2008 Woodie Awards
Holocaust Survivor Teaches Life Lesson to MC Students
Kathleen Bulson
Issue date: 10/1/08 Section: Features
Broadcasting classes, with the new television studio, are not the only ones getting hands on experience in the Communications department. Communications students gained first hand experience with skills but also life lessons through a lecture with Holocaust survivor, Martin Spett, last week.
Eighty year old Spett, spoke for 45 minutes about his family's struggles through the devastating horrors of the Holocaust. The lecture was then followed by a question and answer session where the journalism students implemented their questioning techniques.
Dr. Jeff Horn, Associate Director of the Manhattan College Holocaust Resource Center and professor with the History department organizes events like this one throughout Riverdale. Dr. Kim Trager Bohley arranged the lecture through Horn for her journalism class to practice asking the tough questions and getting answers.
Also present at the lecture was Dr. Thom Gencarelli's "Intercultural Communications" class. The application of the class was witnessing how an older, Polish, Jewish man interacts and explains his own cultural experience to a younger, predominantly Christian American audience. Gencarelli added, "It's about the way we think of people as 'the other'." Lucile Gounin, a senior exchange student in the class, said, "He talked about hatred and how it is the worst enemy. That is what could happen if we do not respect cultures."
Spett's lecture began, not by diving into his well ingrained tragic experiences, but by looking to the current situations around the world including Darfur. "It is a reality; anti-Semitism and genocide continue to haunt our world. It is very difficult to understand intellectually and emotionally such catastrophic events," said Spett.
He then continued urging the audience to be weary of their actions and others. "Each of us needs to shed a little light on our own darkness. We do not need a shouting freak in a Gestapo uniform; be careful of smooth talkers."
Spett's piercing eyes were emotionless, but his voice strong and seething with pain retold his story of survival vividly. He spent six years in Poland in a ghetto, slave labor, a political camp and a concentration camp.
"We watched our culture burn to the ground," Spett said of the changes being made to Jewish living in his town, where 7000 died in one week.
Surviving the horrors, Spett attributes to hope, faith and miracles. At one point, his mother was chosen from a line up to be shot instantly but at the last second was dismissed for no reason. Another instance his family survived being detected by hiding under floor boards in a neighbor's apartment.
The lecture resonated with students and faculty present.
"Some things, like watching people dig their own graves before being shot and the Nazis bayoneting pregnant women were surprising," said Alexe Rosario, junior, adding that it was harder hearing it from a firsthand person.
"I was floored. The story is not new to me, but hearing him, brings me right back to the immense gravity of the situation," said Gencarelli.
Eighty year old Spett, spoke for 45 minutes about his family's struggles through the devastating horrors of the Holocaust. The lecture was then followed by a question and answer session where the journalism students implemented their questioning techniques.
Dr. Jeff Horn, Associate Director of the Manhattan College Holocaust Resource Center and professor with the History department organizes events like this one throughout Riverdale. Dr. Kim Trager Bohley arranged the lecture through Horn for her journalism class to practice asking the tough questions and getting answers.
Also present at the lecture was Dr. Thom Gencarelli's "Intercultural Communications" class. The application of the class was witnessing how an older, Polish, Jewish man interacts and explains his own cultural experience to a younger, predominantly Christian American audience. Gencarelli added, "It's about the way we think of people as 'the other'." Lucile Gounin, a senior exchange student in the class, said, "He talked about hatred and how it is the worst enemy. That is what could happen if we do not respect cultures."
Spett's lecture began, not by diving into his well ingrained tragic experiences, but by looking to the current situations around the world including Darfur. "It is a reality; anti-Semitism and genocide continue to haunt our world. It is very difficult to understand intellectually and emotionally such catastrophic events," said Spett.
He then continued urging the audience to be weary of their actions and others. "Each of us needs to shed a little light on our own darkness. We do not need a shouting freak in a Gestapo uniform; be careful of smooth talkers."
Spett's piercing eyes were emotionless, but his voice strong and seething with pain retold his story of survival vividly. He spent six years in Poland in a ghetto, slave labor, a political camp and a concentration camp.
"We watched our culture burn to the ground," Spett said of the changes being made to Jewish living in his town, where 7000 died in one week.
Surviving the horrors, Spett attributes to hope, faith and miracles. At one point, his mother was chosen from a line up to be shot instantly but at the last second was dismissed for no reason. Another instance his family survived being detected by hiding under floor boards in a neighbor's apartment.
The lecture resonated with students and faculty present.
"Some things, like watching people dig their own graves before being shot and the Nazis bayoneting pregnant women were surprising," said Alexe Rosario, junior, adding that it was harder hearing it from a firsthand person.
"I was floored. The story is not new to me, but hearing him, brings me right back to the immense gravity of the situation," said Gencarelli.