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Sparks
Tribune
May 26, 2000
Austrian
interns encourage peace
A Closer Look - Holocaust Awareness
by Janine Simonoski
When faced with the choice to promote peace through
the military or through the minds of high school students,
two Austrian men chose knowledge, and have brought the
terrors of the Holocaust to life for more than 1,000
Nevada students.
Heinz
Boesch, 26, and Andreas Feuerstein, 22, spoke about
the Holocaust and ways to recognize prejudice and promote
peace to two classes at Proctor H. Hug High School Thursday.
Boesch
and Feuerstein have been working full-time with the
University of Nevada, Reno's Center for Holocaust, Genocide
& Peace Studies since last fall, as part of an Austrian
national program to promote Holocaust and peace education
worldwide.
"Prejudice
is everywhere, not just specific to one country or another,"
Feuerstein said. "If I make an impact on only one
child, it was worth my doing it."
The
two chose the 14-month "commemorative service"
program instead of eight months of mandatory military
service. Although both receive funding for some living
expenses from the Austrian government, differing monetary
rates have added extra expenses for the two, who are
using money from relatives and savings to survive.
"For
both of us, this is much more meaningful than military
service," Feuerstein said. "It's more meaningful
to talk to young people about peace education, than
go into the Army and learn how to use rifles and fight
wars."
While
some students may have seen Steven Spielberg's film
about the Holocaust, "Schindler's List," many
students learned of the Holocaust for the first time
Thursday from Boesch and Feuerstein, whose relatives
experienced it first-hand.
Participating
in the Holocaust and peace education program has also
increased Feuerstein's knowledge of his own family's
history.
Feuerstein
spoke with is parents by telephone a little while ago,
and discovered that his grandparents on his father's
side were Jewish and were sent to a concentration camp
during the war.
Once
while visiting Feuerstein's grandmother on his mother's
side, she told him of one big house in the village where
she grew up that was occupied by the Nazis as office
space. But no-one spoke out because of the totalitarian
government, he said.
Boesch's
father, who was a teenager at the time, speaks to his
son about his experiences on occasion.
Much
of their work focuses on how young people can stop the
cycle of prejudice and violence.
"We
as human beings, are responsible to see the early sings
of persecution of other people, in racist jokes, prejudice,
laws and propaganda," Feuerstein said. "We
need to make them aware of these things. Genocide just
doesn't happen overnight. If we don't do something,
these things can get out of control."
One
solution suggested by Feuerstein, a political science
major, is for students to learn more about people and
cultures that are different from their own.
"I
would encourage young people to see another culture
and another way of life, because we all have prejudice,
but this would take it away," Feuerstein said.
"Other people have the same needs - food, shelter,
friendship - no matter what they believe in. You learn
very quickly that differences always are smaller than
the similarities."
Feuerstein
and Boesch will continue making presentations at Nevada
high schools through September and October of this year,
respectively. This branch of the program, run through
the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Peace Studies,
will continue when two other interns replace Feuerstein
and Boesch.
"Commemorative
service" interns are spreading their message of
peace in Poland, France, Italy and the U.K. In the U.S.,
interns are working at Holocaust centers and museums
in San Francisco, Tampa, FL., Montreal, Canada, and
at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and at Spielberg's Shoah
Foundation in L.A.
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