A Boring Evening at Home: Robin Dern

Posted At : February 20, 2009 1:00 AM
Related Categories: History

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Taken from A Boring Evening at Home by Gerda Weissmann Klein, published by Leading Authorities Press and used by permission.

Read by Robin Dern, Executive Director, Congregation Beth Sholom: "I was 15 when I first read Gerda Weissmann Klein's autobiography, and one of the great privileges of my life was meeting her when she visited Alaska." Robin has served the Jewish community of Anchorage for the past eleven years. She is a strong advocate of youth empowerment and is passionate about creating meaningful service-learning opportunities for kids of all ages. To find out more about engaging youth in volunteerism, Robin suggests you visit www.learnandserve.org.

Gerda Weissmann Klein received an Oscar for the documentary One Survivor Remembers, the story of her experience in the camps of World War II. In her book, A Boring Evening at Home, Mrs. Klein writes:

"In the glare of spotlights and amid the blaze of jewels, I held an Oscar in my hand, but my thoughts harked back to the icy, merciless winter days when I was on a death march during the last bitter months of World War II, holding a battered, rusty bowl in my hands. I was praying that when I finally got to the front of the line, there would be some food left in the kettle. And if the ladle went a little deeper and by some miracle brought forth a potato, I would be a winner!

I could not help but think that I do not want my grandchildren -- or any children -- to live in a world in which a potato is more valuable than an Oscar. Nor do I want them to live in a world in which an Oscar is so important that nobody cares whether some people still do not have a potato."

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