As part of the “American and The Holocaust” exhibit, The Petoskey District Library is holding Women’s Experiences during the Holocaust workshop on Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. in the Carnegie Building.
The workshop will feature Ruth Bergman, Director of Education, and Hannah Mills, an Education Associate at Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills.
Bergman said only a portion of the story is being told.
“In order to be able to tell a complete story, you really need to have all the different perspectives of people who participated, and were involved in that story,” Bergman said. “Imagine if you were to tell the story of your family to a friend, but you only talked about the men in your family, you'd be missing half the story. And women also faced particular challenges. So, in the case of American women, who wanted to do rescue efforts for the Holocaust, because they were women, there was discrimination that they faced. There were challenges that they had to overcome, on top of the experiences and the top of the challenges that men would have faced trying to do the same work.”
Because much of the history has been focused on men, Bergman said there is value in telling the women’s side of the story.
“The whole idea of incorporating women’s voices as not just being well, you could tell the men story and you get you get the story, but that there's actually value to hearing about and from the women is a relatively new idea.”
Although women like Eleanor Roosevelt says the event will focus on women who were not in powerful positions at the time.
“We're purposely not talking about people like Eleanor Roosevelt, as critically important as she was, because we want people to understand that there were women who did not have a lot of power, who were just passionate about social justice,” Bergman said.
Bergman said she hopes talks like this will get people thinking about how they can make an impact in the world.
A broader exhibit, called “Americans and The Holocaust” will be on display at the Petoskey District Library until February 14.
