Honoring the Memory of Miryam Brand
Miryam Brand was a Holocaust survivor and a dedicated volunteer of the Mizel Museum who devoted much of her passion and energy to education. In her memory, her family has provided the Mizel Museum with funding for the The Miryam Brand Holocaust Film Project, an annual program that educates middle and high school students about the history of the Holocaust, and provides programs to contextualize it in their lives locally and globally. Each year we feature a film and speakers to engage and inspire audiences.
For information and to inquire how you and your students can attend the 2013 program, email Deanne Kapnik or call 303-749-5019.
Past Programs
We Must Remember Survivors
January 2008 – Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust. The book is a compilation of 60 diaries of children who had survived the Holocaust. MTV made a documentary film called I’m Still Here: Real diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust based on her book. Through the generosity of the Brand Family, we were able to bring Alexandra and the film to an audience of over 1600 middle and high school students, as well as to the Auraria Campus for 300 college students and community members.
January 2009 – Children of Chabannesis an Emmy Award winning film produced and directed by Lisa Gossels. In this film, Lisa explores the touching story of the lives of unsung heroes of Chabannes, France, a town that saved over 400 people during World War II. Among the survivors were her father and uncle. Their incredible heroism and humanity inspired Lisa to pay tribute to them. Ms. Gossels spoke to more than 1,000 middle and high school students from 18 different schools and 200 college students from Community College, where we partnered with the Activities Office to present this evening program to students and community members.
January 2010 – Douglas Green and two students from his Carlsbad High Holocaust film project came to Colorado to speak to students about their experience in making the film, We Must Remember. Twenty-two hundred students gathered for two presentations for this program at Hinkley High School in Aurora. The students captivated their audience with their sharing of the experience of making the film, traveling to Dachau and Auschwitz and the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, as well as the profound impact meeting and interviewing local survivors made on their perception of the use of language in relationships. The Mizel Museum partnered with the Holocaust Awareness Institute of the University of Denver to present an adult program.
November 2010 – The Denver Film Society approached us to partner in bringing Lukas Pribyl, a brilliant Czech film-maker who spent ten years making his four-part series, Forgotten Transports to the Denver Film Festival, where the Mizel Museum partnered in the public screening of all of his films, as well as to 1200 middle and high school students from across the metro area. The Mizel Museum contracted with Facing History and Ourselves to present a workshop to teachers bringing their students to this program.
November 2011 – The Mizel Museum’s Community Narratives Project, Generations: Survivor Stories was the cornerstone of this year’s program. Two weeks before the student program, participating teachers were invited to a workshop presented by Facing History and Ourselves to help expand and deepen students’ experience of the program. At the student program, Fran Sterling set the geographic and historic context for each story, and the brief digital stories of five Holocaust survivors were screened. The screening was followed by a facilitated question and answer session with the five “storytellers.”
On October 17, 18, and 19, 2012, Douglas Green returned with two new students from Carlsbad High in California to speak about their experience in learning about the Holocaust through the film We Must Remember, and the impact it has made in the way they perceive language and relationships. The 75-minute program included a screening of the film and question and answer with the students and Green. Now in its sixth year, Mizel Museum will “hit the road” with the Miryam Brand Holocaust Education Film Project in order to reach even more students. The program will be hosted by schools around the Denver metro area. We are also working with Regis University and The Denver Film Society to make the program accessible to adults.
