[Membroj] Holocaust & Esperanto revisited

[Ralph Dumain]

I've been thinking about this as well. My angle for combining 
Zamenhof with Sholem Aleichem (very different people, as my childhood 
friend who is a linguist, Esperantist, and Yiddishist advised me) has 
not panned out as yet--I've only contacted two Jewish organizations 
so far--but I also haven't come up with a tangible proposal. It would 
be nice to do something this year for the Zamenhof sesquicentennial.

Given your difficulties in organizing the previous symposium at the 
Holocaust Museum, I'm guessing pursuing them further would be futile, 
unless one were to convene some serious scholars on the subject, get 
some more survivors to participate, and provide more documentation 
for their archives. Documentation and scholarly research is what they 
are interested in, and I sense they would not be amenable to another 
round unless we could substantially build on what was presented last 
time. It's nigh impossible, from what I gather from the zamenhofologo 
google group, to secure any interest among the Israeli scholarly 
community. Imagine how much more difficult that's going to be here.

I also think it's time for me to write to Esther Schor at Princeton, 
whose upcoming talk at the National Yiddish Book Center has been postponed.

2010 is probably more feasible for a major event, and we might be 
able to get people from out of town to participate as speakers or 
panelists. One must consider the difference between an event centered 
around Zamenhof and one centered around Esperanto more generally. Dr. 
Schor, however, were she willing, could speak on both.

Still, it would be nice to do something, even modest, here in DC, 
before the end of the year. Not sure what, though. My angle is 
Zamenhof (and Esperanto) in historical context, with an eye towards 
the various audiences interested in such matters, rather than a 
propaganda fest, though obviously literature tables and informational 
brochures would be part of the event. I'm trying to remember other 
precedents that would apply. I remember many years ago we did a 
multilingual poetry reading in a public library, only part of which 
was in Esperanto. Also, many years ago I was invited to a creative 
writing class at Howard U. to talk about Esperanto and linguistic creativity.

More brainstorming is needed.

PS: Our most modest effort for this year might take place in a public 
library or comparable public space. But this also brings to mind our 
general (in)activity. It looks like I missed the only meeting we're 
going to have in Cosi's this month. One person can't be everyone's 
babysitter, to be sure, but it would be nice to expand our range 
somewhat. For example, back in the late '80s and '90s we had a couple 
rounds of literary groups. I can't afford to subscribe to magazines 
or buy books, but what has changed decisively in our favor is the 
Internet. There's so much material on the web, the problem of 
availability via purchasing or photocopying material is obviated for 
a huge quantity of material. Presumably more older material not on 
the web, out of print, and not on the market, could be scanned. That 
is a pain in the ass for me, though, as I'm only working with messy 
OCR and HTML editing. If I had the software to produce PDF files, I 
do could a lot more than I'm doing now.

At 01:51 PM 8/30/2009, Jim Ryan wrote:
>Thank you for posting these, and for including my talk at the 
>Holocaust Museum.  We definitely plan to try for another similar 
>event to coincide with the 2010 LK here.  I plan to contact Mrs. 
>Balbin (I have been informed that Mr. Balbin now has Alzheimer's) 
>and see if we can make a formal presentation of some of his works on 
>that occasion.
>
>A thought:  We're also thinking about a public event this year to 
>commemorate the sesquicentennial of Zamenhof's birth.  Should we try 
>to do something with the Holocaust Museum for that occasion as 
>well?  It took endless and tireless work for me to set up the event 
>in 1995 -- I had to keep contacting many minimally responsive (or 
>totally non-responsive) people for about a year to make it 
>happen.  (BTW, Mr. Balbin was slated to attend that event but got 
>sick at the last minute.)  So I'm not sure we want to try for two 
>events, one this year for the LLZ sesquicentennial and another next 
>year for the LK -- but perhaps we should try?  If we have to choose 
>one or the other, I would think next year's LK is more important, 
>since congress attendees would attend the event en masse.
>
>If not the Holocaust Museum for LLZ in 2009, then what?
>
>Opinions welcome.
>
>Ralph Dumain wrote:
>>Some of you will remember the ESW's seminar at the Holocaust 
>>Museum, at which Jim Ryan presided. A Russian Esperanto site has 
>>preserved relevant materials:
>>
>><http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en/articles/life_of_lidia.htm>Notes 
>>on the life of Lidia Zamenhof
>>
>><http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en/articles/holocaust.htm>About 
>>Esperanto Society of Washington and the Holocaust Museum
>>
>><http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en/articles/strangled_cries.htm>STRANGLED 
>>CRIES (A profile of poet Julius Balbin)
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