Nazi persecution of Jews during the Second World War was extremely violent and there were only a small number of Non-Jews that were willing and not afraid to help the victims of destructive racial politics. Yad Vashem – the World Centre for Holocaust Research, Documentation, Education and Commemoration – is researching the stories of those courageous individuals who have saved Jews from the certain death, thus awarding them with the title “Righteous Among the Nations”.
Among the Righteous from all over the World were also some Slovenians: Uroš Žun, Andrej Tumpej, Zora Pičulin, Ivan Breskvar, Franjo Punčuh, Ljubica and Ivan Župančič, whereas Olga Neuman (Rajšek) and Martina Marković Levec, who were of Slovene origin, were officially recorded as Croatian/Serbian Righteous. Within the aspiration of complete scientific presentation of the Holocaust was in the frame of the annual project “Shoah – Let Us Remember” conceived a scientific meeting “Each Year One Name”. The purpose of this meeting is to present the newest researches on the Holocaust history as well as to present the stories of the Slovenian Righteous.
This year’s scientific meeting will be dedicated to the Righteous Zora Pičulin, who has saved a two-and-a-half-year-old boy Shaul (Šaul) Gatenjo. The little Shaul was ill and was hospitalized right before the mass deportations of Jews from Skopje (Macedonia). His nanny Zora Pičulin looked after him at the hospital from where she managed to save him, thus Shaul was the only member of Sephardic family Gatenjo who has survived the war. In 1975 Zora Pičulin was recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations. Her life story will be presented at the meeting by Marjan Toš, PhD, whereas some other researches will be presented as well. Boris Hajdinjak will present the fate of Jews from Prekmurje, and Klemen Brvar, MA, will present the lecture on Jews as forced labour workers in the Hungarian army. The story of Jews in Ajdovščina will be presented by Renato Podbersič, MA, while Vera Klopčič, PhD, will present the images of Roma in the research and surveys on Roma genocide. The literary language of children as the youngest victims of Holocaust will be presented by Oto Luthar, PhD; the lecture of Boris Gombač, PhD, will be on the topics of child internation in the Italian concentration camps. Franc Kuzmič, MA, will lecture about the education on the Holocaust history, whereas at the end of the scientific meeting Oto Luthar, PhD, and Alenka Markov will present recently published brochure “Unkonwn Traces (Judaism, Anti-Semitism and Holocaust in Slovenian History), and Marjetka Berlič will present the examples of good practise on Holocaust education at Drago Kobal Grammar School in Maribor.
Scientific meeting will be held at Glazerjeva Hall of the University of Maribor Library. The opening speech will be held by the state secretary Igor Senčar, MA, who will open the meeting in the name of the project’s honorary patron Mr Karl Erjavec, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. The guests and public will be addressed also by Prof. Borut Holcman, PhD, president of the Center of Jewish Cultural Heritage Synagogue Maribor’s council, and by Maribor mayor Andrej Fištravec, PhD.
The scientific meeting was organized as part of the project Shoah – Let Us Remember, 2014, which was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Maribor, Israeli Embassy in Vienna, and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Co-organizer of the scientific meeting: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia.
