Family and Fortitude: Surviving the November Pogrom and the Holocaust

Chhange's First Executive Director Dale Daniels uses archival items and video testimony to share the personal histories of Erica Tichauer Rosenthal and Manfred (Manny) Rosenthal, two local survivors and dear friends of Chhange. Erica and Manny were children during the November Pogrom in 1938 – an event that forever changed their lives. Dale will weave together their respective life experiences and their journey to our New Jersey community.

In October 1938, the Germans expelled Jews of Polish origin from their homes in Germany to Zbaszyn, Poland. Angered by his family's deportation, Herschel Grynszpan assassinated a Nazi diplomat in Paris on November 7, 1938. The Nazis used the assassination as an excuse for widespread violence against Jews. From the night of November 9 through November 11, Nazis, helped by many ordinary people, young and old, destroyed 267 synagogues and thousands of Jewish homes and businesses, and deported 30,000 Jewish men to Concentration Camps.

Dale Daniels began volunteering with Chhange in 1995 and joined the Board of Directors in 1996. After years of service, Dale became Chhange's First Executive Director in 2000 and led the organization through the next 19 years. Over the last few years, Dale has served as the project director for the exhibit, Journeys Beyond Genocide: The Human Experience, which features the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. During Dale’s tenure, Chhange received five awards for service to the community and state, and has been recognized as a Center of Excellence by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous for the past nineteen years. Her most recent initiative, Building Bridges, co-created with Susan Yellin, was awarded the Honey and Maurice Axelrod Award in partnership with the Rumson School District. Above all, Dale’s greatest privilege at Chhange has been to know, love, learn from, and work with Holocaust and genocide survivors, and to bring them to meet hundreds of thousands of students.

This event took place via Zoom on November 9, 2020 at 7:00 pm EST. The evnt was sponsored by B’nai Sholom/Beth-El Foundation Congregation Torat El.