A 30-year-old California newspaper headline: 'Even today, Holocaust carries lessons'
Marking the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie, Schindler's List
This month is the 30th anniversary of the nationwide opening of Stephen Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.
It was the Best Picture of the Year in 1994 and ranks today as No. 6 on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) ranking of the 250 best movies of all time. Given its subject matter and today’s rising worldwide anti-Semitism, including Holocaust denial, it is a more important film than ever.
Much of the remainder of this column is drawn from a column I wrote for publication on January 30, 1994 in The San Bernardino County Sun, of which I was the editor. The column was recognized as the best newspaper column of the year in its circulation category by The Associated Press Managing Editors of California and Nevada. A few changes have been made to correct inaccuracies that can be attributed to limited online research capabilities 30 years ago, and to add relevant information I have gained through continuing research about my family history during the past 30 years.
A conversation overheard between two girls in their early teens at a showing last week of the movie Schindler’s List in San Bernardino.
“What’s this movie supposed to be about?”
“The Holocaust.”
“What’s that?”
Solomon and Lena Greenstone and their three young children emigrated from Poland to the United States in the mid-1880s.
Their decision to leave their historic homeland was courageous. They would have to learn a new language, make new friends, start their lives over again economically.
Though Jews throughout Eastern Europe were being victimized by pogroms, struggling with poverty, and facing military conscription designed to facilitate the forced conversion of young Jewish men to Christianity. They would be leaving forever their family, community, old friends, and familiar surroundings.
For Polish Jews, especially, their rich culture had become a powerful emotional magnet. Among the 2 million-plus Jewish immigrants to America from 1881 to 1924, Poland accounted for no more than a few hundred thousand.
However, for Solomon and Lena, from Zdunska Wola, Poland, the move, undertaken with no guarantees, worked out well. They settled in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Solomon opened a pawn shop. It was essentially a lending business, a business that Jews understood because they had practiced it for centuries in Eastern Europe, where Christians were forbidden from engaging in money-lending.
Solomon became a founder of the conservative synagogue in Lincoln and a charter member of the B’nai B’rith chapter. He and Lena would have three more children in Lincoln, but tragically, three of their six children died young; two of them within three days of each other at ages 5 and 3 in the winter of 1891, victims of the Russian Flu pandemic.
Their eldest child, daughter Eva, met Harry Garson, an immigrant Jewish tailor in Lincoln from Minsk, Russia. She was 18 and he was 25 on December 31, 1899, a Sunday afternoon, the last day of the 19th Century, when they were married. The date no doubt was selected for its symbolism.
Solomon died in 1909, Lena in 1923. Harry and Eva Garson reared three children; two daughters, Johanna and Helen, and a son, Sam.
Harry died in 1934, Eva in 1956. Their five grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren are spread across the U.S. They include a teacher, a professor, lawyers, an Emmy-winning TV sound technician, an antique appraiser, a professional artist, and more. One of them is writing this column following a 47-year career in newspapering.
There are a handful of other Greenstone descendants from Solomon and three of his siblings, in the U.S.
[The Greenstones of Sioux City, Iowa, descend from one of Solomon’s brothers, Joseph Greenstone, also of Lincoln. Joseph’s son, Samuel Greenstone, moved to Sioux City in 1912 and opened an insurance agency. After serving in World War I — a decorated war hero — he married Rebecca Courshon of Sioux City, daughter of Dr. Benjamin and Sarah Courshon; the former was the longtime city physician for the Sioux City Health Department. Their son, Morton, succeeded his father at the insurance agency. Another Greenstone, Joseph Isadore, Samuel’s brother, married Rebecca Courshon’s sister, Katherine. Joseph and Katherine lived in Dayton, Ohio for many years, but returned to Sioux City after Joseph retired in 1966.]
Still, as family lines go, this Greenstone line in the U.S. is relatively small. The descendants of the many family members who remained in Poland were methodically executed in the Holocaust.
The Jewish population of Poland was 3.3 million at the beginning of 1939, the year World War II began with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1. It was the largest concentration of Jewish population in the world outside the United States. At the end of 1945, no more than a few hundred thousand Polish Jews remained alive, most of them in concentration camps.
An entire culture had been exterminated.
Two weeks earlier, in early January 1994 in an Oakland, California movie theater, 69 high school students were evicted from a showing of Schindler's List “because they were disruptive – laughing and talking -- during the movie. One of the student's teacher-chaperones conceded later that the students were ill-prepared for the movie. And many of the students acknowledged that they knew little or nothing about the Holocaust.
The tragedy of the Holocaust did not end in 1945. It is being compounded today [1994, 2024] by schools and teachers who neglect this vital chapter of world history.
It is a chapter that carries important lessons today for a country that is struggling to transform its diverse ethnic citizenry into a cohesive society. The lessons have to do with tolerance and respect, and they are vital to the lifeline of our democracy.
The two young teenage girls at the San Bernardino showing of Schindler’s List said they learned a lot that day.
Both were in tears when the movie ended.
I took it as a sign of hope.
Today, as I look back on this column and that time, it is clear that I was overly optimistic. Anti-Semitism in America today, often violent, is occurring more frequently than ever recorded before. Holocaust denial, almost a negligible factor then, has become an increasingly larger phenomenon every year virtually everywhere.
The only sign of hope I see today for America’s Jews is their ongoing determination and endless resilience. It has carried them to survival against unimaginable evils over thousands of years.
The process of reminding, chronicling, and restating for all the world the importance of Holocaust remembrance must continue indefinitely.
Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
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Arnold—Great column. I see why it was a winner. I am currently re-reading Sir Martin Gilbert’s (no relation) “The Holocaust, A Human Tragedy” which documents thousands of the millions of the crimes against innocent people. So hard to read when I consider that it was going on in Europe when I was an infant safe and sound in America. As I read Gilbert’s history I had a feeling of “survivor’s guilt”.
Wow-30 years already since Schindler’s List was released! Thanks for this column.