arts Commission
Ibbetson Street Press, Somerville, Mass. 400 pp., 2005 (new edition, 2007)
www.IRefusedToDie.com
www.SusieD.com

With liner notes by

Thomas G. Kelley, Secretary, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department
of Veterans' Services

Available at local bookstores, through the author or on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0972460144/sr=8-1/qid=1144338785/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8453445-1696114?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Ibbetson Street Press, Somerville, Mass. 100 pp., 2007

Jewish Advocate column of Sept. 22, 2006:
http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/opinions/?content_id=1900

This new book by Susie Davidson chronicles an Aug. 20-31 seminar she attended along with five other Bostonians as a guest of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Consulate of Boston. The group visited many memorial sites, met with German dignitaries and government officials, attended synagogue and traveled to sites of interest relevant to German Jewish history.

UPCOMING BOOK READINGS AND EVENTS:

Tues., February 19, 9 a.m., breakfast meeting - Medfield Council on Aging, One Ice House Road, Medfield. Information: 508-359-3665, medfieldcoa@hotmail.com.

Sat., Feb. 23, 4-6 p.m. (books sold post-Shabbas), - Tatnuck Bookseller, Westborough Shopping Center, 18 Lyman St. at Route 9, Westborough. Taping, interview and book signing in conjunction with Westborough Veterans. Information: Dave Bagdon, Tatnuck: 508-366-4959, 508-366-5500 x 11, info@tatnuck.com, or Westborough Veterans representative Ken Ferrera, 508-871-7086, or Westborough Public Access TV: Bob Cantara,
studiomanager@westboroughtv.org, 508-898-3203, or enloze@hometownu.com.

Fri., Feb. 29, 7 p.m. - Temple Israel, 9 Main Street, North Easton. Information: 781-341-2473, 508-238-4987, marsolash@msn.com or Susie_d@yahoo.com. (Please note: books will be sold before sundown or left at the shul for later purchase.)

Sat., March 8, 7:30 p.m. - Beth El Temple Center, 2 Concord Ave., Belmont. Information: 617-484-6668.

Wed., March 12, 10 a.m. - Stow Council on Aging, 380 Great Rd., Stow. Information: Suzanne Howley, 978-897-1880, coa3@stow-ma.gov.

Wed., March 12, 3:45-5:45 p.m., European Jewish History and the Holocaust 7th grade class, Shir Tikvah, 34 Vine St., Winchester. Information: Joan Forman, Education Director, 781-729-1263, jformantst@hotmail.com, for class of 30 students studying the political, economic and historical factors in Europe which led the Holocaust.

Wed., March 19, 7 p.m. - Acton Council on Aging, 472 Main St., Acton. Information: Christine Chirokas, 978-264-9643, cchirokas@acton-ma.gov.seniorcenter@acton-ma.gov.

Wed., April 7, 10-11 a.m. (continuing on April 9, 16, 30 and May 7, 14, 21, 28) - Susie Davidson teaches an 8-session course, "What Can the Stories of Holocaust Survivors and Liberating Soldiers Teach Us in the Face of Continuing Global Genocide?" for Newton Center for Lifetime Learning, at Congegation Mishkan Tefilah, 300 Hammond Pond Parkway
(running between Rt. 9 and Beacon St.), Chestnut Hill, Mass. Information: Laurie Swett, Lifetime Learning Program Coordinator, 617-796-1000, l_swett@hotmail.com.

Wed., April 16, 7-8:30 p.m. M.I.T. Hillel (Cranston Rogers is an MIT alumnus, 1951 master's in engineering). Muriel and Norman B. Leventhal Center for Jewish Life at MIT, 40 Mass. Ave. (MIT Building W11), Cambridge. Information: 617-253-2982, hillel@MIT.EDU, http://www.mit.edu/~hillel/hillel-at-mit.html.

Wed., April 30, 7 p.m. - Congregation Shirat Hayam, Marshfield United Methodist Church, 185 Plain St. (Rte. 139), Marshfield. Information: Harry Katz, 781-837-2281, kys2@juno.com.

Thurs., May 1, 7:30-9:30 p.m. Hillel B'nai Torah, 120 Corey St., West Roxbury. Information: Stephanie Sher, 617-680-6947.

Thurs., May 1, 2008 (sundown): Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)

Fri., May 2, Noon - JCC Kosher Lunch Program for Seniors, Yom HaShoah Program, Hebrew Senior Life, 1550 Beacon St., Brookline. Information: 617-965-7410.

Sun., May 4, Noon - Kahal B'raira Humanistic Jewish Congregation. Fayerweather School, 765 Concord Ave., Fresh Pond area, Cambridge. Information: www.kahalbraira.org.

Holocaust survivor holds exhibit at ALMA:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/watertown/homepage/x531359092

Jan. 13 Boston Sunday Globe cover page City section story by Erica Noonan:
Tragic Bond
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/13/tragic_bond/

Jan. 17 Jewish Advocate story by Molly Ritvo: Remembering Two Genocides

Jan. 17 Boston Phoenix article by Ian Sands:

"Diamonds in the Rough"
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid54789.aspx

Jan. 25 The Forward - cover page article by Hinda Mandell:
"Auschwitz Jewelry Exhibit Shows Secret Treasures With a Grisly Past"
www.forward.com/articles/12541/

Boston.com listing:
http://calendar.boston.com/watertown-ma/events/show/81062827-joint-holocaust-armenian-genocide-exhibit-event

http://wwwcommunityadvocate.com/Current/westborough/

Nov. 6, 2007, Newburyport Daily News:
http://www.newburyportnews.com/pulife/local_story_310115847?keyword=topstory

Oct. 12, 2007, Northwest weekly Tabs:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/malden/fun/entertainment/books/x1302699753

Oct. 25, 2007, cover story of the Canton Journal, Randolph Herald and other South Shore weeklies:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/canton/fun/entertainment/books/x357267535

Quincy Patriot Ledger, Sat., April 14 and Sun., April 15, 2007:
Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Story: Former Randolph resident collected them in a book
www.angelfire.com/poetry/SusieD/LedgerStory.htm

MetroWest Daily News, April 12, 2007 (also ran in the Milford Daily News; Daily Transcript (Dedham-Canton-Norwood-Westwood-Walpole); News-Tribune (Newton-Waltham); and the Observer (Malden):
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/arts/x1001097407

Lowell Sun, April 9, 2007:
http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_5627108

Channel 2/44 (WGBH)'s "Greater Boston with Emily Rooney":
"I Refused to Die" was the April 26 episode feature. A documentary by Michael McAlpin included interviews with Susie Davidson, Holocaust survivor Stephan Ross and WWII liberating soldiers Chan Rogers and Sol Feingold from the book.
View the show by scrolling down to the link “view clip" at
http://greaterboston.tv/features/gb_20050426_dachau.html#

Boston Globe City Weekly, Sunday, May 8, 2005, by Liza Weisstuch:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/08/not_to_understand_why_but_to_help_see_it_never_happens_again/

WBUR "Here and Now" - NPR:
http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/04/20060428_2.asp

Brookline Tab, Nov. 3, 2005, by Ed Symkus:
http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/artsLifestyle/view.bg?articleid=360629

Worcester Telegram, April 28, 2006, by Kevin Keenan:
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060427/NEWS/604270457/1005/NEWSREWIND

Sunpiper Press Interview with Susie Davidson:
http://www.sunpiperpress.com/susie.html

Jewish Advocate, May 27, 2005: Article by Logan Ritchie (reprinted below)

Other upcoming readings, TBA:

Adams Street Synagogue, 168 Adams St., Newton. Breakfast and talk. Information: 617-630-0226. Fee for members/nonmembers TBA. Not handicapped accessible. Susie and Chan will be joined by Holocaust survivor Edgar Krasa.

(A SUNDAY) 1 p.m. - Sharon Council on Aging/Sharon Adult Center, 219 Massapoag Avenue, Sharon. Opening of newly-renovated Senior Center. Information:
781-784-8000, sharocoa@townofsharon.org, www.townofsharon.net.

(A SUNDAY) 4 p.m. - Temple Beth Elohim, Simchat Hayyim Book Group, 10 Bethel Road, Wellesley. Information: 781-235-8419,

Leominster, Mass. Council on Aging
Melrose, Mass. Council on Aging
Norwood Council on Aging
Weymouth, Mass. Council on Aging
Gloucester, Mass. Veterans / Temple Ahavath Achim, Gloucester (POSTPONED DUE TO TRAGIC DEC. 15 FIRE)
Acton Council on Aging
Temple B'nai Israel, Woonsocket RI (March or April, 2008)

Cable TV tapings:
Belmont, Mass.

Guest on "The Literati Scene" with Smoki Bacon and Dick Concannon, BNNTV23. Mon. evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Thursdays at 10:30 on Channel 23 in Boston as well as 13 other local stations (archived on www.chanztv.com). http://www.literatiscene.com/about.htm.



SPEAKER BIOS

Susie Davidson has written for the Jewish Advocate for the past six years, as well as the weekly Tabs. She has contributed to the Boston Sunday Globe and the Forward, and is a poet with over 150 poetry publications to date.

Davidson is a co-coordinator of the Boston chapter of COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (www.BostonCOEJL.org). In 2007 she conceived of COEJL's two current projects, the Massachusetts Synagogues Pledge to Green and the Green Guide for Massachusetts Synagogues, which are now on the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts' web site. She is a board member a the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow in
Boston.

She has also written for music publications including the Beat! and Boston Rock, and has authored three poetry collections.

Davidson grew up in Randolph and has a B.A. in English from Framingham State College and an M.Ed. from Cambridge College. She has run poetry and music coffeehouses, hosted a poetry show on WZBC-FM and performed at First Night Boston, The Bread and Roses Festival in Lawrence, and CBGB's in New York. She won the 2002 Cambridge Poetry Award for Best Political Poem for "Viva La Causa, Viva Chavez," and was nominated for Best Political Poem in 2003 and Best Love poem in 2004.

Cranston (Chan) Rogers is the recipient of a Purple Heart and a former platoon sergeant of a line Company of the 157th Infantry Regiment, the liberating unit of the 7th Army's 45th Infantry Division. The 45th Division had the longest time on line of any American division during World War II, 530 days that began with the invasion of Sicily, ended in Munich, 15 miles southeast of the town of Dachau, and included beachhead invasions of Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, and Southern France.

Rogers went on to graduate from M.I.T. as a civil engineer, and has had a long history of work in civic projects around Boston. He recently consulted on the Hurricane Katrina clean-up in New Orleans and is still active in transportation affairs in Boston.

July 24, 2007 Boston Globe Page One article featuring Chan Rogers:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/24/storrow_tunnel_may_need_replacing/

Sept. 18, 2006 Boston Globe feature article on Chan Rogers:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/09/18/he_shaped_boston_for_half_a_century/

Edgar Krasa was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt, or Terezin concentration camp outside of Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he worked as a chef. Terezin was a remarkable camp with a population of artists who continued to create musical and other works of art under starvation conditions and constant threats of deportation. His cellmate was Rafael Schaechter, a pianist and conductor who led over 150 Terezin prisoners, including Krasa, in performances of Verdi's Requiem, secretly structured as a protest against the Nazis. Krasa was eventually deported to Auschwitz and walked in a death march, where he feigned death after being shot in the shoulder. Following a period in Israel, Krasa, whose wife, Hana, was also in Terezin, spent 22 years as an administrator at the Jewish Rehabilitation Center in Boston and ran the Veronique restaurant in Brookline.

WEDNESDAYS 10-11 a.m., APRIL 2, 9, 16, 30 AND MAY 14, 21, 28, 2008: Newton Center for Lifetime Learning: March 2008. Information: Laurie Swett, Lifetime Learning Program Coordinator, 617-796-1000, l_swett@hotmail.com. Held at Congegation Mishkan Tefilah, 300 Hammond Pond Parkway (running between Rt. 9 and Beacon St.), Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Susie Davidson will be teaching this 8-meeting course based on "I Refused to Die". The course will begin with the reading and talk with WWII veteran and Dachau liberator Chan Rogers that is usually given at area venues. One or two Holocaust survivors will visit during subsequent classes, as will representatives from the Armenian community, Facing History and Ourselves and the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.

Andover Senior Center: Thursdays, 1:30-3 p.m. Information: 978-623-8322, pbecker@andoverma.gov.

Brookline Adult Education: 2008 TBA

"I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II," released on Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass., is Davidson's first nonfiction work.

The book has been featured on "Greater Boston with Emily Rooney," WBUR's "Here and Now," Channel 7, WBZ, and in the Boston Globe, the Jewish Advocate, the Worcester Telegram, Somerville News, Spare Change News, and other media.
For more information, please contact Susie Davidson at Susie_d@yahoo.com, 617-566-7557, or visit www.IRefusedToDie.com.

Borders Books, Music and Cafe in Boca Raton (9887 Glades Rd.,
561-883-5854)
Borders Books, Music and Cafe in Boynton Beach (525 N. Congress Ave.,
561-734-2021).
The book can also be purchased through the author at 617-566-7557 or Susie_d@yahoo.com, or through the publisher at 617-628-2313 or
ibbetsonpress@msn.com.

Full articles:

http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/artsLifestyle/view.bg?articleid=360629
Home > Brookline TAB > Arts & Lifestyle

Stories of survival: Local author pays tribute to Holocaust survivors,
soldiers who liberated them

By Ed Symkus/ TAB Senior Staff Writer
Thursday, November 3, 2005
We all want to do good deeds, maybe even be remembered for some of the
positive things we've done. Susie Davidson was quite satisfied with
writing feature stories for the Jewish Advocate, promoting other
people's events and causes, getting exposure for the things they were
doing.
Then two things happened. Davidson, a Brookline resident, got to
thinking about doing something bigger, perhaps a project that would pay
tribute to a deserving people on a larger scale. Around the same time,
she attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberating Soldiers
Monument at the New England Holocaust Memorial.
"I knew some of these people through the Advocate," says Davidson, 49.
"One soldier, Al Rosen, gave a speech linking the Holocaust to other
atrocitiessince the Holocaust - Cambodia, Bosnia and more."
It was at that point that something clicked - one of those
light-bulb-over-the-head moments.
"I began talking to some of these people," she says. "I went to a
meeting of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, a
group based in Newton, headed by Israel Arbeiter, a survivor with an
amazing story."
And she started gathering Holocaust stories, lots of them. The
result is the book "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust
Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World
War II" (Ibbetson Street Press).
"It was a three-year project," she says. "Voluminous material,
impossible to organize. I had all these notes on my laptop, and for my
vacation, I got on a Greyhound bus and went around the country for two
weeks and got the outline together."
Davidson's research included searching through the Internet and going
over lots of World War II material. But her best results came from
meeting people.
Chan Rogers, a soldier who was one of the liberators at Dachau, got
her lots of information from people around the country. Edgar Krasa, a
survivor from Terezin - where he was a cook - steered her to other
survivors. The book has 20 stories from survivors and 10 stories from
soldiers. Davidson initially approached about 50 people.
"I had a few 'no thanks yous,' I had a couple of hang-ups," she says.
"What some of these people have been through is something we cannot
comprehend. But for every one of them, there are a few more who will
tell their stories. Some of them didn't for decades. It just wasn't
talked about when they were growing up.
"I got the interviews," she adds, "then fact-checked all the names and
dates they gave me, and basically wrote the stories from what they told
me. There were plenty of tears, a lot of crying. A lot of 'I can't
continue, please come back'."
Davidson admits that she cried her share of tears, too, mostly
during the proofreading stages, when she was alone.
"But I was bent on getting this out because, unfortunately,
Holocaust denial is still out there," she says. "And there's nothing
like a first-hand witness to counteract denial. These stories must be
told. There's far too much bigotry, hatred, racism still happening in
the world. I figure, in my small way, maybe this book can do something
to stem that tide."
But there was also a more personal reason for doing the book.
"These are people who went through atrocities that we can't
imagine," she explains. "They saw their parents shot in front of them.
They became the instant parent. Children were ripped from their homes.
Yet these people went on to contribute to this world, a world that
stripped them of every dignity that one can have. They became teachers,
scientists, engineers."
Besides these stories of human perseverance, the book stands as a
fascinating guide to the history of a very difficult time. Davidson
writes on such subjects as the number of concentration camps that
existed, of the fact that nobody was gassed at Dachau, of the horrified
reactions of some American soldiers when they discovered survivors and
victims of the camps - and started shooting down Nazi guards.
"But my point in the book was not to condemn the Nazis," points out
Davidson. "We know what they did; we know what they were. I want to pay
tribute to the survivors - the amazing miraculous stories of survival -
and to the soldiers, and what they went on to do in their lives after
witnessing this."

Susie Davidson reads from "I Refused to Die" on Nov. 6 at the
Boston Public Library (3-6 p.m.), Nov. 13 at the Larz Anderson Auto
Museum (1 p.m.) and on Nov. 20 at the Israel Book Shop (2 p.m.). Visit her Web
sites at IRefusedToDie.com and SusieD.com.
Ed Symkus can be reached at esymkus@cnc.com.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/08/not_to_understand_why_but_to_help_see_it_never_happens_again/
Not to understand why, but to help see it never happens again
By Liza Weisstuch, Globe Correspondent | May 8, 2005

From the WGBH Web site www.wgbh.org
The Liberation of Dachau - April 29, 1945
Originally broadcast April 26, 2005
Direct link:
http://greaterboston.tv/features/gb_20050426_dachau.html#

I Refused to Die.... by Susie Davidson
REVIEWED BY HUGH FOX

I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and
Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II
Recorded, annotated and edited by Susie Davidson. 2005. 420 pp.,
paperback.
Published by Ibbetson Street Press, 25 School St., Somerville, MA.
02143 $10.80 (6 x $18, or Chai)
http://homepage.mac.com/rconte www.SusieD.com

A very touching book, going over much of the same ground that other
books on the Holocaust have gone over, but in a fresh, imperative way.
I mean how did she ever find these men and women in the Boston area who
survived the Holocaust, and then get them to tell their stories? Like
Rela Fund, born in Vienna in 1915, a photo of her accompanying her
story of how she escaped to Switzerland, then went to Scotland where she got
a degree in pharmacology, eventually ended up in Boston (where her
Scottish degree was invalid) and helped her husband in the toy business
he had gotten into.
Story after story after story: Israel Arbeiter (Born in 1925) from
Plock, Poland, Rena Finder (born in 1929) also from Poland (Krakow),
Sevek Fishman, another Pole (born in 1918).....there are a hundred
films here just waiting to be made. Then, after we're finished reading the
survival stories of these Jews, we move into the stories of American
soldiers who were involved with saving them. Again more photos, like
that of James B. Aitken a young G.I., Mr. Military, next to a photo of
Aitken today, sitting meditatively in a chair in his Victorianish
dining room. The narratives plus the photos give the book a tremendously
evocative touch!
There are then lists of organizations involved with the Holocaust,
like the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, the American
Jewish Congress, etc. And just as the book begins to get more
bibliographical than dramatic, the author throws in a poem by Joan
Weliger Sidney that really gets you where it hurts:
"Late March/ and it is snowing, though I know nothing will remain/
that these fat flakes are no more than memories/ disappearing into
trees..." ("Forging Links," p. 415) Snow-flakes and dead Holocaust
victims. Lots of other classic, unforgettable poems too, dispersed
throughout the volume.
Like Doug Holder's "The New World": "....the sad naked bodies of
chickens,/ slaughtered like Holocaust victims on bloodied
butcher/blocks... ("The New World, p. 150)
The book ends with prayers, including the Jewish prayer for the dead,
the Mourners' Kaddish, in Hebrew and English, thereby taking this
terrible time into a holy precinct of remembrance that turns it from
horror film into unforgettable tragedy. A book that nobody should miss.
Hugh Fox, founding editor of The Pushcart Prize; founding member and
current Board member of COSMEP, The International Organization of
Independent Publishers


LOCAL AUTHOR ON LOCAL SURVIVORS:
THE HORRORS OF THE HOLOCAUST BROUGHT HOME
By Logan C. Ritchie
This article appeared in the May 27, 2005 Jewish Advocate

When the idea for her book first struck her, Susie Davidson boarded a
Greyhound bus for Fargo, N.D. She wasn't running from her idea, she
was trying to capture it. "I had so many thoughts and notes that I
took a bus around the country to get away and start putting the book
together. Working on my laptop, I got the outline organized," said
Davidson, author of "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area
Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated the Concentration Camps
of World War II."
Her book, which includes stories of liberating soldiers and World War
II educational supplements, as well as photos, poetry, essays by
community leaders and a local, national and international Holocaust
resource section, was released on May 5 in accordance with Yom HaShoah.
Davidson, who grew up in Randolph and now lives in Brookline, has been
promoting the book to groups around Greater Boston, hoping it will
eventually become a textbook for middle schools.
A longtime beat reporter for The Advocate, Davidson is also the author
of three volumes of poetry. She recalled: "I was always a writer. I
was a C student with A's in English. A painful memory is being
accelerated in English in junior high and then having no one to sit
with
at lunch." Davidson didn't stop at poetry and news reporting. "An
author always has at least one book in ‘em," she said of
her writing
career, both past and present. "I already know of several people I
want to interview for a second edition of this book." A few years ago,
Davidson attended the ceremony for the liberators' monument and was
inspired by the speeches she heard there. "Al Rosen talked about
genocide around the world, and how we have to prevent this from ever
happening again. I thought educating people about it could be a
powerful
tool," she said. "I got to know people and went to the American
Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors' brunch. There I met more
and more people. I was so overwhelmed, I just had to write the book."
Davidson said she met most of her subjects through word of mouth, not
surprising for a tight-knit Jewish community like Boston. "They tell
you about one another. Some poet friends of mine told me about their
local relatives, someone in my building pointed out another person.
People were very helpful."
She went to each survivor's home to conduct the interview, although
some, as well as most of the soldiers, e-mailed their stories to
Davidson. "Everyone in the book is a Boston resident. It was my intent
to make something just for the Boston community, because it is known
around the world." Recording some of the 29 stories for the first
time, several soldiers and survivors broke their silence with Davidson.
"Some people I spoke with, for example Rena Finder and Sonia Weitz,
told me that they never talked about it until two decades ago. In their
homes, the Holocaust was not discussed. They didn't want to face it.
Steve Ross never mentioned it to his children until they were
teenagers."
She said it was easier to deal with the material if she "remained
stoic" during the recordings. "I'm a poet, so I'm used to
writing heavy stuff. Writers do best with depression. I love songs by
the Cure, the early stuff," she said. "We're used to depressing
subjects. But I needed to be strong because most of them would cry. And
every time I proofread, I cried."

Interview with Susie Davidson: "I Refused to Die"
By Doug Holder
SCAT, Somerville Cable Access TV broadcast, August 2005
In her introduction to her book: "I Refused to Die: Stories of
Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated the
Concentration Camps of World War II, Susie Davidson writes: "The
darkest
chapter in Modern Jewish began long before and extends far beyond late
April, 1945 in the minds of those who lived through the horrors of the
Nazi Holocaust. For these survivors, the pain has never changed,
diminished, never ended. Endured long ago, yet forever feeling like
yesterday, it defines their existence like a gray shroud of gloom that
indelibly drapes every waking moment." (17) In this book the words of
the Holocaust survivors and their liberators capture the horror,
despair, and the salvation of those who survived this nefarious time in
history. In a project three years in the making and partially funded by
the Mass. Cultural Council, Davidson has compiled a collection of
testimony, poetry, and essays of Boston-area Holocaust survivors and
liberators that should be in the classroom, as well as in the home.
Hillel Newman, Consul of Israel to New England wrote: "In writing this
book Susie Davidson advances the eternal message of the most
significant
event in Jewish history. In doing so, she is fulfilling a most
important
service to the entire community." Davidson will be participating in the
"The Somerville News Writers Festival," Nov 13, 2005 at the Somerville
Theatre in Davis Square.
Doug Holder: What was the germ of the idea for this project?
Susie Davidson: Well, I have written for the Jewish Advocate for many
years now, so I have met some of the survivors. I was always very
impressed by them. Here were people who experienced things that are
even
hard to imagine. Yet they were out there contributing. They were living
their lives. They were not self-centered and wallowing in misery. They
were doing the best they could and making contributions to our society.
They are teachers, educators, scientists, and engineers, etc. They
rebuilt their lives. I found that so amazing. In June 2002 I went to
the
groundbreaking ceremony of the Liberators' monument in downtown Boston
at the N.E. Holocaust Memorial. It was a very nice ceremony, with the
mayor and other leaders. Al Rosen, a World War ll vet, got up and made
a
speech that inspired me to do this book."
There are Holocausts which have occurred since and are still going on
in our current times: Somalia, the Sudan, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia....
It seems that it just doesn't end. It is a horrible state of human
affairs. We all have to do what we can to stem this tide.
DH: Do you view this book as a formal educational text as well?
SD: I've included many supplements inside the book with WW ll
material. My aim is to market this as a secondary school text. I think
you don't want the kids too young when they read about this. It is
important however to place that seed of "awareness" in them.
DH: Was it difficult to get the survivors to relive these horrific
memories?
SD: Some people were ready to go. Others I had to convince gently. You
don't want to exploit their experience, but their story must be told.
There is nothing like a first-hand witness to counteract Holocaust
denial. The general awareness must be encouraged. This is not a group
of people who are applying to do this. I didn't pry but I would strongly
suggest. I knew these stories would mean a lot to many people.
DH: You must have had a number of emotional outbursts during the
course of your interviews.
SD: Sure....in both myself and with them. Almost all of them cried -
both men and women. Some cry every day still. I tried to be stoic, but
when I proofread I would cry. These are things that you could not
believe one man could do to another man. This is true of the liberating
soldiers as well as the survivors. A few of the soldiers in my book
based their future lives around their experience.
DH: Can you tell me about the Black regiment that helped liberate the
camps?
SD: That was the 761st Battalion, an all-Black regiment that helped
liberate Buchenwald. The baseball player Jackie Robinson was an officer
in it. They had a 50 percent casualty rate, the highest among similar
units in World War ll. They were on the front lines for three full
weeks
at a time. In the book there is a poem by Sonia Weitz. She was
liberated
by a member of the 761st. She had never seen a Black man before.
DH: Was there a lot of guilt around the folks who did survive? Did
they ask "Why me?"
SD: Sure. Why was I spared, while my family members perished in front
of me? A lot of it was dumb luck. Crazy things would happen at the last
minute that would save them. This is something that you can't get over
quickly. They had to use their heads constantly to fight against the
odds. Every minute was a struggle to stay alive. One survivor, Meyer
Hack, took a string inside his prison uniform and pulled it every
morning to bring blood to his jaundiced, yellow face. This way he would
not have to face the gas chamber.
DH: Did you find yourself taking on the role of a therapist to these
survivors?
SD: Who am I to take that role with people that I respect so much. I
think they were grateful someone was doing this. I suppose this was a
catharsis of sorts for them.
DH: You included the work of a lot of local poets in this book. What
does poetry add to this compendium?
SD: A poem often takes a third person perspective. You are taking on a
persona when you are writing. So you become a sort-of first hand
witness. With the images and metaphors that are used by these wonderful
writers, it brings it all home in a very sharp way.
DH: What are your ambitions for this book?
SD: Right now I am doing a lot of readings at synagogues and
libraries. I will also be doing a large reading at the Boston Public
Library on Nov. 6, Borders downtown on Nov. 16 at noon, the Brookline
300 main event at Larz Anderson Park on Nov. 13 which runs from 1-6, as
well as reading at "The Somerville News Writers Festival" later that
night at 7:30 p.m. I have been on Channel 2's "Greater Boston," show
with Emily Rooney, on WBZ and will be on Channel 7 in Oct. I've been in
the Globe, the Jewish Advocate, Somerville News and Spare Change News,
and The Tabs will run a piece in September. My main objective is to get
the information out there.
DH: If there is one message you would want to convey with this book
what would it be?
SD: Wherever you see racism or bigotry stand up and say something. We
really need to be more active and make the world a better place.
Doug Holder
For more information on Susie and her book go to
http://www.irefusedtodie.com [http://www.irefusedtodie.com]
To order book go to http://www.ibbetsonpress.com
[http://www.ibbetsonpress.com] Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St.
Somerville, Mass. 02143
For readings, check www.IRefusedToDie.com
http://www.authorsden.com/douglasholder http://www.ibbetsonpress.com

Susie Davidson
19 Winchester St. Brookline, MA 02446
Telephone: 617-566-7557
Email: Susie_d@yahoo.com

Publisher contact:
Ibbetson Street Press, 25 School St. Somerville, MA 02143 617-628-2313
ibbetsonpress@msn.com www.ibbetsonpress.com

Web sites:
www.IRefusedToDie.com
www.SusieD.com

2005:

WED., SEPT. 21, 7:30 pm - NEWTON FREE LIBRARY - 330 Homer St.,
617-796-1360 TTY: 617-552-7154, bpurcell@newtonma.gov

SUN., SEPT. 25, 9:30 A.M. - TEMPLE EMUNAH, LEXINGTON Bagels & Lox
breakfast - 9 Piper Rd., 781-861-0300, 781-861-7141,
www.templeemunah.org

THURS., SEPT. 29, 7 pm -“ EMACK & BOLIO POETRY SERIES, ROSLINDALE
SQUARE - 2 Belgrade Ave., 617-323-3323, marccreate@aol.com

SUNDAY, OCT. 2, 2 pm - CONGREGATION AEL CHUNON, MILLIS - 334 Village

St., 508-376-5894, 508-376-5894, Aelchunon@yahoo.com,

http://aelchunon.tripod.com

SUNDAY, OCT. 9, 6 A.M. (regular airtime) - CHANNEL 7, "THE JEWISH
PERSPECTIVE"�

THURS., OCT. 20, 7 pm - TEMPLE BETH EMUNAH, BROCKTON - SISTERHOOD IN
THE
SUKKOH - 479 Torrey St., 508-583-5810, 508-583-1360

SUN., OCT. 23, 2 pm - JUDAIC TRADITIONS, PROVIDENCE, RI - 746 Hope St.,
401-454-4775, 401-454-4692, Info@judaictraditions.com,

www.judaictraditions.com

SAT. NOV. 5, 7:30 pm - POST-SHABBAS AT KADIMAH TORAS MOSHE, BRIGHTON -
113 Washington St., 617-254-1333, 617-254-1373

SUN., NOV. 6, 3-6 pm - BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY (PRECEDES OPENING OF THE
U.S. HOLOCAUST MUSEUM'S NOV.-JAN. EXHIBIT ON THE 1933 NAZI
BOOK-BURNINGS, "FIGHTING THE FIRES OF HATE") – in the
Rabb Lecture
Hall - 700 Boylston St., 617-536-5400.

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/events/newengland/events/related.php

SUN., NOV. 13, 1-6 pm - BROOKLINE 300 MAIN EVENT CELEBRATION, LARZ
ANDERSON PARK, BROOKLINE, inside at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum,
1-1:30 pm

SUN., NOV. 13, 7:30 pm - SOMERVILLE NEWS WRITERS' FESTIVAL, SOMERVILLE
THEATRE -

ibbetsonpress@msn.com

WED., NOV. 16, 12:30 pm - AUTHOR SIGNING, BORDERS BOOKS, MUSIC &
CAFÉ -
10 School St., Downtown Boston, 617-557-7188

SUN. NOV. 20, 2:00 pm – ISRAEL BOOK SHOP, BROOKLINE -
410 Harvard St.,
617-566-7113, 800-323-7723,

www.israelbookshop.com

MON., NOV. 21, 7 pm - TEMPLE BETH EMUNAH HIGH SCHOOL, BROCKTON - 479
Torrey St., 508-583-5810, 508-583-1360

TUES., NOV. 29, 7 pm - THE HARVARD COOP - 1400 Mass. Ave., Harvard Sq.,
Cambridge, 617-499-2000,

http://harvard.bkstore.com

SUN., DEC. 4, TEMPLE SHALOM, MILTON - 180 Blue Hill Ave., 617-698-3394,

www.TempleShalomOnline.org

SUN., DEC. 11, 7 pm - SHALOH HOUSE, STOUGHTON - 50 Ethyl Way,
781-344-6334, 781-344-8174,

Shalohhouse@shalohhouse.com

TUES., DEC. 20, 2 pm - STRIAR JCC'S SOUTH AREA CELEBRATION OF JEWISH
BOOKS AND CULTURE - 445 Central St., Stoughton, MA 02072 781-341-2016,

www.striarjcc.org

2006:TUES., FEB. 14, 6:30 pm TEMPLE ETZ CHAIM, FRANKLIN - 900
Washington
St., 508-528-5337, 508-528-2667, office@temple-etzchaim.org,

http://Temple-etzchaim.org

FRI., FEB. 17, 1 pm BORDERS BOOKS, MUSIC & CAFE, BOYNTON BEACH,
Florida - 525 N Congress Ave., 561-734-2021

FRI., FEB. 17 evening services, TEMPLE SINAI, 2475 W. ATLANTIC AVE.,
DELRAY BEACH, FL 33445, 561-276-6161, Sinai2475@bellsouth.net (no sales
at this event)

SUN., FEB. 26, 1 pm - TEMPLE BETH AM, RANDOLPH - 871 North Main St.,
781-963-0440, 781-963-0536,

Templebetham@verizon.net

WED., MARCH 1, 7 pm AMIT (Zionist education and social services agency
for Israeli youth) New England Council event, private home, Newton -
781-249 -7146, CherylS18@aol.com,

info@amitchildren.org

SUN., MARCH 19, 9:30 am - TEMPLE ISRAEL ANNUAL CONGREGATIONAL
BREAKFAST, NATICK - 145 Hartford St., 508-650-3521,

tiofnatick@aol.org

SUN., MARCH 26, 10 am - CONGREGATION AGUDAS ACHIM-
EZRATH ISRAEL, MALDEN - 245 Bryant St., 781-322-7205,

magspirit44@yahoo.com

SUN., APRIL 2, 11 am - TEMPLE ABRAHAM, NASHUA, N.H. - Raymond St.,
603-883-8184,

mfeder@charter.net

THURS., APRIL 13, noon-1 pm - CAMBRIDGE CENTER FOR ADULT EDUCATION
LECTURE SERIES, Organization for Older Students, 617-547-6789,

sabine@ccae.org

SUN., APRIL 23, 9:30 am - CONGREGATION EITZ CHAYIM, CAMBRIDGE - 134
Magazine St., 617-497-7626. $5 for public.

TUES., APRIL 25 (Yom HaShoah), 7 pm - TEMPLE SHALOM, MEDFORD - 475
Winthrop St., 781-396-3262, office@templeshalommedford.org,

www.templeshalommedford.org

WED., APRIL 26, 6:30 pm - BETH TIKVAH, WESTBOROUGH - 45 Oak St.,
508-616-9037 or 508-842-2884,

ejura1@juno.com

FRI., APRIL 28, Noon - JCC KOSHER LUNCH PROGRAM FOR SENIORS, BROOKLINE
-
Yom HaShoah Program - 1550 Beacon St., 617-965-7410

SUN., APRIL 30, 9:30 am TEMPLE ISAIAH, LEXINGTON - 55 Lincoln St.,
781-862-7160, office@templeisaiah.net, brotherhood@templeisaiah.net $8
for public.

WED., MAY 3, 11 am - LEVENTHAL-SIDMAN JCC, NEWTON - Seniors group, 333
Nahanton St., Newton. Emily, 617-965-7410

SUN., MAY 7, 1 pm - HAVURAT SHALOM, ANDOVER - Andover Memorial Hall
Library, Elm Square (intersection of Elm, Main and Central Streets).
Ron, 978-475-4195 Directions:

http://www.mhl.org/about/visit/directions.htm

MON., MAY 22, 8 pm - YOUNG ISRAEL SISTERHOOD, RANDOLPH - 374 N. Main
St., 781-986-6461,

lazyks@verizon.net

MON., JUNE 19 - Interfaith and Veterans event at MALDEN ACCESS TV
presents Holocaust Survivor Rosian Zerner. WWII Veteran and Dachau
Liberator Chan Rogers and author Susie Davidson ("I Refused to Die:
Stories of Boston-area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated
the Concentration Camps of World War II". Ibbetson Street Press, 2005),
with 50 in-studio guests from interfaith and veterans' groups.
Reception: 6 p.m., Live program 7-8:30 p.m.
145 Pleasant Street, Malden. Directions: www.matv.org. Producer: M.
David Cohen, 617-460-2921,

dxcohen@aol.com.

SUN., JUNE 18: 11:30-3 p.m. - BOSTON CELEBRATES ISRAEL booth, City
Hall Plaza, Boston

FRI., JULY 7, 7 pm - CONGREGATION SONS OF ISRAEL, PEABODY -
781-270-5210 www.peabodyshul.org (no books sold at this event)

MON., SEPT. 11, 1:15-3 pm - LEXINGTON VETERANS GROUP, LEXINGTON - Cary
Memorial Library, 1874 Massachusetts Ave., 781-862-6288,
lexington@minlib.net, 781-862-3928

a300@aol.com

Mon., Dec. 11, 6:30 p.m. - CONGREGATION SHA'ARAY SHALOM, 1112 Main
St., Hingham, MA 781-749-8103 (8th grade class, with parents)

2007:

Sun., Jan. 21: 10 a.m. AHAVATH TORAH CONGREGATION Annual Sisterhood
Breakfast, Stoughton, Mass.

Sun., Jan. 21: 3 p.m. TEMPLE BETH TORAH, 2162 Washington St.,
Holliston, Mass.

Sun., April 8: 10:30 a.m.-noon, Congregation Shalom, 87 Richardson
Rd., No. Chelmsford. Information: rabbi@congregationshalom.org,
www.congregationshalom.org, (978) 251-8515. Kosher for Passover
refreshments served.

Thurs., April 12: 9:40-11:10 a.m., Dean College 99 Main St., Franklin.
Information: kristineperlmutter@hotmail.com, (1-877) 879-3326. Reading
for entire college community. Kosher refreshments served.

Fri., April 13: 7 p.m., Temple Shalom Emeth, 16 Lexington St.,
Burlington. Information: rabbi.abramson@verizon.net,
www.shalom-emeth.org, (781) 272-2351. Books available prior to service
or at the synagogue office on Sunday. Kosher refreshments served.

Sun., April 15: 10 a.m., Temple Tifereth Israel, 93 Veterans Rd.,
Winthrop. Information: rabbikza@verizon.net, www.jewishwinthrop.org,
617-846-1390. Sponsored by the Synagogue Program Fund of the Combined
Jewish Philanthropies. Kosher refreshments served.

Fri., April 20, 1-2 p.m., Hebrew Senior Life, 1550 Beacon St.,
Brookline. Information: lmamon@jccgb.org, http://jccgb.org, (617)
558-6448. Annual Yom HaShoah program. Kosher refreshments served.

Sun., April 22, 2 p.m., Morse Institute Library, Lebowitz Meeting
Room, 14 E. Central St., Natick (Natick community library).
Information:
natick@minlib.net, www.morseinstitute.org, (508) 647-6520. Directions:
on Rt. 135; one block east of the intersection of Routes 27 (Mass. Pike
exit 13 [Rt. 30 East] to 27). Kosher refreshments served.

Thurs., April 26, 7 p.m., Maynard Public Library, 77 Nason Street,
Maynard. Information: dotmac@verizon.net,
http://web.maynard.ma.us/library, (978) 897-1010. Directions: near Rts.
62 (Main St.) and 27. Rt. 2 West to Rt. 62, right on Rt. 27. Kosher
refreshments served.

Sat., April 28, 12:30 p.m., Temple Beth Zion, 1566 Beacon St.,
Brookline. Information: 617-566-8171, www.tbzbrookline.org. Books
available for sale in the synagogue office on Sunday. Kosher
refreshments served.

Sun., April 29, 2:30 p.m., Temple Shir Hadash, at St. Marks Episcopal
Church, 75 Cold Spring Rd., Westford. Information: Nancy Roberts,
nr62cpa@gmail.com, www.templeshirhadash.org, (800) 792-0969. Kosher
refreshments served.

Sun., April 29, 7 p.m., Congregation Or Atid, 97 Concord Rd., Wayland.
(In conjunction with Congregation B'nai Torah, Sudbury and Congregation
Beth El, Sudbury). Information: Rabbisrf@aol.com, www.or-atid.org,
(508)
358-9623. Directions: Rt. 126 - off of Rt. 20 or Rt., 27, or Mass Pike
to 126 or Rt. 2 West to 126. Kosher refreshments served. POSTPONED FROM
APRIL 15 (STORM)

Sun., May 6, 2 p.m., Medway Public Library, 26 High St., Medway.
Information: wer@alum.mit.edu, www.medwaylib.org, (508) 533-3217.
Directions: (Rt. 128 to 109 West, or Rt. 495 to 109 or 126 So., left on
109). Kosher refreshments served.

Thurs., May 17, 7:30 p.m., McIntyre and Moore Booksellers, 255 Elm
St., Davis Square, Somerville. Information: marycurtin@comcast.net,
www.mcintyreandmoore.com, (617) 629-4840. Kosher refreshments served.

Sun., May 20, 1-7 p.m.: Booth with ShalomBoston.com at New England
Celebrates Israel, Gillette Stadium, Foxboro. Information:
celebrateIsrael@cjp.org, (617) 457-8788,

http://www.celebrateisrael.org.

10 p.m.: The Jordan Rich Show, WBZ, 1030 AM on the dial.
Thurs., May 24, 7 p.m., Robbins Library (Arlington Public Library),
700 Mass. Ave., Arlington. Information: MLoud@minlib.net,
www.robbinslibrary.org, (781) 316-3200. Directions: one block north of
Rt. 60 intersection, Arlington Center. Kosher refreshments served.

Mon. June 11, 6-7 p.m., "It's All About the Arts" with Glenn Williams
on Boston Cable, Monday, June 11, at BNN, 6-7 p.m. live (about 15
minutes). Channel 9 in Boston. http://itsallaboutarts.com/cableshow.htm
7:30 p.m.: German-Jewish Dialogue Group, Lutheran Church of Newton,
1310 Centre St., Newton. Information: (617) 332-3893

Wed., June 13, 7 p.m., Quincy Jewish Committee - meets at the Roche
Bros. community room at the Falls in Quincy (Roche Brothers
Supermarkets, Community Room, 2nd Floor, 101 Falls Blvd., Quincy),
(617)
471-0500. Information:

miltarl@verizon.net

Thurs., June 28, 2 p.m., Oak Point Veterans Group, 200 Oak Point Drive
Middleborough. Information: bjtriner@aol.com, (508) 947-3535,
508-923-0505.Thurs., Oct. 11, 12-1 and Fri., Oct. 12, 9:30-1 -
Massachusetts (Board of Education) Conference for the Social Studies,
Plymouth Radisson Hotel. Vendor table with Chan Rogers at the Contact
for conference: Susan Keane,

smk98@verizon.net, 508-763-2049.

Sat., Oct. 13 - Arts Central (Central Square Arts Fair) - reading
poetry
and discussing book at Rodney’s Book Store, YWCA and Out of the
Blue Art Gallery, 10:30-6 p.m. (no books sold until 5:50 p.m.)

Sun., Oct. 14, 10 a.m. - Temple Beth David, 1060 Randolph St., Canton.
Information: 781-828-2275,

www.templebethdavid.com. Susie and Chan will be joined by Holocaust
survivor Edgar Krasa.

Wed., Oct. 17, 10:30 a.m. - Danvers Senior Center, 25 Stone St.,
Danvers. Information: Danvers COA, 781-762-0208.

Tues., Oct. 23, 10 a.m. - Georgetown Council on Aging, Trestle Way
Housing Development Community Building, off of West Main Street (Route
97),

Georgetown. Information: Georgetown COA, 978-352-5726.

Tues., Oct. 30, daytime - Vendor table with Chan Rogers at the New
Hampshire (Board of Education) Conference for the Social Studies Fall
Conference, Manchester, N.H. Contact for conference: Kenneth Relihan,
NHCSS Treasurer and Program Chair, New Hampshire Department of
Education,

hrelihan@ed.state.nh.us.

Wed., Oct. 31, 1 p.m. - Dudley Veterans and Dudley Council on Aging,
Dudley Municipal Complex Facility, 71 West Main St., Dudley.
Information: Dudley COA, 508-949-8010, Veterans' Services Officer
Richard Holewa,

richh@dudleyma.gov.

Tues., Oct. 23, 10 a.m. - Georgetown Council on Aging, Trestle Way

Housing Development Community Building, off of West Main Street (Route
97), Georgetown. Information: Georgetown COA, 978-352-5726.

Tues., Oct. 30, daytime - Vendor table with Chan Rogers at the New
Hampshire (Board of Education) Conference for the Social Studies Fall
Conference, Manchester, N.H. Contact for conference: Kenneth Relihan,
NHCSS Treasurer and Program Chair, New Hampshire Department of
Education, hrelihan@ed.state.nh.us.

Wed., Oct. 31, 1 p.m. - Dudley Veterans and Dudley Council on Aging,
Dudley Municipal Complex Facility, 71 West Main St., Dudley.
Information: Dudley COA, 508-949-8010, Veterans' Services Officer
Richard Holewa, richh@dudleyma.gov.

Tues., Nov. 6, 9 a.m. - Lakeville Council on Aging Annual Veterans'
Breakast with local High School students. Information: Marilyn
Mansfield, Lakeville COA, 508-947-7224, lakevillecoa@comcast.net.

Thurs., Nov. 8, 12:30 p.m. - Worcester Senior Center, 128 Providence
St., Worcester. Information: Rebecca Paniagua, Program Assistant,
508-799-8061 or 508-799-1232.

Fri., Nov. 9, 10 a.m. - Newburyport Council on Aging, 40 Water St. (in
the Salvation Army Bldg.), Newburyport. Information: 978-462-8650,
rrobillard@CityofNewburyport.com.

Fri., Nov. 9, 12:50 p.m. - Rotary Club of Burlington, American Legion
Post 273. 162 Winn St., Burlington. Lunch at noon, club issues at
12:30.
Information: 781-273-1273, bdb007@comcast.net.

Sun. Nov. 18, 9:30 a.m. - Temple Emanu-El, 514 Main St., Haverhill.

Information: Sandy Venner, Chairperson, Adult Ed Committee,
978-346-4529
or 978-373-3861, rabbik@templeemanu-el.org, www.templeemanu-el.org/

Wed., Nov. 28, 10:30 a.m. - Belmont Council on Aging, 23 Oakley Rd.,

Belmont. Information: 617-484-5501, ext. 103.

Sun., Dec. 2, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Table at Striar Jewish Community Center's
Holiday Shopping Spree

Thurs., Dec. 6, 12:30 p.m. - Sherborn Council on Aging, Pilgrim Church
25 Main St., Sherborn. 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day program.
Information: Sherborn COA,

508-651-7858, coa@sherbornma.org.

Mon., Dec. 10, 10 a.m. - Woburn Senior Center, 144 School St., Woburn.
Information: Woburn COA, 781-937-7899.
Wed., Dec. 12, 10:30 a.m. - Danvers Senior Center, 25 Stone St.,
Danvers. Information: Danvers COA, 781-762-0208.

7 p.m., speaking for class in Lesley University's The Threshold
Program.

Sun., Jan. 20, 2-4 p.m. - Holocaust and Armenian Genocide Exhibition
Event, Armenian Library and Museum of America, 65 Main St., Watertown
Square. Produced by Susie Davidson. New exhibit of Auschwitz inmates'

valuables hidden by Holocaust survivor Meyer Hack, to be installed in
2008 at Yad Vashem. WBZ's Jordan Rich hosts. Prayers by Armenian clergy

and Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, songs by Armenian musicians Martin Haroutunian

and Ara Sarkissian and Cantor Robbie Solomon, Glenn Dickson and Grant
Smith. Remarks from attending Mass. State Representatives and Mass.
State Senators. Keynote speakers: Mr. Meyer Hack, Holocaust survivor
and
Mr. Kevork Norian, Armenian Genocide survivor. Sponsored by ALMA, the
Armenian National Committee, the Armenian Assembly, Project SAVE, the
Holocaust Center Boston North, the Strassler Center at Clark University

for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Facing History and Ourselves.
Handicapped-accessible, Kosher and Armenian refreshments.

All readings are free and open to the public.

ADDITIONAL:
Susie Davidson, a longtime local journalist for the Jewish Advocate
and other weeklies and a published poet, was impressed by the Holocaust
survivors and World War II soldiers she encountered in her reporting.
The survivors she met had not only rebuilt their lives, but went on to
become educators, scientists, engineers, social workers, nurses,
teachers and more, thus contributing to the same world that had
stripped
them of every dignity they had known. The soldiers (many of whom are
not
Jewish) also patterned their lives on helping to make the world a
better
place following the atrocities they witnessed. Over a three-year
period,
she collected their stories into a volume which she hoped would pay
tribute to their experiences, honor the memories of the Nazi victims,
and help stem genocide in the world.

The resulting book is entitled "I Refused to Die: Stories of
Boston-Area
Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps
of World War II." The book includes stories, poetry, essays and
information about WWII, was the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural
Council grant and has been featured on "Greater Boston with Emily
Rooney," WBUR's "Here and Now," Channel 7, WBZ, and in the Boston
Globe, the Jewish Advocate, the Worcester Telegram, Somerville News,
Spare Change News, and other media.

Jewish Life in Germany - Past, Present and Future: Our Ten-Day
Seminar
by Susie Davidson
ISBN 978-0-9795313-4-7
(publication date: Oct. 1, 2007)
I commend Susie Davidson's participation in Boston 's Jewish-German
Dialogue Group as well as her recent visit to Berlin. While Israel can
never forget the past, we recognize that we must also look toward the
future. With this history in mind, Israel has established a
relationship
with Germany, a country that now stands as one of our strongest allies
in Europe. Both countries understand that this special relationship
will
always grow from our challenged history.
Needless to say, one way to move forward is through German-Jewish
dialogue groups, such as the ones fostered in the Boston area.
Nadav Tamir, Consul General of Israel to New England

http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/opinions/?content_id=1900
Another View - Jewish Life in Postwar Germany
Susie Davidson
When I received the German Consulate's invitation to a 10-day
seminar studying Jewish life in postwar Germany, I thought, how could
one say no to such an opportunity? Others disagreed.
But I knew, from my research, that the present generation of German
citizens has nothing to do with those dark years. Germany has been
Israel's most consistent postwar ally, with Holocaust education
required, and denial criminal. And Neo-Nazis are in every country.
In 1991, from a Berlin hostel where AC/DC continuously blared, I
watched the city celebrate its renewed capital status. I read my poem
"Workers' Day" at Marx-Engels Square, and caught the Boston bands
Blake Babies and Lemonheads at a grungy nightclub before backpacking on
to Budapest, where we stumbled upon Frank Zappa headlining a festival
celebrating Russian troop withdrawal. Needless to say, this would be an
altogether different experience.
With Rosian Zerner, Deb Donig, Karen Frostig, Eric Geller and Ben
Lipkowitz, I visited Track 17, where detailed plaques memorialize
eastbound transports. At Sachsenhausen, I saw barbed wire, watchtowers
and my first Arbeit Macht Frei. Cameras lined Jewish barracks,
firebombed in 1992.
"We don't want to convey information, but change behavior," said
the Berlin Education Office's Wilfried Siering. "Einstein,
Mendelssohn, Heine, Marx and other Jews were all Germans," he added.
"We still feel the repercussions."
At the packed Pestalozzi Street Synagogue, we heard Rabbi Chaim
Rozwaski deliver his sermon in German.
Of 110,000 German Jews today, 12,000 are Berliners. At the Jewish
Community, Director Michael May told us immigrants receive full
packages, and antisemitism is more irritant than threat. "There is no
doubt that Germany is an open society," said Sergey Lagodinsky of
AJC's Berlin office.
Dr. Matthias Heyl, who had never used the Nazi's gate, was
uncomfortable hearing techno at Ravensbruck's hostel. Though survivors
didn't mind, the victims' unheard voices were uppermost in this
remarkable guide's mind.
Our trip was permeated by contrasts. Hitler's bunker abuts
Berlin's Holocaust Memorial. In beautiful Wannsee, the SS planned the
Final Solution. At the Olympics stadium, the bright blue track and
emerald green field belied my grey, gloomy thoughts in the pavilion
where Hitler and Goebbels sat.
Libeskind's The Jewish Museum's jagged towers and rugged lines
mirror the empty, transient, disconnected history of the Jewish people.
Yet archivist Aubrey Pomerance called it a museum of life, not death.
I ventured to the similarly memorial-filled Warsaw Ghetto site with my
visiting friend Frank Levine.
Our trip ended fittingly at a packed Holocaust book exhibit at
Berlin's Willy-Brandt-Haus.
The underfunded German government properly maintain sites, not for
gain or even forgiveness. "History can't be used to give
explanations," said Prof. Dr. Gunther Morsch, Director of
Brandenburgian Memorials.
Enthusiastically welcomed everywhere, we observed the unrestricted,
protected practice of Jewish life. The German people are not merely
acquiescing to world opinion as they come to terms with their past.
Rather, as we witnessed, they are flocking toward it, not out of
obligation, but out of righteousness.
Susie Davidson, an Advocate correspondent, is author of "I Refused
To Die: Stories of Boston-Area Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated the
Concentration Camps of World War II" and the forthcoming book
"Jewish Life in Postwar Germany: Our Ten-Day Seminar."