Holocaust Education Committee of the Quad Cities

The Lloyd M. Burstein Memorial “Holocaust Film Series 2017” begins March 12, 4:00 pm at the Figge Art Museum: (225 W. 2nd Street, Davenport, IA). Admission: Adults – $7; Seniors (60+) & Military – $6; Students – Free.

Sunday, March 12, 4:00pm:  Cloudy Sunday

Sunday, March 19, 4:00pm:  Professor Mamlock

Sunday, April 2, 4:00pm:  Defiant Requiem

Sunday, April 9, 4:00pm:  Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War

Lloyd Burstein was born in 1920 in Granville, Illinois to Latvian parents fleeing religious persecution in the pre-WWI Baltic State. During the Depression, Lloyd, who was the oldest of 5 children, worked hard to keep his siblings together as they lived in a cooperative Jewish children’s orphanage in Southern California, and simultaneously he took night classes at UCLA to earn an undergraduate degree in physics. Lloyd was a Radar Battalion Officer in the US Army during WWII and afterwards continued his career as a systems engineer in the DC area. In 1957, he and his family settled in Vienna, Virginia where Lloyd was very active in uplifting the inner city community through the integration of schools, equal educational opportunities, and civil rights initiatives. In 1999, Lloyd received the Human Rights Award from the Fairfax County Human Rights Commission.

Presenting sponsor for this film series is: The Joyce and Tony Singh Family Foundation. Additional sponsors include the Rauch Family Foundation II, Inc. and Wheelan-Pressley Funeral Homes.

Yom HaShoah will be held April 23, 2017, at 7:00 PM at Temple Emanuel (1115 Mississippi Ave., Davenport, IA).

Yom HaShoah, or “Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust,” occurs every year in communities around the world. In the Quad Cities, Yom HaShoah has been observed annually since 1982. Sponsors include the Jewish Federation of the Quad Cities, Temple Emanuel, Tri-City Jewish Center, Churches United, Augustana College and St. Ambrose University. It is believed to be the oldest continuing interfaith Yom HaShoah commemoration.

This year’s main speaker is Doris Fogel, who was living in Berlin with her family on Kristallnacht, when synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed across Germany and Austria. The next year (1939), family and friends arranged passage to China. The port city of Shanghai was, for many Jews, the last refuge that could be reached without a passport, visa, or affidavit. After nearly a decade in sometimes terrible conditions, she left Shanghai and came to the United States, settling in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

  In memory of Samuel M. Gilman and for his lifetime of service in the Quad Cities. Sam Gilman was known by many as an amazing man, adoring father/husband and friend. The latter was true even for those who did not know the 96-year-old Rock Island attorney but reaped the benefits of his deep investment in community, philanthropic, charitable and commercial activities.

“Sam was a model of servant leadership for me,” Mr. Swanson said. “He didn’t need to be in spotlight, but his guidance, vision and wisdom were essential to more community initiatives than I can count.”

Contributions so often given quietly are hard to catalog. But here are a few that we do know about:
— Founding member and director emeritus of Doris & Victor Day Foundation, which has contributed $19 million to the Q-Cs.
— The Rauch Family Foundation Board, where fellow board member Mark Schwiebert said,  “His love of this community and deep abiding concern for helping those in need were evident in all our conversations. The lives he touched through his legal and charitable work will provide an ongoing testimonial to his life of service to Rock Island and our Quad-Cities region. I wish we had more like him.”
— Co-founder of WQAD and WQPT.
— Co-founder and board member of the Jewish Federation of the Quad Cities. To executive director Allan Ross, Mr. Gilman was both a friend and a mentor “who had an incredible dedication to Jewish communities locally, in Israel and around the world.” For example, even traveling with Rep. Lane Evans to the then-Soviet Union to loosen restrictions on Jewish “Refuseniks” who were forbidden to emigrate from the Soviet Union, especially to Israel.

At home, he helped to found the Quad Cities Holocaust Remembrance Committee. Mr. Swanson said his own service on that committee  “was made more meaningful for me both by the insightful questions Sam would ask, and by the confidence he exuded in the simple belief that if you work hard today, you can make tomorrow better for all of us.”

His life of service offers an excellent road map for how to get there. Our condolences to his loved ones and to a community enriched by his life but made poorer by his loss.

Winners of the Ida S. Kramer “Children and the Holocaust” essay contest, sponsored annually by The Quad Cities Yom Hashoah Committee and opened to Quad City students in grades 7-12, have been announced. Winning essays are posted on the Ida S. Kramer Essay page.

1st Place: Grace Hipple, 12th Grade, Davenport Central HS. Essay titled “Fighting for Freedom: Simone Segouin’s Brave Resistance to Nazi Persecution.”

2nd Place: Noor Ain, 10th Grade, Davenport Central High School. Essay titled “Marion-The Lady Who Inspired Me.”

3rd Place: Amen Gabre, 12th Grade, Scattergood Friend’s School. Essay titled “Living Memory: The Holocaust’s History and Ethiopia’s Future” (Marion Blumenthal).

The winning essay will be read during the annual Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Service – which will be held on Sunday, April 23, 2017 – 7 PM – at Temple Emanuel, 1115 Mississippi Ave., Davenport, IA.