Granddaughter of Righteous Amongst the Nations tells his story to pupils
A team of Courage to Care volunteers delivered their Upstander Education Program to Grade 5 & 6 students at Mitcham Primary School in Melbourne.
As part of the Program, the students hear the testimony of a Holocaust Survivor or a Custodian Speaker (the family descendants of a survivor) which provides personal insight in the acts of Upstanders, people who had the courage to care during that period of history.
Courage to Care is fortunate to have two Righteous Custodian speakers, Andrew Kostanski and Anita Kaminski who each tell the students the extraordinary acts of courage and kindness by their parents in Poland and Holland respectively, which resulted in saving the lives of Jewish families.
The students at Mitcham Primary have Anika Harris as their teacher. Anika is the daughter of Anita and granddaughter of the late Gus Slooten one of the appropriately honoured Righteous Amongst the Nations. By telling Gus’s story, Anita demonstrates to the students how individuals, such as Gus, a single person, can make a difference to the lives of others – a key message of the Program.
Anika is pictured below holding a precious framed photograph of herself and her late grandmother (Anita’s mother) Gus Slooten whom Anita honours with her story.
So, the young students at Mitcham Primary met Anita, their teacher’s mother and heard firsthand the courageous actions of their teacher’s grandmother, Gus!
The students were so inspired, Anika told Courage To Care: “A group of grade 5&6 girls sold a bunch of things that they had made and raised $156 for Courage to Care.”
Courage to Care CEO Mike Zervos commented: “We are thankful to Anika for inviting Courage to Care to Mitcham Primary School and to Anita for continuing to tell Gus’s story to both honour her memory and help us create a generation of Upstanders.”
