News
Reminiscences “From There”
Over 100 people participated in a meeting with the Israeli writer Batsheva Dagan. The meeting was organized by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the end of November.
Batsheva Dagan is the creator of psychological and educational methods that help to make knowledge about the Holocaust accessible to children and the author of several publications used in teaching about the Holocaust: What happened during the Shoah. A story in rhymes for children who want to know, Chikah, the dog in the ghetto, If the stars could only speak, as well as Today the siren cried for me.
The participants—teachers and Museum guides —listened to a lecture by Batsheva Dagan on how to teach young people about the Holocaust. The writer drew attention to the need to talk to children about this tragedy, but also advised to adapt the media used to the age of the child. At the same time, students of middle schools and secondary schools took part in workshops at national exhibitions, which were led by the Museum staff.
Later, during the meeting with all the participants, Batsheva Dagan spoke about her experiences in the camp and how they have affected her literary creations.
The meeting at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum was the first part of Batsheva Dagan’s visit to Poland. The second part, organized by the Israeli embassy, took place in Warsaw, where the author met with students of Warsaw middle schools.
Batsheva Dagan was born in Łódź as Izabella Rubinstein on September 8, 1925. After the Germans entered her hometown, she escaped to Radom with her parents and siblings. In the Radom ghetto, she joined the clandestine Hashomer Hatzair youth organization. One of her assignments was to travel to the Warsaw ghetto and smuggle the underground newspaper Pod Prąd [Against the Current] back to Radom. She escaped from the Radom ghetto in 1942 and traveled to Germany on false papers. Several months later, she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where she remained until January 1945, when she was evacuated with other prisoners to Ravensbrück, and later to Malchow. British troops liberated her on May 2, 1945. She then moved to Palestine, where she and her husband Paul took the surname Dagan. She worked as a kindergarten teacher and later as a psychologist and lecturer in a teacher’s college. She developed psychological and educational methods to help teach children and young people about the Shoah, and wrote material used in Holocaust education for the young.
