By Noah Tetro on Jewish Lives NZ…
Growing up Jewish, I always had an interest in the Holocaust from a young age. This wasn’t solely out of partisanship however – I have always been an admirer of history, learning lessons from our ancestors and bygone eras.
Therefore, in late 2015, an opportunity arose for me to incorporate my (rather primitive compared to now) knowledge of the Holocaust into something called exhibition day, where each student of year 6 made an exhibition demonstrating their accumulated knowledge over a topic they were passionate about.
I chose the Holocaust without much hesitation, and I got to work creating my project with images, key facts, and explanations about an event that came to define modern society.
In order for my young brain to comprehend the sheer volume and horror that had taken place between 1941-45, my father, Marcus, contacted somebody who he had met through his work at the Auckland Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish burial and benevolence society, Mr. Benjamin Steiner.
He made an interesting proposal to me, that I interview Mr. Steiner to get a more authentic lens through which I viewed the events of the Holocaust.
Read Noah’s full article on Jewish Lives NZ here.
Noah Tetro interviewed Holocaust survivor Benjamin Steiner in 2015 as part of a school project. He was ten years old. Noah is now seventeen, and about to embark on a conjoint global studies/arts degree at the University of Auckland.
