A nationally-recognized Holocaust educator will present a music lecture-recital from the Holocaust’s Jewish ghettos at the Dallas Holocaust Museum’s annual Yom Hashoah remembrance at Temple Shalom on April 19 at 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Tamara Freeman, who recently presented her program at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), will perform music on a rescued 1935 viola once owned by a Jewish musician in Nazi Germany that was secretly shipped to the U.S.
The Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance (DHM/CET) is the North Texas host organization for Yom Hashoah (Days of Remembrance).
“The musical scholarship of Dr. Tamara Freeman will bring to the fore long-forgotten compositions of Jewish culture of eastern Europe—a Jewish population largely destroyed in the Holocaust,” said Maria MacMullin, senior director of advancement for the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance.
Last year, Dr. Freeman received an award from her alma matter, the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York-Potsdam, for having created and developed the nation’s first and only Holocaust music curriculum for grades K-12.
The curriculum was the subject of her PhD dissertation at Rutger’s University.
An instrumental music teacher at Ridgewood public schools in northern New Jersey, Dr. Freeman will present a special gift of music to the Holocaust Survivors of the Dallas-Fort Worth area at the April 19 event, which is free and open to the public.
The event, One Day in the Holocaust: 4.19.43, is named in recognition of the Museum’s core exhibit, April 19, 1943. On this day, three significant events occurred that shaped the course of history: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the stopping of the twentieth train from Belgium, and the Bermuda Conference. The official day of remembrance for 2012 is April 19, according to the Hebrew calendar.
An ethnomusicologist and accomplished violist, Dr. Freeman instructs students of all ages in lessons of morality, respect and courage by teaching them how to sing beautiful and poignant songs from the WWII ghettos and concentration camps that were composed by children and teenagers.
“Each year at Yom Hashoah, the DHM/CET provides education and programs that remember victims of the Holocaust, offering support and hope during a time of mourning for Holocaust Survivors, their families and the entire community,” Ms. MacMullin said.
“This musical tribute will revere the memories of a vibrant and beautiful culture that continues and thrives because of Holocaust Survivors and others who believe that just saying ‘never again’ is never enough.”
A minyan will be held on April 22 to pray for victims of the Holocaust with a brunch to follow. The public is invited to attend the minyan at 10 am at Temple Shalom. A brunch will follow at 11 am.
As part of the Museum’s Days of Remembrance, a series of five short films that present stories of remembrance, rescue and historicalbackground to the Holocaust will be shown daily at the Museum from April 15-22. The films from the USHMM will be shown twice daily, from 3-4 p.m. and again from 4-5 p.m. The film series is free with paid admission to the Museum.
