(gentle upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

(gentle upbeat music) Thank you.

- Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories, I'm Mark McDonald in Springfield at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, and the Illinois Gallery, where they tackle a very difficult subject.

Stories of Survival, deals with seven genocidal events, in our recent history.

Christina Shutt, usually this exhibit space is devoted to original exhibits, that this museum puts on, you're hosting one this time.

- We are.

It's called Stories of Survival from the Chicago Holocaust Museum, and it's a piece of work, isn't it?

- It is, it's an incredible opportunity to come in, and experience someone's story, see stories of both pain, but also of triumph, of resiliency and consider what your story is, how the objects that you have in your life, impact you, even today.

- Mm-hmm.

- Dozens and dozens of the people we're gonna see today, and the artifacts that their families have handed down, were subject to genocidal events, all around the globe, and many of them didn't live through it, many of them didn't make it to the US, to have the experience of handing down these artifacts to their families, but those who did, left a very touching story, and that's, we're gonna hear many of those stories today.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

Come with me if you would, and let's take a look at how this, a person that's coming to this exhibit, should address it, huh?

Where should they start?

What should they do first?

- Well, looking at things like really the objects, that may be the first thing people encounter when they come in, and what I love about this exhibit is that, there are no labels telling you what the object is, it really allows you to think about what are the objects in your own life.

How they maybe resonate with you, then behind the objects on the wall you'll see the images, and photographer Jim Lommasson, who does just absolutely incredible work, has done work around war and around genocide, took photographs of these objects, and he does in such a way that it feels very lifelike and real, as if you were seeing the object itself on the wall, but what's great is that, the Illinois Holocaust Museum really took it a step further, and they said, we want people to live their story.

What is it about this object that is meaningful to them?

What is their story that they want to tell?

And so, along the edges of the images, you see people's handwritten notes, talking about the object - [Mark] Wow!

- [Christina] And sometimes it's the person who owned the object, sometimes it's their descendant, their child, or grandchild, who is sharing a story about the object, and again, why it resonates, what their story is with the object.

- And in many cases, you're lucky enough to also have a photograph of the person who left the object or wrote the notes.

- [Christina] Yes, there's also photographs that accompany it, as well as in some cases, a QR code that points to a video, which has the person talking about the object.

- Ooh, okay, so if you brought your smartphone with you, you can go ahead and identify that information.

- Absolutely.

- Okay, neat.

Okay, come with me if you would, around the corner.

- Yes - We were talking about these events of genocide around the world, and this would be the next stop, I mean, because many of these artifacts and notes, and diaries that you're gonna see here today, are a result of these conflicts.

- Absolutely, so, these conflicts, these genocides, that folks experience, they're telling their stories about what it means to leave their homeland, their country, and in many cases, eventually end up in Illinois, 90% of the stories featured in this exhibit, have Illinois connections.

- Mm-hmm.

- And that for us is one of the things that makes it so powerful.

You know, part of our mission is to tell a diverse Illinois story, and so by telling the story of our fellow Illinoisans, through these lenses, through their objects, we're hoping that again it will really resonate with people.

It will make them consider their own story, and their place in it, as they think about, well, what would they take, if they had to flee their country or to leave?

- Mm-hmm.

We're gonna hear stories today from the Holocaust, of course, in Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sudan, Rwanda, both from Africa, Iraq and Syria and were all very familiar with the recent recent wars there.

- [Christina] Absolutely.

- Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, and the Pol Pot, and the horrible instances there, Armenia with the Ottoman authorities, in that genocide.

We won't be able to hear stories from all those, I mean, most of these are from the Holocaust because they come from Illinois residents, and many of them were from (Mark murmurs).

But we'll hear others as well.

This is- - Well, and I think what makes it so powerful for people is, we think about again, the capacity of humans, both human suffering, but also what humans are able to survive, how these stories even come to be with us today.

- [Mark] Mm-hmm.

- And that's what really touches you, when you come into the exhibit, I don't think I've seen anybody walk through with a dry eye, that they haven't found some piece or some story, that really sort of tugged at their heartstrings.

- Yeah.

- [Mark] Little Ralph Rehbock, he looks like he's probably somewhere in the neighborhood, maybe six or seven years old there.

- [Christina] Yeah.

- It's called the Marklin Train Set, and this is really precious because, well, you tell them about the story.

(Mark chuckling) - Well, I think what's so amazing is, we often forget the way that things like the Holocaust and genocides impact children.

And this is such an interesting example of it, that Ralph was forced, of course, to the Nuremberg laws or paths, his family was forced to give up their German citizenship, and they're forced to leave the country and they can't take very much with them.

- [Mark] Mm-hmm.

- In fact, I think at the time, the Germans only allowed them to carry about $4, with them when they left, they confiscated everything else from these Jewish communities, and so his parents, as they were leaving the country, they purchased this train set, the Marklin Train Set for him, and so for Ralph, it was such a precious item, something that he carried with him his whole life.

And one of my favorite things about his story is that, not only did he cherish it, but he played with it, he used it, that it was something that his children, and then later his grandchildren played with and used, something from his own childhood.

- Yeah.

He is still alive.

He was such a cute little kid, and he says, "We were saved by the cousins in Chicago who sponsored us, "80 years have gone by after the train left Germany "with our family."

- Yeah.

- And you are also fortunate because here's the actual train set, - The actual train set.

- Oh!

Wow!

(Mark laughs) - And in so many ways it looks like a train set we might have today - [Mark] Yeah.

- [Christina] That our, you know, my little boy might play with.

- [Mark] Oh, he'd love it, yeah.

- [Christina] And I think, again, that's what really makes this exhibit so relatable, as you can imagine Ralph, leaving with this train set, first of all, the joy, that he may have experienced when his family gave him this, that even as the world was really falling apart around them, that here's a toy, something that feels a sense of normalcy.

- Imagine how they had to pack up everything in very small spaces, so this was really precious because this took up a really valuable space.

They didn't have much space to carry things out with.

- Absolutely.

But his parents thought it was important enough for him to have a childhood.

- And it's still here and it's still reminding us of that very day.

- Yeah.

- Now, these are always are very important for family as family heirlooms, and sometimes as you know, 'cause you have 'em in your family.

- Yeah.

- Platters and dishes and seasonal things like this, are very important.

So this came from Susan Birwari.

- Yes, she's from- - And she fled Baghdad.

- Yeah, Baghdad, Iraq.

And so one of the things that, of course, I think resonated with me about this dish is, again, we all grew up with that sort of family China and that family piece.

I myself, have a similar piece that was passed down from my grandmother, that when I left my family at home, that was the thing I took with me.

And so, you could imagine her and she shares, in her native language, right?

Her story, and of course we have a translation here, from Arabic, but she shares how she remembers, when she looks at that plate, when she eats off of it, what it means, those family meals, right?

The memories associated with it.

- She says, "I couldn't abandon this plate and leave.

"I wanted something that reminds me of my mother "and my home."

Very precious and it's right here the very plate is right here.

And you can see why it was precious to her, it's very beautiful, just beautiful.

- Oh yeah, I love the intricate details of the flowers and the scalloping around the edge.

And again, something so simple, like a piece of dinnerware, that was used on holidays, but something that really gets imbued with this powerful meaning, and this story that every time you eat off of this plate, maybe she remembers the things that her mother made.

- Exactly, she probably- - Recipe she prepared.

(Mark laughs) - Oh, and clothing too.

Clothing is the same way.

Do you remember your favorite clothes as kids?

(Christina laughs) And what you couldn't part with, and what you wouldn't, what you had to wear every day?

Now these baby pajamas tell an interesting story too.

- Yeah, so this was Margot Ashworth.

They're her pajamas, that she wore as a baby, and when she finally got too big to wear the pajamas, then she put the pajamas on her doll and she would carry her doll around.

And so again as they were leaving, as they were taking a train and then a ship to flee to Brazil, during the Holocaust, the doll had to be discarded.

But the things she was able to keep, were the pajamas.

And so for her, that was her connection to home.

Her memory of her youth in her Homeland, in her native country.

- So they ended up coming to Chicago.

Let's go around the corner because we get a better look.

- They did, yeah.

- To Chicago, they came through Ellis Island and ended up in Chicago.

But how sweet this is, that this very piece of clothing is still there with her if she wishes, it's with the museum now, but it's still with her and the family to be able to live the memory.

- [Christina] Yeah.

- [Mark] Leopold Fleischer, was in Hamburg, Germany, born there in 1910, lived at, in Illinois Northbrook until 1995.

He was a very religious man, a Jewish man, and he has left us, or his family has left us, some pictures and the absolute Tefillin is that the right way it's pronounced?

- Yep, it's Tefillin - Okay, since I... And I don't know that term.

- So it's traditional kind of adornments that would be worn, really for religious Jews.

It comes from, work out of Deuteronomy and Exodus where it talks about God giving the commandment to write his word on their head and their heart, right?

And so they actually would've stored prayers and things in the Tefillin, right?

And then affixed it to the head, it's still worn, particularly by Orthodox Jews, even today.

So if you thinking about those longstanding cultural, and religious traditions that communities have.

- He brought these from Germany with him, his family still had them, one of his descendants says, "My father Leopold Max Fleischer, "taught me love, compassion, loyalty, family values, "I miss him still."

- Yeah.

- This is his daughter, Judy.

And these actual artifacts are in your case here.

- They are- - And this is what they look like.

- They're right here.

Well, and what's amazing.

So they didn't just go to Germany, he actually ends up in Shanghai for a while.

- Oh.

- There were people who were trying to get Jews out for a short time, where Jews were trying to get to China, and get to Shanghai, and there was a small Jewish community, that kind of pops up there.

- [Mark] Really?

- Again, as people are fleeing the country, as folks are trying to save them, to be up-standers for justice, and so he ends up in Shanghai for a while, before eventually making his way to Illinois - What an Odyssey?

- Yeah - Oh God!

A lot of them went to South America, as we know, where we're gonna meet one that went to Dominican Republic.

- Yeah.

- But even to Japan, I read in some of- - Even to Japan.

- Before the Japanese imperial army destroyed Pearl Harbor there were some of them fleeing to Japan.

- Absolutely.

- Remarkable.

- And I mean, you know, when we think about even nowaday context and how people are really fleeing other parts of the world now, you know, fleeing the Ukraine.

You know, again, you see these moments of resonance where in some ways it feels like, oh my gosh, we're seeing history again, coming off the page.

- Right behind you.

This is one of your favorites, 'cause it's so colorful, I think.

- It is.

- But this is why I mentioned Dominican Republic.

And this is where Karl Loewy, I think is the way it's pronounced, ended up.

- [Christina] Yeah, so Karl, again, as he's leaving Austria, leaving Vienna, he ends up in the Dominican Republic and through kind of a crazy course of events.

He ends up becoming pen pals with Sally who will ultimately be his wife.

So they write to each other and eventually Sally goes to the Dominican Republic and about two weeks later, they're married.

But the thing that for me sets this apart is, you think about something like a simple wedding invitation, but the hand prints you see around it are his great-grandchildren.

This is his legacy.

This is the moment we talk about that resiliency in the story continuing, this is the evidence of it.

- [Mark] Judy Katz was from Romania and they of course were also affected by the disaster of mid-century in Eastern Europe.

And this scarfs important, it tells a lot doesn't it?

- It does.

So, Judy was actually wearing the scarf when she was imprisoned at Bergen Belsen.

And what is striking to me about the scarf is that, the story that her daughter actually shares connected to it, which is that, when she was wearing the scarf, the mother realized that they were dividing people up.

One group to go to the gas chambers and the other to go essentially to be worked to death.

And her mother quickly realizing it, pushes Judy into the work line and gets her out of the gas chamber line.

And so, because of her mother's quick decision, Judy survives the Holocaust and she takes the scarf.

She in fact carries the scarf with her throughout her time at Bergen Belsen.

And is able to then bring it with her when she eventually moves to Illinois.

- This very scarf is right over here.

It's probably all she had that she could take with her through that grim experience.

It's probably it, wasn't it?

- [Christina] Absolutely.

And we haven't here sort of decoratively portrayed as if, you know, the way she may have worn the scarf initially, but again, I think of when you think about these slivers of hope, right?

We were talking earlier about how do people survive these things?

How do they get through?

Well, maybe it's a sliver of hope.

It's looking at a scarf like this, holding it, touching in your hands, where you think about your mother or you think about my mother saved me.

And that gives you the strength to get through just another day.

- And even more disastrous story about it in a situation where a mother could not save her children.

Let's walk around this way if we can, because this one is grim too.

And it's even more sad because it takes place.

Well, it takes place in Rwanda.

- [Christina] It does.

- Another period of genocide, much more recent than the Holocaust.

But this mother was not as fortunate.

She was not able to save her kids.

- She wasn't.

So the words you see are the words of Immaculate, who was the mother of Larisa and I think Clarissa.

And she tells the story of how ultimately she was separated when, you know, when the devastation was happening in Rwanda, she was separated from her husband and from her daughters, her young daughters.

I think the oldest was five.

- Here's a picture of them right here.

Yeah.

- So Larisa and Clarissa, I mean, again, you see young children here.

And ultimately her children die, they're murdered and buried into a mass grave.

And the mother goes back years later to go find her daughters.

And she does find them in this grave, because she recognizes the clothes that they were wearing.

- [Mark] Oh my goodness.

- And from that, she takes their bodies that have deteriorated, that are now just bones wrapped around these clothes.

And she reburies her daughter.

She reenters them, to give them an honorable death.

The death that, you know, the funeral that they should have had, all right?

- [Mark] Mm-hmm.

- She reburies them, but she keeps the clothes as reminders of her daughters and the life that they didn't get.

And it's just so powerful, I think.

And you can't walk through this- - Yeah, the photos of these clothes are right on this wall here.

And let's move this way, because what we'll be able to do here is, end up finally with some pictures of the family before this horrific incident happened in much better times.

And then if you would move over this way, if you would, then what we have here is the actual children's clothes themselves.

And these were the ones that she took off the bodies and brought with her to remind her of her daughters.

It's just a- - [Christina] Yeah.

- [Mark] Remarkable and heartbreaking story.

And she continued somehow to live a fairly normal life.

- [Christina] Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I think one of the things that's so powerful to me is that, of course she doesn't forget her daughters.

She thinks of them every day.

And she writes about that in her story when she shares it, that she remembers her daughters each and every day, that she remembers them when she looks at their clothing.

But she also remembers them through the happier times of who they were as children, of the life that was stolen from them.

And that to me is so powerful.

- Yeah.

- That even out of the sort of death out of the, the dirt, the blood stains, that she still finds a reason to go on, to live, to honor her daughters.

- [Mark] A lady named Beatrice Ring.

Of course she was a child at the time, but she credits this typewriter with saving her and I think three of her family members, because they were able to communicate in a way that they wouldn't have been able to, right?

And in Nazi Germany, that was an important thing to be able to do.

- It was, I mean, she really credits this typewriter as saving her life, because her mother was able to write letters to relatives, to people they knew in Chicago, Illinois.

And so from that, they were really able to plead their case, to get them to sponsor them.

So at the time, because of racism and anti-Semitic laws around immigration, there were quotas on who could come and you had to have someone sponsor you.

And because of that, her mother would write these letters, type them on this typewriter here, trying to plead with folks to allow them to come to America because they saw what was happening.

In fact, this typewriter sees Kristallnacht in 1938.

And so this typewriter has seen so much.

It bears witness to so much, but of course Beatrice's story of how it saved her and her family.

- This is, and like you say, to eventually come to the United States, but oftentimes through many of these Kristallnacht, which was that night when the Nazis actually sent the message that they were going to commit damage, possibly murder of all the Jews in 1938.

It was a horrible night where property got damaged and burned and people got killed, but the message was sent that they were gonna be sent to camps.

- [Christina] Yeah.

- Or killed.

And that's when they all really got them.

And we've got to get out of here.

- Yeah, I think for so many people, it seems so unbelievable.

How can you do this to your fellow man?

How can you do this to women, to children?

But you know, to see the Nazis and their heart set on such destruction of whole people groups, right?

You think about, it wasn't just 6 million Jews.

It's two out of three, right?

I think 6 million can seem like such a big number for people, but when you're talking about two out of three people, right?

Out of, you know, you, me, and our cameraman, right?

Only one of us would survive.

And I think that is what really creates so much more kind of tangibleness of how destructive the Holocaust really was.

- Come around the corner with me, if you would, Christina.

We had mentioned a, you know, Bosnia, Herzegovina earlier and the genocide that occurred there.

These are interesting because of course, this is much more timely because it happened in the nineties.

But these men that did this are still alive in the Chicago area.

Healthy, got great memories, but they were in camps too, as well.

They were in concentration camps as well.

And these were some of the things that they did to take their mind off and sometimes just to be able to get through a day.

- [Christina] Yeah, so you see the story of Meased Kosavak and he's writing recipes.

So when they didn't have work detail in the camps, they came up with this idea that, if they could write down their recipes when they were starving, that it might help them kind of get through their hungry stomachs.

- [Mark] Yeah, yeah.

- But it also is this great way of preserving their culture and their history.

You think about food and the memories of the food and how it's so closely tied to our culture, our upbringing.

And so here's one way in which they're preserving their culture by writing recipes down.

- And again, over here, just another example, this is the same, same man, when they weren't doing that, and when they had a moment to lighten up, they were playing cards, but they had to make their own cards.

- [Christina] They made their own cards.

That's what's so miraculous, again, the idea of people finding play, finding something to distract them from their current situation.

They take an empty box of crackers, right?

To make a chess board or make playing cards as you see here.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- [Christina] As a way to, again, take their mind off the distraction.

- And again, it's so effective because you have the actual artifacts right here in a case, right next door.

That here are the playing cards, and it's surrounded by these recipes that he and his friends were keeping.

And when you think, oh, it's a photograph, that's really good.

But then you look at the real deal.

- [Christina] Well, and the fact that he kept them, that he decided that, you know, even after he left and he comes to America, he decides to still keep the playing cards, right?

I often wonder, is that something that helps him remember both his time and finding those slivers of hope even in the midst of the Bosnian conflict?

- [Mark] Yeah.

Well, you know, we take for granted that, you know, we're in the United States and we know English, but for somebody coming here after an event in their country where they had to leave, they don't know English by most of the time and learning it is really essential, isn't it?

- Absolutely, I mean, learning and knowing English is vital to people's thriving their survival here in America, because so much of our world exists in being able to read and write and speak English.

- And, so here's an example of a young man, Alise Gasigua, I think, is his name.

He had this Swahilied English dictionary and you can see that he used it a lot.

- [Christina] He did, and you can see the well worn pages, the tape, right from there's kind of part of the United Nation's label on the book.

And so, or likely he had to tape it back together from turning the pages so much from using it.

(Mark chuckles) - [Mark] Oh man.

And that would be a tough transition, but they're not really easy.

Look fatalism is one of the words that you have to learn.

Fata- - [Christina] I don't think- - Imperialism- - [Christina] When I learned English.

- [Mark] Yeah, I mean, that's pretty sophisticated stuff.

That's not dog and cat.

And then these are pictures of him in the old country before, I guess, before he had to leave.

- Yeah, so this is actually his family, his wife Esther, and then his children after the genocide.

- [Mark] Oh, after, terrific, terrific.

- You know, some of the kids in the refugee camp, he actually leaves and then is able to come back.

And through an Adventist agency to help his country.

- [Mark] Yeah.

Ursula Meyer was able to bring her Teddy bear.

She came from Bremen and that was in 1982.

Let's see, 1919, she's still alive.

And this is her Teddy bear that survived with her.

- [Christina] Yeah, I think what's so amazing to me and striking about her story is, the way that she describes it as a torrent, right?

As a storm, as the damage caused by the deluge.

This idea that it's almost this sort of hurricane like forces that have destroyed her community, the people that she knew, but yet what still survives is the Teddy bear, right?

A simple child's object.

I think we started with a simple child's object.

And so again, the idea of something like a Teddy bear.

- Yeah.

- Having that meaning.

- [Mark] Yeah, this was written by the Deniece, and that's why it was in the eighties, of course.

And here's the very Teddy bear over here.

It looked a lot bigger in the photograph, didn't it?

But missing an eye, but still loved, very much loved.

Christina, come with me.

And I want to visit this room because when you're through with this exhibit.

Oh, thank you.

There it is.

When you're through with this exhibit, you have an opportunity to come in here and do a little interview about your story and that's kind of what you wanted to do, wasn't it?

When you invited people in here.

- Absolutely, you know, this is about people sharing their story at the kitchen table.

We know folks are gonna come through here.

They're gonna remember their own stories, right?

They'll remember their stories of eating those meals.

You know, those recipes that we saw from Bosnia or the dinner platters that we saw from Iraq, right?

They might even remember having a train set as a child.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- And so we wanna give them an opportunity to tell their story.

So we have a quick process that people can sign up.

The instructions are just at the door for signing up for how they can share their story with the museum.

- Well, thank you very much.

This is gonna evoke a lot of memories for a lot of people.

Thank you.

- Thank you for being here.

- Stories of Survival is here at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum through January of 2023.

And it comes with your admission to the museum.

With another of Illinois Story in Springfield, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

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