Why the Holocaust Stamps Project is so vital

 

Photos courtesy of Charlotte Sheer

ABOVE: Charlotte Sheer took this selfie in front of one of the 18 collages made from some of the 11 million stamps collected as part of the Holocaust Stamps Project that’s part of the exhibit at the American Philatelic Center called “A Philatelic Memorial of the Holocaust.” “L’Chaim --- To Life!” celebrates Holocaust survivors Sam and Goldie Weinreb.
BELOW: Charlotte Sheer is pictured in front of the exhibit’s title poster during her visit to Pennsylvania.
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I’ve written about the Holocaust Stamps Project, put together by students and staff at the Foxboro Regional Charter School in Foxboro, MA, often since the stamps started to be collected in 2009.
This latest column, which appeared in The Sun Chronicle on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, examines five reasons why the project is so vital and should be viewed by people of all backgrounds.
The column followed the opening in June of a new exhibit based on the project at the American Philatelic Center in Bellefonte, Pa., “A Philatelic Memorial of the Holocaust.”
The link to the column on the newspaper’s website follows:
https://www.thesunchronicle.com/opinion/columns/larry-kessler-the-lessons-behind-the-stamps/article_65b7209c-4e61-55c6-b082-94af70b1ba40.html

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The opening in June of a new exhibit at the American Philatelic Center in Bellefonte, Pa. --- “A Philatelic Memorial of the Holocaust” featuring the Holocaust Stamps Project’s 11 million stamps and 18 collages made from some of the stamps --- was significant in many ways.
Above all, the permanent exhibition at the national museum run by the American Philatelic Society preserves the hard work of the students and staff at the Foxboro Regional Charter School, where the stamps were collected from 2009 to 2017.
I’ve written about the project extensively, which has allowed me time to reflect on the project’s importance in an era when antisemitism has been sharply increasing. Here are my Top 5 reasons why the project should be viewed by people of all backgrounds to enhance their knowledge of the Holocaust:
1. An alarming rise in hate
The ease at which antisemitism has returned is alarming. The Anti-Defamation League’s April report pointing to a 41 percent rise in antisemitic incidents in Massachusetts in 2022 over 2021 and a more than 35 percent spike nationwide over that same period was distressing, and that hate has continued in 2023.
For example, a swastika and words of hate toward the LGBTQ+ community were recently found spray-painted on Congregation Agudath Achim of Greater Taunton. The unaffiliated synagogue has been an Orthodox, Conservative and Reform congregation in its more than 110-year history. That vandalism particularly saddened me, because it’s where my wife Lynne and I were married almost 35 years ago.
2. A teacher’s initiative
Charlotte Sheer, now retired, showed what could be done to get an elementary class to talk about something as ghastly as the Holocaust without frightening students. The project was an offshoot of a discussion in her fifth-grade class in 2009 of a children’s book on the Holocaust, “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry. That book tells the story of a Danish girl helping to smuggle Jewish families out of German-occupied Denmark in World War II.
But how did that discussion lead to the K-12 school collecting 11 million stamps? Sheer, in an interview with Josh Moyer of the Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania, recalled the project’s genesis: “We came around to the fact that once you use it (a stamp) once, it’s thrown away as having no value — which is exactly what Hitler was doing with human beings, throwing them away as having no value,” Sheer said.
“So, then I took it a step further and I took out a whole bunch of postage stamps for them to look at, and I said, ‘What do you notice about them?’ They said they’re all different. They had different places, different people and different values, even. They represented the diversity of the world, which Hitler was trying to eliminate. So, we had a lot of symbolism attached to the stamps.”
3. A lesson students can grasp
During the exhibition’s dedication, Boaz Dvir, the director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Initiative at Penn State, spoke about the benefits of the Holocaust Stamps Project. Dvir said the project was the type of learning “that can alter the perception of a child and provide that child with something they can carry on beyond just regurgitating knowledge of a test,” Dvir said in Moyer’s story on the dedication.
Sheer agreed. “What we’ve done means other kids are going to learn from it and, hopefully, adults too,” she said. “And in this age of rising antisemitism, it couldn’t happen at a more important time.”
4. The significance of the 11 million
At a time when too many people seem emboldened by political rhetoric to promote hate against not only American Jews, but other minorities, especially Blacks and members of the LGBTQ+ community, it's important to stress why 11 million stamps were collected. That figure was chosen to represent both the 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis and the 5 million people of other faiths and backgrounds who were killed.
In addition, with Holocaust survivors dwindling to a precious few, it’s vital to recall that the Holocaust began with hate speech that dehumanized Jews, members of the LGBTQ+ community and others who weren’t part of the Aryan majority in Germany. That’s why laws passed in states aimed at limiting or taking away rights of minorities are not only morally wrong, but are dangerous, because they promote the first steps toward normalizing hate that could --- God forbid --- lead to a new Holocaust.
5. Beyond the classroom
Here are two examples of how Holocaust education can connect with people of all ages:
* Stamps were donated from 48 states and the District of Columbia and 29 countries, including from a woman living in Vermont who called me in 2015 while I was working at The Sun Chronicle. Alice Dulude said her husband Bill, a retired Attleboro firefighter and stamp collector, had bought a box of stamps at a show and wanted to donate it. Their son, Bill Dulude Jr., dropped off the box of 60,000 stamps at the paper, and I turned it over to Sheer.
*  There’s a neat story behind the selfie of Sheer that accompanies this column. It’s taken in front of the last collage made by students. Titled “L’Chaim --- To Life!,” it celebrates Holocaust survivors Sam and Goldie Weinreb, who emigrated to Pittsburgh before moving to the Boston area. Sarah Defanti of the school’s Class of 2018 created it, Sheer said, noting that Defanti didn’t stop there. Sheer said that after learning that “his arrest by the Nazis had halted Weinreb's education, she convinced school administration to issue him an honorary diploma as a member of her own graduating class. The special bond that grew between them lasted right up until Weinreb's passing in 2021.”
That’s the perfect example of a student learning an enduring lesson.
Larry Kessler, a retired Sun Chronicle local news editor, can be reached at larrythek65@gmail.com. He blogs at larrytheklineup.blogspot.com

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Here's the link to the same column, as it appears in the August, 2023 edition of Jewish Rhode Island:
https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/an-exhibit-every-american-should-see,40922?