In the summer of 1948, Ben Stonehill arrived at the Hotel Marseilles in New York, a gathering point for Jewish refugees who had arrived in the United States after World War II. He brought with him heavy recording equipment and placed it in the hotel lobby. Why would an American Jew of Polish descent set it up in the hotel lobby? The purpose was to record the refugees singing songs they remembered from their homelands; folk songs their parents sang; holiday songs from synagogue; songs from school and youth movements; and also – the songs they sang in the concentration and extermination camps, in the ghettos and in the hiding places, where they had spent the long years of war.
Discover these songs with learners through archival material as well as recordings.
- Holocaust
- History
- Creativity and the Arts
- After School and Beyond
- Congregational Learning
- Day Schools and Yeshivas
- Early Childhood
- Family Engagement
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Resources to connect learners to the individual stories of Holocaust victims and survivors.
David Friedmann used art to document his life before, during and after the Holocaust.
Excerpts from the book and a lesson plan in response to the poem written by a child in Theresienstadt.