|
|
Dorothy Copus Brush State still supports In the waning days of April a solemn ceremony
was held in the Old Supreme Court chamber at the state capitol
in Nashville. The room was filled to overflowing with a diverse
group of citizens, young and old, for the annual Day of Remembrance.
Similar memorial services were held all across the nation as
reminders of the Holocaust, that deliberate decision made by
the Nazis to wipe out 11 million people who did not fit into
their theory of a super race. Six million of those exterminated
were Jews. For two Crossville women educators the story
of that terrible time had become very real in late January. Cumberland
County Adult Education Supervisor Pam Stubbs and her co-worker,
Joyce Yaeger, were invited by the Knoxville Center for Literacy
Studies and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to attend a four-day
workshop in Washington, DC. They were part of a group of about
35 that included 17 from Tennessee and the rest from surrounding
states. "Lessons From the Holocaust" was
the theme of the educational sessions which were filled with
suggestions and instructions on teaching others about this period
of time in the hope that such inhumanity will never happen again.
Those attending received a variety of books, pamphlets and visual
aids to use when they were asked to conduct sessions on the subject
by schools or organizations. Stubbs and Yaeger plan to use them
with their adult education students. Tennesseans can take pride in the fact that
the state has funded the Tennessee Holocaust Commission for the
past 16 years, one of only about 10 states to do so. Hundreds
of state middle and high schools have benefited from the materials
they supply to teach about the Holocaust and the values of tolerance. Six mature pine trees stand on the capitol
grounds and a plaque explains they were planted in remembrance
of the 6 million Jewish souls lost in the Holocaust. State Sen.
Steve Cohen notes, "Six million - that's more than everybody
in Tennessee. We need to be ever vigilant." For Yaeger and Stubbs those words explain how important are the lessons they learned from the Holocaust during their time in Washington. They agreed, "It was three days of intense concentration and it was emotionally draining." Next week's column will follow them as they visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Yaeger said, "The museum experience was overwhelming because it put you in touch with the individual." |