This blog was written on Power of Place: 2025 European Summer Institute for Holocaust Educators – an experiential professional development for teachers where learning unfolds as they tour historical sites across Europe in order to transform their understanding of the Holocaust, WWII, antisemitism, and Jewish life today. Power of Place is planned and co-led by Humanus Network on behalf of JCRC and generously supported by the Minnesota Vikings, the Tankenoff Families Foundation, and Allianz of America Corporation.

by Alex Shockley, Humanities teacher, Grand Mesa Choice Academy (Delta, CO) | June 18, 2025

One of the themes during our work has been “What do we choose to remember, and what do we choose to forget?” We can also ask ourselves “Who do we choose to remember, who do we choose to forget, and who has been forgotten?” Despite the tireless work of countless numbers of people trying to identify every victim murdered in the Holocaust, we fall short.

I have run my fingers through the pages of the Book of Names at Yad Veshem, which bears the weight of the painstaking energy it takes to know and remember the victims of the Holocaust, and it also bears the agonizing truth through the numerous blank pages at the end that not every individual has been identified.

One name I was eager to find was Rutka Laskier: a young girl who shares the exact same birthday as Anne Frank, wrote her own journal, and was murdered at Auschwitz, yet the world reveres Anne Frank, and Rutka is barely known. Rutka is often called the “Polish Anne Frank,” but Anne Frank is the Dutch Rutka Laskier!

Today was my second time visiting Bedzin, Poland where Rutka lived the last years of her life with her family, of which she records agonizing, heart-breaking, raw, loving, revealing, funny, mundane, and passionate details of life in and out of the ghetto. I spent more time in front of the ruins of her first Bedzin home — that is now a pile of ruins beyond the entry facade — than my first visit last summer. The threshold of her house is overgrown with weeds and vines to conceal the beer caps and common crevice where people micturate. Who do we choose to remember?

I do not place blame on anyone for letting her house fall into disrepair. Post-war Soviet Poland was not the post-war Netherlands; however, I was still angry! I began communing with Rutka in that space. I am sorry it hasn’t been cared for. I am sorry you were taken and murdered. I am sorry you weren’t able to stay and enrich the culture of your street and community. I am sorry that garbage fills the area. I am sorry that your life was taken because this world would have been better with you in it! I am sorry, Rutka! I am sorry! I am sorry! I am sorry, Rutka, for what has become of this area where you were flourishing. 

Who do we choose to remember? I choose to remember Rutka, her mother, father, baby brother, and friends. I learn from many, many others, but I give Rutka a place in my heart and her journal a prominent place on my bookshelf! As the old adage goes, “No one hates reading, you just haven’t found what you like, yet.” I believe her journal is the key many people need for opening, examining, and understanding history, individuals, Jewish culture, freedom of expression, rebellion, resilience, and empathy. Rutka’s journal is only a starting point, but it’s a great one! Reading her journal and making connections with my life and family has made me cry, and she is the only Jewish writer of the Holocaust to have made that impact. It’s not that others aren’t special, but Rutka has been one person I needed!

I am so grateful for experiencing the Power of Place in Rutka’s town and the many other locations we have visited!