Peter Hays

Peter Hays, professor of English at University of California Davis, translated and published his great-uncle's diary, Gut Shabbos. His great-uncle, Israel Nussbaum, was a teacher who lived in Germany from 1869 to 1942. He perished in the Terezin death camp in 1942, but his diary survived. Hays will discuss his gr eat-uncle's story. His areas of interest are twentieth-century American literature, especially the period of high modernism, and drama. Hays has written a number of books about Ernest Hemingway, most recen tly, Teaching Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (2008). He also wrote Arthur Miller 's Death of a Salesman, a guide for school productions (2008).

Faculty Website

 

Herbert Hochhauser

Herbert Hochhauser, professor emeritus in German literature and Jewish Studies at Kent State University, will share his Holocaust survival story as a 'hidden child.' The Salvation Army and the Quakers smuggled him from Germany to Switzerland where Hochhauser was moved in and out of several different orphanages. After the war, he was reunited with his parents, who had been in concentration camps, and they moved to the United States. Hochhauser has produced a number of PBS documentaries about the Holocaust. He received his first Emmy in 1985 for "Robert Clary a-5714." He received many other Emmys for such films as "Voice of Giants," "C.A.N.D.L.E.S," "Looking into the Face of Evil," and "A Survivor's Story." Most recently his 2008 "Beyond the Fence: Memories of Buchenwald" won an Emmy in the community service category of the Great Lakes region.

IMDB: Herbert Hochhauser, Producer

 

Johanna Weisz Gartenhaus

Johanna Gartenhaus, survivor, fled Germany with her mother 6 months after Kristallnacht; With the borders closed at the time, she had a harrowing experience being smuggled over the Dutch border. She lived in Amsterdam from June 1939 until taking a boat to the USA in December 1939. She is an active member of Hadassah, and Sisterhood Sons of Abraham. She has lived in Lafayette for the past 50 years with her husband, Sol. They have two sons and 5 grandcildren.

 

Joseph Haberer

Joseph Haberer, survivor and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Purdue University, left Germany on the first Kindertransport to England in December 1938 and lived in England until 1946, when he emigrated to the United States. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Purdue University, Director Emeritus of the Purdue Jewish Studies Program and Founding Editor of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. He is also the President of the Midwest Chapter of the Kindertransport Association (KTA).

 

Elizabeth Eckford

Elizabeth Eckford made history as a member of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African-American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Because all of the city’s high schools closed her senior year, Ms. Eckford moved to St Louis, where she obtained her GED. She attended Knox College in Illinois, and received her BA in History from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. While in college, Ms. Eckford became one of the first African Americans to work in a local St. Louis bank, in a non-janitorial position.

Ms. Eckford, a veteran of the U.S. Army, has also worked as a substitute teacher in Little Rock public schools, test administrator, unemployment interviewer, waitress, welfare worker, and military reporter. Along with her fellow Little Rock Nine members, she is a recipient of the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal and the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal. Together with one of her former tormenters, Ms. Eckford also received a Humanitarian award, presented by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ), following their meeting 34 years after an apology. The award recognizes forgiveness and atonement. They talked to students for two years, and, together, attended a 12-week racial healing course.

Ms. Eckford has started to walk through the painful past in sharing some of her story. She has said that true reconciliation can occur if we honestly look back on our shared history. She believes that the lessons learned from Little Rock Central High School must continue to be shared with new generations, reminding audiences that “the dead can be buried, but not the past.” Ms. Eckford continues her interest in education by sharing her story with school groups, and challenges students to be active participants in confronting injustice, rather than being passive observers.

Ms. Eckford lives in Little Rock, and is a probation officer for the First Division Circuit Court of Pulaski County.

Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture
Wikipedia

 

Kendall Reinhardt, Jr.

Ken Reinhardt is a retired Senior Vice President of National City Corporation (now PNC). He and his wife, Judy, have two daughters and three grandchildren. They currently reside in Bluffton, SC.

In 1957, Ken was a senior at Little Rock Central High School, when President Dwight D Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to integrate the previously all white high school. Nine Afro-American students, who have come to be known as the Little Rock Nine, were blocked from entering the school by the Arkansas National Guard. The Guard had been called out by Governor Orval E. Faubus to prevent the school from being integrated. That year, some 2,000 white students were enrolled. Ken’s friendship with several of the Little Rock Nine, and the persecution his family endured because of it, came to light in 1996 at a National History Day program.

 

Ann Williams Wedaman

Ann Williams Wedaman was educated in the Little Rock public schools until the 12th grade, when all city schools were closed for the year. She completed her high school education in Gastonia, North Carolina, and then attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, where she obtained her Bachelor’s Degree. Ms. Williams completed an MAT program in Elementary Education at Emory University and did further graduate work at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. She has worked as an elementary school teacher and a reference librarian and a library manager. Her volunteer work includes serving as an Elder in the Presbyterian Church USA, the League of Women Voters, and a variety of civic and community services.

She is retired. Ms. Wedaman and her husband have a blended family of six children, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.