Turmoil and Triumph in 2021

The world as we know it has changed significantly over the last year and continues to be somewhat turbulent. Even so, many individuals found ways to overcome the duress caused by Covid-19, a strain of virus that has rapidly spread throughout the world. I pray that you are all well and that we shall soon pull ahead of this difficult time.

While much of our daily lives has been skewed, I was amazed to watch teachers and students alike manage to sustain a modicum of normalcy, thereby continuing to expand their minds together. I can’t say enough about the two teachers who worked diligently, online and in person, to introduce their students to the new Holocaust curriculum supported by Chutzpah and Courage that uses a variety of videos and texts, including my books, Izzy’s Fire and The Little Lion.

Tina Tapp, a 9th grade English teacher at Radford High School, and Pamela Plahs, a 7th grade social studies teacher at Swift Creek Middle School, touched the lives of more than 300 students over the last school year, helping them to understand the importance of identifying how discrimination starts and how it can quickly develop into anti-Semitism and bullying. The bottom line for the material was to show the difference between an upstander (one who tries to right a wrong) and a bystander (one who does nothing to stop injustices) in a very difficult situation and how those choices can cost lives.

Lynne Bland, a curriculum specialist for secondary social studies for Chesterfield County Public Schools, and I also worked alongside Tina and Pam in developing the curriculum and finding new ways to approach a subject that is quickly becoming viewed as ancient history by some or either forgotten and/or believed no longer necessary to teach by others. As a way of bringing the subject up to date, I invited Neil Bienstock and Ellen Stamps to meet with each of Tina’s and Pam’s classrooms via Zoom.

Neil has been a mainstay for me for almost two decades, assisting me repeatedly in gathering Holocaust memories from his grandfather, Israel Gillman, as well as other family members during my years of research and writing of both books.

Neil kept the students spellbound by sharing how he interviewed his grandfather about his family’s Holocaust history, including their incarceration in Kovno Ghetto in Kaunas, Lithuania. Of Miami, Florida, Neil also shared how he has participated in Holocaust programs, which have included his three teenage children, one of whom is the same age as the students in the classrooms he visited. He thanked the students for their interest and encouraged them to help keep the history of that era alive.

Ellen, of Richmond, Virginia, shared some harrowing stories of her personal experiences as a child during the Holocaust, including one of how a German soldier had stolen cheese from her mother and her three children when they were walking down a road. Ellen’s mother explained the situation by telling her children, “Maybe he was hungrier than we are.”

Ellen described how she later became a nurse and traveling companion to Corrie ten Boom, a noted international Christian speaker whose family was arrested for saving Jews in the Netherlands. Corrie’s sister, Betsie, died at Ravensbruck, the camp in northern Germany where she and Corrie were forced to live after their family was arrested for helping Jews. Corrie ten Boom became famous for writing The Hiding Place, a book revealing how the ten Boom family built a fake entrance at the bottom of a closet for Jews to crawl through, giving them standing room for safety. The book became a movie.

I’ve had the privilege of visiting Corrie’s home (now a museum in Haarlem, Netherlands) and standing beside the fake closet, which was in Corrie’s bedroom. Some Jews were in the hiding place when Corrie’s family was arrested, but they lived.

During this past year, two additional teachers at Swift Creek Middle expressed an interest in incorporating the new curriculum into their social studies classrooms for the upcoming school year. It seemed like it might not happen since, unfortunately, budget constraints did not allow for the purchase of classroom sets of The Little Lion and Izzy’s Fire. When I shared this situation with two friends, each one provided funds so the students would have books, thereby adding approximately 50 more students to our program for the coming year.

In an earlier newsletter, I reported that Pamela Plahs, one of our teachers and the social studies department leader at Swift Creek Middle School, would soon be traveling to several Holocaust sites in Europe including Kaunas, Lithuania, the setting for both Izzy’s Fire and The Little Lion. Pam won a prestigious scholarship for that study through the R.E.B. Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation. Last year, I applied for a grant to the Brandermill Rotary Club, and $500 of the request was funded to also help support her studies. That funding will be given to Pam to help with her expenses as she expands future Holocaust curriculum development. Her original trip for June 2021 was cancelled, due to Covid, and has now been rescheduled for June 2022. I was able to introduce Pam to a guide in Lithuania and one in Germany who assured me that they would help Pam have a momentous trip. I know she will have much to share when she returns.

Because October was designated as National Bullying Prevention Month, I wrote an op-ed that was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Oct. 12. You can read it at this link: Nancy Wright Beasley column: Upstanders, not bystanders, on National Stop Bullying Day. The article was later printed in The Reflector, a Jewish newspaper published monthly in Richmond, in conjunction with the annual Kristallnacht ceremony held at Emek Sholom Holocaust Memorial Cemetery each year.

Also in October, I had the privilege of attending the annual conference for District 7600 of Rotary International, which was held in Richmond. While there, I heard Ina Pinkney speak on her experience as a polio survivor. Describing how her parents helped her overcome disabilities from the disease, which she contracted as an infant, Ina gave an uplifting presentation, inspiring a standing ovation. Now a legendary chef and author in Chicago, she then signed copies of her cookbook, with proceeds being donated to PolioPlus, Rotary International’s project to eradicate polio from the world. As a polio survivor, this program holds special significance for me. I donated copies of my books to the conference for door prizes, and Ina was gifted with a copy of The Little Lion.

During the conference,  the Rotary D7600 Alumni Association sponsored a group painting party in the hallway. Alumni, Rotary and Rotaract members (youth who participate in Rotary programs in their schools) helped paint and brightly decorate Little Libraries for several local Rotary clubs. Since they were also collecting books, I donated copies of my books to their finished libraries.

In November I spoke via Zoom to a group of individuals associated with the Genealogical Research Institute of Virginia, sharing some of the research techniques I used to write my books. The session will be available online for a few weeks at https://youtu.be/dTaBv7f7VQE.

As we end the year, I want to thank you for your generosity and ask you to consider a year-end donation to Chutzpah and Courage www.chutzpahandcourage.org, which is tax deductible. I know you will agree with me that this important work needs to continue. It is no understatement to say that our future is in the hands of our youth and, as adults, we each share the responsibility to help guide and teach our children the difference between right and wrong and to love their fellow man.

Nancy Wright Beasley
Author, Journalist