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Message from the executive director, Louisa Hollman
Greetings to all of you! As I write to you on this fourth day of Hanukah and the Thanksgiving weekend, I can’t help but remark that the concurrence of these two holidays (which will occur again in 70,000 years!) that celebrate thanks and gratitude is especially meaningful for all of us who are dedicated to promoting the projects of The Defiant Requiem Foundation. I have been so honored to serve as the Executive Director of The Foundation for the past three years and my personal thankfulness and gratitude to all of you who have supported our projects, donated funds, attended our concerts and film screenings, and been moved by the story we tell, cannot be overstated.
This is our inaugural eNewsletter and we are pleased to send you news from our past year and information about our upcoming events and projects. Our goal is to send this out three times a year.
We’ve had an extremely busy year filled with concerts and film screenings. We completed a high-quality curriculum guide for the film that we plan to send to school systems and make available to teachers for use in the classroom. We’ve applied for a very large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create the ultimate “Terezín Website” and to set up training conferences in DC for teachers and librarians nationwide to head back to their communities to teach the Terezín story. We will learn if we receive this grant in March 2014.
I was honored to attend the Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual Awards Dinner in LA last June and watch our Founder and President Murry Sidlin receive their Medal of Valor Award for his “extraordinary efforts to keep alive the memory of Rafael Schächter” and for Murry’s singular efforts to illuminate the Terezín legacy.
Our distinguished Chairman of the Board, Stuart E. Eizenstat, who annually receives kudos and recognition for his global work on behalf of Holocaust survivors and reparation issues, was honored at the Moment Magazine dinner on November 24 in Washington, DC.
I would also like to thank our dedicated Director of Finance, Janet Masetti, who has worked with us the past four years. Many of you know Janet and saw that she was far more than a numbers cruncher for us. She just moved to New Mexico, where she lived previously, and has many old friends. We wish her all the best. I also want to welcome our new Director of Finance, David Welch.
I could write much more but have been cautioned by our editor, Peter Goodman, that no one wants to read too much and that our articles must be succinct! With that in mind, I send all of you my heartfelt thanks for supporting The Defiant Requiem Foundation over the past four years and I hope your enthusiasm for our work will continue into the years ahead. We have much more to accomplish!
Lastly, information about all of our programs and upcoming concerts can be found in detail on our website atwww.defiantrequiem.org.
Warm regards for a happy and health holiday season,
Louisa