Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 28, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba A2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2025 VOL 154 NO 66 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2025 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published six days a week in print and always online at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 CEO / MIKE POWER Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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INSIDE Arts and Life C1 Business B5 Classifieds D7 Comics C5 Diversions C6,7 Horoscope C4 Jumble C6 Miss Lonelyhearts C4 Obituaries D6 Opinion A6,7 Sports D1 Television C4 Weather B8 COLUMNISTS: Gwynne Dyer A7 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada “If you don’t nip it in the bud when this happens, it is going to spread as we see now,” he added. “(Antisemitism) is a curse.” Chandler, his brother and their father were sent to a slave labour camp in Wierzbnik, Poland. They lived and worked there for two years before being taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Chandler survived death marches to Germany before being reunited with his brother in the Buchenwald concen- tration camp, near Weimer, Germany. Both were freed in Terezin, Czech Republic, after the war ended. Like Ziegler, Chandler said he be- lieves he has a duty to warn the world about what he experienced. “Auschwitz didn’t come down from the sky. It started with words, and it ends with a chimney, being burned and going out in smoke,” he said. “Nobody, except the Holocaust sur- vivors who experienced this, can feel what is coming. It’s not only our duty, but the duty of humanity to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody.” Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, told those assembled for the ceremony that the Holocaust was caused by “step-by-step antisemitism” and warned that he sees parallels around the world today. “This is not 1933 … this is 2025; the hatred of Jews has its willing support- ers then and it has them now,” he said. Antisemitism has grown worldwide in recent years. B’nai Brith’s annual audit reported a record high number of documented incidents of antisemitism in Canada in 2023, including 77 epi- sodes of violence. The previous year saw 25 reports of violent antisemitic incidents. The federal government announced Monday it will provide just under $3.4 million in new funding for initiatives to combat antisemitism and provide education about the Holocaust. Most of the money, $1.3 million, will go to the United Nations international program on Holocaust and genocide education. The rest is being divided among the Montreal Holocaust Museum, the Van- couver Holocaust Education Centre, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, the Toronto Holocaust Museum, the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem and the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island. Fewer than 50 survivors were in attendance at the ceremony in Poland — less than one-quarter of the number that attended the 75th anniversary in 2020. Trudeau met with both Ziegler and Chandler in Poland just ahead of the event and said he felt “blessed” to meet them and hear their stories. “It’s a time in the world where we need to be reminded what ‘never again’ means, more than ever before,” Trudeau said at the start of their meeting. In Ottawa, speakers at a ceremony at the National Holocaust Memorial issued similar warnings. Conservative Leader Pierre Poil- ievre recalled his visit 15 years ago to Auschwitz as part of the March of the Living. “We had all hoped that we had left the ugly, authoritarian, socialist ideologies of fascism and communism behind, but they came roaring back with extreme and radical movements,” he said. Rachel Bendayan, federal minis- ter of official languages and MP for Outremont in Montreal, cited examples of rising antisemitism in her own com- munity over the last two years. “From Australia, to Germany, and to the United States, where we recently saw public figures riling up crowds with salutes associated with the Third Reich, on platforms large and small, we see the normalization of hate,” she said. “We must fight back.” Before Monday’s ceremony, Trudeau visited House 88, the former home of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolph Höss. The windows of the house — in- cluding one in the room where Höss’s children slept — look onto the grounds of the death camp. The house was purchased recently by the Counter Extremism Project and turned into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radi- calization. Trudeau met with Poland’s Pres- ident Duda following the tour. Both remarked on how this is likely to be the final major gathering of Auschwitz survivors. Trudeau is scheduled to meet with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk today before returning to Canada. — The Canadian Press AUSCHWITZ ● FROM A1 Child of survivors was surprised at the lone submission, but noted delays in contacting schools Sisler only Canadian school to do Holocaust project S HOCKED, speechless and over- whelmed. That’s how Orysya Petryshyn felt when she found out her students were from the only school in Canada to par- ticipate in a global project to spread awareness about the Holocaust. “I didn’t know. I thought everybody participated,” said Petryshyn, who teaches Canadian history at École Secondaire Sisler High. Petryshyn and her 36 Grade 11 stu- dents spent more than a month re- searching and putting together projects to submit to the “My Hometown” pro- ject. It was launched by Collingwood Learning and the International Holo- caust Remembrance Alliance in 2024. It invites schools across the globe to have students work in groups to exam- ine their communities to find connec- tions to the Holocaust — the murder of six million Jews in Europe by the Nazis — and research the effects it had on survivors and the world. The “My Hometown” website displays the stu- dents’ work. “This was a worldwide problem and discrimination is still present in mod- ern day,” Sisler student Elisha Bautista said. “It was really important to learn.” Learning about the Holocaust isn’t only an academic exercise, Bautista said, but also a way to prevent history from repeating itself. Bautista’s classmate, Aliza Quiroz agreed. “Doing all of this research really helped us get a better understanding of what happened in the past and how we as young people can help the world move forward,” she said. The Sisler class was divided into three groups of 12, each working on a different project. One group created a dramatized documentary about the lives of Holo- caust survivors Ruth Zimmer, Anne Novak, Sally Singer and Sol Fink — siblings who grew up in southeastern Poland during the war. Their grand- parents and brother Eli Fink, as well as dozens of extended relatives, were killed by the Nazis. In 1948, they were sponsored by a relative and immigrated to Winnipeg. Another created a hand-drawn poster in which prisoners are shown walking through the gates of a concentration camp, then forced to wear striped suits and locked behind bars. The third group produced a film about Belle Jarniewski and her experi- ence as the child of Holocaust surviv- ors. Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, shared her past in a presenta- tion for the students before giving them a chance to interview her. “From the time I was very young, I realized the impact the Holocaust had on my life and my family’s,” she said. “I didn’t have grandparents or extended family because they were murdered in the Holocaust.” Jarniewski said she still witnesses antisemitism today. “Antisemitism is the oldest form of hatred, and that sadly continues to exist, and it constantly changes and adapts to whatever is happening in soci- ety… including right here in Winnipeg.” Jarniewski said she is proud of the school for participating in the project and impressed with students’ insightful and mature questions. She also said she was quite surprised to hear Sisler’s was the only submission from Canada. “I do hope that schools understand the importance of (Holocaust) educa- tion,” she said. She acknowledged information about the project didn’t reach schools until “fairly late in the game.” A few educa- tors she communicated with said they would have loved to have taken part but didn’t think they had enough time. The three students that spoke to the Free Press said they were grateful for the experience, even though it was emo- tionally heavy at times. “I was very proud to showcase all of the information we learned as a group … I felt like I was doing something good by shedding light on this topic — a topic that is really emotional and disturbing at times,” Miguel De Vera said. De Vera was nervous to present a film he had edited about the history of the Holocaust, but said as the presenta- tion went on, he felt more confident and proud of the work. Petryshyn said she looks forward to taking on the project again next year. fpcity@freepress.mb.ca SKYE ANDERSON SUPPLIED Sisler students interview Belle Jarniewski, whose parents survived the Holocaust. MARKUS SCHREIBER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A flower lies on a concrete slab on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany, Monday. SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS Prime Minister Justin Trudeau places a candle during the 80th anniversary ceremony at Auschwitz-Birkenau. ;