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A Note from Stuart Nichols

Education…A Legacy Forum will provide a community of information about learning and teaching the Holocaust. Visitors are invited to contribute articles, content, and feedback. Stuart Nichols, whose Virtual Tour of Auschwitz has been a central part of the Cybrary, is the moderator and developer of this new section. He shares his thoughts and inspirations which led to a new section at the Cybrary, devoted to creating a community of online educational efforts.

Build It and They Will Come
The Creation of Education…A Legacy Forum

by Stuart Nichols

Mike:

It’s a very strange time. I’m reading Sidney Iwens’ book and have become an18 year old in hiding and thrilled by scraps of news of the fight at Stalingrad. I checked into the holocaust newsgroup today and found a liberator who’s breaking his own 50 years of silence. Leon Tabory just stunned me with his intellect and insight by way of his response to my idea of calling the nascent educational forum “Shtetl” – a community of ideas and exchange. I’ve been asked to join a chat group targeting high school students (and already featuring Joey). Readers in Australia are commending my work to their children.

All of this comes together in my thinking about a new forum. Driving concepts like Shtetl, Crossroads, Cross Currents, The Meeting Place, Intersections, etc., etc., etc. have been on my mind. But I think “Legacy” is about right. You may have already realized it, but, in case you haven’t, you’ve succeeded in drawing 4 generations of absolute strangers into a discussion which will likely continue for years. And it’s just what I’d hoped I might contribute to.

I’d like to take the range of what’s been handed down to us in the form of sites, memories, feelings of loss, contemporary recriminations, or what have you into a Legacy forum. Joey has a handle on the survivors and is doing beautiful work. I’d like to take on other aspects of what’s being handed down – the camps, the seekers, the less remembered (gays, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.), anti-Polonism, and more. The central thread comes out ofmy own question – Just what is it we must never forget? – and adds the question “How shall we remember?” It could bring in the issue of the camps as physical evidence, for example, including virtual tours, the curren tdebate over their preservation, the need to locate and identify them if only on e-paper. I’d encourage the liberators to come out. An “In Search Of” link could be fielded at some point. Newsgroups could be polled in search of contributors on lesser-known victims.

If I may coin a phrase, build it and they will come.

Can you dig it?

Stuart C. Nichols

Reply to: scnichols@nmaa.org

The node grows.

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