Welcome to The "1939" Club  

Profile of Chapman  University

President Doti's Address

Lecture Series

Distribution of Holocaust Chronicle

Essay Contest

Holocaust Related Articles

 Chapman University

Chapman University, situated in the historically-preserved Old Towne Orange neighborhood, successfully blends historic buildings dating back to the early 1900s (seven of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places) with modern structures. The harmony of contrasting styles of Memorial Hall, with its neo-classic columns, and the marble and glass of Argyros Forum (the university center), coupled with lush landscaped grounds creates a serene, intimate environment.

In addition to classroom and laboratory buildings, the campus includes five residence halls, two apartment complexes, the university library, an indoor athletic complex, a stadium, and a chapel.

Just completed are two new buildings: the School of Law building, and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Business & Technology Hall. The Ray and Pauline Wallace All Faiths Chapel, designed by renowned architect, E. Fay Jones, is under construction.

Places Rated Almanac named Orange Country, Chapman University's home, the best place to live in North America, citing the weather, the superior arts, and job growth: "It is a thriving, exciting, desirable area in which to live." It's also a great place to go to school.

The city of Orange, only 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles, offers the charm and safety of a small town plus the unlimited social and cultural opportunities of one of the nations top metropolitan areas.

James L. Doti
President of Chapman University
(from his address to The "1939" Club)

As president of a university I have occasion to give many speeches. But now as I stand before such a large group of Holocaust survivors, I cannot think of a time when I have been in greater awe of an audience. I am grateful and honored, however, for your invitation for me to speak today and to explain why Christoph Meili, his wife, Guissipena, and daughter, Mirjam, and son, Davide, will soon become members of our Chapman community.

The story begins when a chance encounter helped inspire a very special person by the name of Marilyn Harran toward a goal of never letting others forget the lessons of the Holocaust. While working on her dissertation in a hot, cramped office one night in New York, Marilyn was approached by the weekend janitor, who was from Poland. Mentioning that he wanted to show her some drawings, she agreed to take a look. And what she saw - rough, charcoal drawings of chimneys and bodies - haunted her. Drawn by the janitor's wife, who had been a death camp inmate, the sketches brought home to Marilyn the horror of the Holocaust. Researching the topic, she found plenty of fuel to keep the flames burning for her search for more information about the Holocaust.

Those flames still burn bright at Chapman University, where Marilyn Harran became a professor of religion and history and founded our program in Holocaust Studies. In a course outline for one of the student-packed classes she teaches on the Holocaust is the statement: "The Holocaust challenges us to ask many questions about society and about ourselves as human beings. To keep the promise 'never again' we must understand how National Socialism drew so many people into its orbit, some as fervent believers, some as silent but compliant bystanders. We will reflect together on the choices that people had during that time - and the choices that we have before us today as we face new challenges from neo-Nazi and other hate groups in the United States and abroad."

It was that janitor and his wife's charcoal drawings that reinforced Marilyn Harran's conviction that hearing directly from the source would be a vitally important component in teaching about the Holocaust, the lessons to be learned from it and the choices we have before us today. That is why in her Holocaust courses, Professor Marilyn Harran has had people like the following speak in her class: Mel Mermelstein, Leon Leyson, Michael Berenbaum and Leopold Page, all of whom I am pleased and honored to say are with us today in the audience.

I'm sure you all know the story of Leopold Page, who was born as Poldek Pfefferberg in Poland. He became a university professor, but ended that career when he joined the Polish Army to fight the Nazis. Wounded in the leg in 1939, he managed to return to his home in Cracow. That same year he met Oskar Schindler, who decades later become famous as the hero of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List.

Leopold Page had our students laughing at anecdotes about his plight to get Schindler's story told. He recalled how he would offer cut-rate discounts on the fine handbags sold in his shop to relatives of filmmakers. He told about the one producer who bought the story in the mid- 1960's and came back with a script so badly written that Page felt compelled to buy back the rights. While the stories he recounted must have brought to mind the unimaginable atrocities he endured in his life, the only hint of tears in Page's eyes came when about 100 of our students sang "Happy Birthday" for his 83d birthday that year.

Leopold Page is still euphoric over getting his story of Schindler to Thomas Kineally, who wrote the book, and to Stephen Spielberg, who directed the Academy Award winning film that millions have seen.

As Leopold Page ended his talk at Chapman, he said something I'll never forget. He said, "I can't explain or analyze anti-Semitism or prejudice of any kind. I can only present myself to students like you and say that love is easier than hate." This mirrored the statement I heard a Sobibor survivor, Thomas "Tovi" Blatt, make to another of Professor Harran's Holocaust classes: "I don't hate the Germans. I don't hate the Poles. I hate the idea of hate." What amazing statements from people who endured so much hate.

Around the time that Leopold Page visited Professor Harran's Holocaust course, a young man by the name of Christoph Meili was working as a guard for a Swiss bank. Christoph knew not a single Jew when he was growing up in Aargau County, Switzerland. In his schooling, he had been taught almost nothing about the Holocaust, but he sensed that something was wrong when one day at work he walked into the bank's shredding room and noticed two large boxes that overflowed with books and documents dating back to World War II.

Christoph, who had been deeply moved by the motion picture, Schindler's List, decided to save those documents. When he was later asked why he did what he did, Christoph said, "Oskar Schindler was only a businessman, but when he saw what was happening to the Jews, he began to act. I was only a bank guard, but I also knew there was something I had to do."
As a result of doing what he did, Christoph lost his job, and after receiving vicious telephone calls and death threats, he and his supportive and encouraging wife, Guissipena, were granted permanent residency in our country.

When we at Chapman learned about what Christoph had done and learned of his dream of gaining a university education, we felt, as Christoph felt when he saved those documents, that we, too, had to do something. I contacted William Elperin, president of the "1939 Club," who was already working on introducing Christoph to other California schools. Mr. Elperin was devoting an incredible amount of time to visiting these schools, and giving many more hours of careful, attentive and considerate thought to finding the best possible place for Christoph and his family. So I was surprised that he was willing to traipse out to yet one more school to see what Chapman had to offer. But he did. And after several more visits with Christoph and his family, we were elated to hear that Christoph and Guissipena decided to join our Chapman community.

At the heart of Chapman University's mission is the development of ethical lives. Although we certainly value knowledge, our commitment is to an even greater purpose, to inspiring students to care and to translate what they are leaming into awareness and ethical action. Education at Chapman means not only career preparation, but preparation for life, as we encourage students to learn from the past in order to meet the challenges of the present and thereby be better able to shape the future.

Christoph Meili is someone who has already made that connection between the lessons of the past and the challenges of the present. That is why we are so fortunate to have Christoph at our university. He will be a living symbol within our community of the fact that one person's decision to act in the cause of justice and humanity can make a difference. As one of the students in Professor Harran's Holocaust course wrote in a final paper: If we sit back and ignore, or choose not to act, when we see others suffering there will come a time when we will be the ones to suffer. At that time, who will act on our behalf? One person, no matter how small, can make a difference and when several individuals do what they can, the effect increases. We must not surrender our personal responsibility for the sake of obedience or personal safety. Empathy, put into action, can stop the power of hatred.

When it was announced that Chapman had granted Christoph a four-year tuition scholarship, I received a moving and inspiring book by Flory Van Beek in the mail. It is a remarkable autobiography, both tragic and uplifting, about Jews living in hiding in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation. In the book she wrote the following to me: "To President James Doti, with heartfelt gratitude to you for giving Christoph Meili a scholarship at Chapman." Flory Van Beek.

I hope you know by now that Flory Van Beek shouldn't be thanking me. The people to thank are Thomas Kineally and Stephen Spielberg, who through telling of Schindler's story inspired Christoph Meili to action; to Leopold Page, for bringing Schindler's story to Kineally and Spielberg; to Marilyn Harran, for bringing Leopold Page to Chapman; and to that Polish Jew, for bringing his wife's charcoal drawings to Professor Harran, inspiring her to bring the lessons of the Holocaust to our leaming community.

So you see, it's one full circle with no beginning and no end, but you who survivors of a brutal annihilation and cataclysm of human history are the fuel that gives that circle its energy.
All of us owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude for the courage you show in your lives, for sharing your experiences with new generations and for teaching them that they must always strive to find the courage to speak and to act in the cause of justice and humanity.

Lecture Series

The “1939” Cub has funded a lecture series relating to the Holocaust and tolerance.  Specific lectures and dates will be posted as available.

Distribution of The Holocaust Chronicle

The “1939” Club and Chapman University will distribute The Holocaust Chronicle free of charge to all High Schools and Middle Schools in Orange County.

 The Holocaust Chronicle is a 750 page, not-for-profit book.  It is a unique, never-before-attempted treatment of the Holocaust.  It is an oversized hardcover with more than 2000 arresting images, many in color and most never before published in book form.  These images have been drawn from archives and private collections located around the globe.

More than 30 full-color maps created expressly for The Holocaust Chronicle show ghettos, concentration and extermination camps, deportations, Jewish populations, and relevant military operations. The book is formatted to give particular attention to the key Holocaust-related years, 1933-1946, in a dramatic word-and-picture layout.  Captions are generous and informative.  Throughout, more than 300 sidebars focus on key events, personalities, and issues.

Anchoring the book’s pages is a detailed, 80,000 word timeline of Holocaust-related events. During the war years the timeline entries run virtually day-by-day. These elements-illustrations, extended captions, sidebars, maps, and timeline of events put a powerful human face on the Holocaust. The events are presented not as abstractions, but as moments and days and years in the lives of living, breathing people.  The book’s immediacy is startling.

The book’s publisher, Louis Weber, founded Chicago based Publications International, Ltd. in 1967.  Since that time, he has enjoyed considerable success in the publishing business. The son of Polish Jews who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s, Mr. Weber is keenly aware of the 20^th century European Jewish experience.  With more than thirty years of prosperous endeavor behind him, Mr. Weber wishes to “give something back,” and to utilize the unique resources of his company to produce an accurate and affordable book about the Holocaust that is affordable by institutions and individuals. International publishing rights will be given to foreign publishers at no charge.  The editor-in-chief of the Holocaust Chronicle is David Hogan.

Essay Contest

The Youth of Today Carry Forward The Chapman University Holocaust Essay Contest  This is the second year that two Holocaust-related contests for students have elicited contributions from the young people of Southern California.

The Chapman University Holocaust Essay Contest was co-sponsored by The Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman University and The "1939" Club with generous support from Publications International, Ltd., Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, and the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Each participating school selected two finalists who were eligible to win the $500 prize in each division. Finalists also received copies of The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures and the CD-Rom Survivors: Testimonies of the Holocaust produced by Steven Spielberg as well as an accompanying guide published by Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. Based on Gerda Weissman Klein’s book, All But My Life, the students were given the following writing prompt:

Each of us leaves behind a legacy. This can be a positive legacy of accomplishment and service or a negative one of pain and suffering as in the Holocaust or in the violence that occurred at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado on April 20, 1999, the anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birth. Write an essay or poem in which you explore how you can create through your life a positive legacy that honors the survivors of the Holocaust and the memory of other innocent victims, such as those who perished at Columbine High School.

We are proud to present this year’s winners in poetry and essay writing.

I Will Stand

 Erin Poole, Terra Cotta Middle School, Lake Elsmore

1.  When it seems everyone is sitting still for cruelty and  hatred,

2.  I will stand.

3.  Against violence such as Columbine, and tyranny such as   Hitler.

4.  I will stand.

5.  When it seems that ignorance and prejudice are holding us down,

6.  I will stand.

7.  When we ignore each other’s basic needs for compassion,

8.  I will stand.

9.  When I walk into school,

10. I tell violence it has not won.

11. When I learn and share the knowledge,

12. I tell ignorance to go away.

13. When I celebrate the differences between human beings,

14. I tell prejudice to fade.

15. For our world, our lives, and our future,

16.  We must all stand.

 To Answer Their Call

Miriam Scatterday, Acaciawood School

First Place Essay, Middle School

  Dreams

 Irene Padilla, Imperial Middle School

             As innocent victims are caught in the crossfire between racists and their beliefs, the world continues to see horrid examples of how hatred can destroy the beauty of humanity.  As a result of such ignorance and blind faith, many have been discouraged from seeing the truth.  Examples such as the Holocaust, Columbine High School, and cruelty on our own playgrounds, perpetuate the belief that mankind needs a lesson in empathy.  If there were any hope left after the horror of such events, it would be the beauty of the belief that our own hopes and dreams are more powerful than hatred itself.

          We can never lose sight of our dreams.

          I remember when my dad would tell me stories about the hardships his family persevered when they left Mexico.  One story in particular left a strong impression.  The day he came to La Habra, California would forever change his life and in return, mold mine.  Upon arrival, he enrolled in high school, but had to drop out to help support his family.  Life would be different in America.  His carefree days of youth were gone.  He found himself secluded from other teenagers, and withstood ridicule for being “poor” and “different.”  Soon after, he married and was met with even more responsibilities.  He worked harder than most his age to create a better life for his family.

          He never lost sight of his dreams.

          I have always been proud of who I am.  Although I was born in the U.S., the blood that courses through my veins belongs to a true Mexicana.  But sadly, I have also endured ridicule and doubt for who I am.  As a product of bilingual education, I can recall an incident in the third grade that will never leave me.  A young girl approached me, pointed, and called me “retarded.”  She said I couldn’t speak English.  This incident alone fueled a yearning for success that still empowers me today.  Even as a young girl, standing alone in the playground, I knew that this teasing and cruelty would not hold me back.  Today, I still strive to survive in a world that sometimes seems to have no compassion for difference.

          I have never lost sight of my dreams.

          It is sad to know that there is still racism in this world.  One would think it would be gone and over with by now.  Everyone should put aside their pride and try to make the world a better place.  The Holocaust survivors never gave up on their fight for survival.  My father struggled in the light of adversity for his own family.  Devastating words did not taint my own experience. 

          People of diverse beliefs should not be viewed without empathy.  Fathers should never give up on a dream of a peace and acceptance for their family.  Children should not be silenced by hatred.

          No one should lose sight of their dreams.

First Place Essay, High School

  Day of Sorrow and Hope

 Kate Kestenboym, Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School, Irvine

 In Times of sorrow, take heart,

Though you stand at death’s door: the

Candle flares up before it dies, and

Wounded Lions roar.

           (Take Heart, Samuel Hanagid)   When I was ten years old, I read a story which had a great impact on me.  This story was about a Jewish family – a father, a mother, and their little daughter.  During World War II, righteous gentiles hid this family in a tiny underground hole.  The hot summer turned into a rainy autumn; then the cold and snowy winter began; then once again the rainy spring started… This did not last for a day, a week, nor a month, but a couple of years.  Sometimes the family thought that death was better than this type of life.

         All children dream of something and this little girl had a dream too.  She dreamed… of crying.  However, she could not start to cry because every time she began to do so, her parents begged her to stop and told her that the Nazis would hear her, and kill them and the people who were hiding them.  I often thought about this girl, and every time I did so, I wanted to cry with her.  However, I always calmed myself by telling myself that this story was fictional.

          When I moved to the United States six years ago, I began attending Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School, which I am still attending.  There, I saw a real person who lived through the same situation as the little girl and her family.   The founder of this school, Irving Gelman, his family, and a girl whose mother and father were murdered by the Nazis and who later became his wife, were hidden underground by a Polish family.  I think that they also often wanted to cry.

          In Israel, there is a day when for one minute everything pauses.  Everyone, wherever they may be, stops and remembers the millions of innocents who perished because of someone’s madness, hate and anger, and because of someone else’s indifference.  I think that there should be a day like this in the United States and in every other country, a day when for a least one minute people will stop, remember the perished innocents, and think about what should be done so that this will never happen again.  When the war ended and the almost blind mother, father and daughter came out of the hole, the first thing the girl asked was “Can I cry now?”

          I would name this day – DAY OF SORROW AND HOPE, sorrow for those whose lives were taken and hope that this will never happen again.  I would make the little girl whose dream was to cry the symbol of this day.