Victims of dark times in the not-so-distant past, and US veterans of more recent times, will be remembered this week at UW, leading up to the anniversaries of two important events during World War Two: the Night of Broken Glass in Germany and the end of the war on Armistice Day, which is now also remembered with Veterans Day.
Events sponsored by UW Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and the Veterans Services Center will occur during the week, with a special visit by Holocaust survivor Estelle Nadel and the National Roll Call for fallen veterans both happening on Friday. 7220 Entertainment will also be showing the film ‘Dunkirk’ Friday evening.
Each day this week in the Union, volunteer staff, students and community members will read the names of those murdered by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and its collaborators. The Holocaust is commonly remembered as a genocide against European Jews, but the Nazis also hunted a wide range of other “undesirables” in the name of creating a better society.
“This is an opportunity for the victims to be honored, and to remind the world what hatred looks like and what genocide can turn into,” UW Hillel President Jenna Yoche said.
Estelle Nadel, who was a young girl in Poland when the Nazis arrived, will share her story in the Union Ballroom at 4:00 on Friday. Long after her arrival in America, Nadel now recounts her struggles, losses and near escapes to schools and communities to ensure that the evils she faced are not forgotten, as well as to remember the many who didn’t survive them. Afterwards, Nadel will answer questions that audience members might have for her.
Her visit on Friday coincides with the Night of Broken Glass, a two-day period in 1938 of vandalism, arrests and murders against Jews in Germany as backlash for the killing of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by a Jewish teenager in Paris. Ironically, vom Rath had spoken out against the Nazis for their treatment of Jews.
Another reading of names will be featured all day on Friday in front of the Union as part of the National Roll Call to honor US veterans killed in combat areas since 2001. The event is in advance of Veterans Day this Saturday.
“The reading of names goes unbroken the whole day, for about twelve hours,” Marty Martinez, Senior Project Coordinator for the VSC and a veteran of the Wyoming National Guard, said. “We see this as our opportunity to keep alive the memory of the men and women who gave their lives in the ultimate sacrifice to their country.”
The student veterans of UW always stick to plans to hold the event outside, no matter how ugly Laramie’s weather might end up being. Martinez recalled that at a time when “really horrible weather” prompted second thoughts, a student said ‘you know what, these men and women lost their lives in whatever condition it was, so we can do our duty and honor them, and we’ll read no matter what the condition is.’ Since then there’s been no question.
“We’ve done it in blizzards, we’ve done it in sub-zero temperatures and in high winds,” Martinez said.
Most the day has already been covered, but volunteers can still sign up for the late afternoon to read the names of fallen veterans.
Finally, at 6:30 and 9:00 pm on Friday in the Union Family Room, students can see ‘Dunkirk,’ a film by Christopher Nolan that tells the true story of the evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France. More than 300,000 soldiers from Belgium, France and Britain had been cut off in the coastal town and were rescued by hundreds of privately-owned boats from across the English Channel, even as German air forces bombed the beach and the town.
