Jaye Houston: 10 questions

She recently received a fellowship from the Center of Advanced Holocaust Studies

at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D. C. that includes participating in the Holocaust and Other Genocides: Historical Contexts, Legal Issues, and Ethical Dilemmas Seminar, taking place in January 2009.

Houston was asked 10 questions about her fellowship and passion for teaching about the Holocaust and genocide.

Q: What does this fellowship mean to you?

A: Teaching and presenting the comparative relationship between the Holocaust and other genocides is a complicated and often emotionally and politically sensitive task. Balancing my previous focus on the Holocaust and gender, while developing new research projects and teaching about other genocides is an invigorating and yet daunting undertaking. Therefore, being selected to participate in the 2009 comparative genocides seminar is extremely beneficial to my research interest as well as to my students who will be the recipients of what I learn. Finally, it means being immersed in a scholarly conversation about a topic I am deeply committed to learning more about.

Q: How did you get chosen for this?

A: The Museum requires a letter of recommendation from a college or university that supports Holocaust and genocides studies. Dean Merrill Roden of Mount Saint Mary's Weekend College where I teach was very supportive of my interest in applying for this honor. He wrote the letter of recommendation. The Museum also asked for a letter stating my interest in being selected as a fellow. The committee selected twenty fellows from an international group of applicants.

Q: How long have you been teaching about the Holocaust and where have you taught?

A: I have been teaching about the Holocaust and other topics relating to war, genocide, human rights and religion for five years at Mt. St. Mary's Weekend College.

Q: How did you become interested in this subject?

A: Two events drew me to study the Holocaust but first, I need to give some back ground information in order to answer this question because in hindsight I see it really began when I was in junior high in Amarillo, Texas. There was one Jewish girl, Sharon, at the school. Whenever I mentioned including Sharon in our parties, my friends remarked that she was weird, didn't believe in Christmas or Jesus. Not wanting to jeopardize my position in the group, I turned away from Sharon and never came to her defense; I never spoke out for her. This experience flooded my thoughts when I started reading Holocaust literature while earned my M.A. degree at Florida State University. I thought, I was like those Christians who turned their backs on their Jewish neighbors in Nazi Germany. To elaborate, Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote, "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a

socialist. Then they came for the trade unionist, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then the came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jews. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Niemoller's words haunted me for a very long time. The more I read Holocaust literature the more I realize how important questions such as: What happened to loving your neighbor, or morality, in the midst of atrocity? Where was God? What does it mean to be human? Overall, I think many scholars who study the Holocaust grapple with these questions.

And, this is why participating in the Seminar at the USHMM is so very important. Also,

it is an opportunity to study with recently retired, Dr. John K Roth, who taught at Claremont McKenna College and who chaired my doctoral dissertation at Claremont Graduate University.

Read the rest of the questions and Houston's answers in the Friday December 26 edition of the Upland/Claremont City News.