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A Righteous Gentile

The life of Dr. Marilyn J. Harran, a non-Jewish professor of religious studies and history at Christian-based Chapman University, revolves around Holocaust education.
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April 27, 2000

The life of Dr. Marilyn J. Harran, a non-Jewish professor of religious studies and history at Christian-based Chapman University, revolves around Holocaust education.

“If you have to be Jewish to care about the Holocaust, then all of us — Jews and non-Jews — are in a lot of trouble,” says Harran, who recently won The “1939” Club’s Teacher of the Holocaust award.

William Elperin, president of The “1939” Club, one of the largest and most active Holocaust survivor organizations, agrees.

“The Holocaust is not a uniquely Jewish issue. It’s a humanitarian issue.” Elperin, who has worked with Harran on numerous Holocaust-related projects, describes her as “one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met — Jewish or non-Jewish — about teaching the Holocaust.”

Harran’s passion for Holocaust education officially began in 1976 when she used Elie Wiesel’s “Night” as required reading in her introduction to religion class at Barnard College, the women’s college that is now part of Columbia University. A full-time teacher finishing her dissertation about the Reformation, Harran struck up a conversation with a Polish-born university janitor.

One day he showed her some of his wife’s drawings; they depicted her memories of Auschwitz. Describing them as “extremely powerful,” Harran says, “I will never forget those drawings.” For Harran, they brought the impact of reading “Night” full circle.

“What survivors teach us about human courage and humanity is extraordinary. I’m even in more awe that people who have come out of this can bring themselves to trust people again and to care about the human condition. To make the leap into the mundane aspects of life and treasure them is, to me, almost overwhelming,” says a teary-eyed Harran.

Because the survivors’ stories are so powerful, Harran schedules three to five witnesses each semester to speak in her class. “The point is not to depress students. It’s to inspire and empower them and to impress upon them the importance of ethical decision making as part of civic life and daily interactions with each other.”

Christoph Meili, the Swiss guard who captured world attention after saving Holocaust-era documents from being destroyed, embodies such decision making. For this reason, Harran brought Meili’s plight to the attention of Chapman University President James Doti, who secured a four-year scholarship to the school. Although Harran was instrumental in focusing the spotlight on Meili, she feels she has not given him enough of her attention during their weekly meetings.

Humble, humane and generous to others — but not to herself — Harran is “a righteous human being,” according to Elane Norych Geller, one of the youngest survivors of Bergen-Belsen.

“It’s a mitzvah to do good things, and it’s an even bigger mitzvah to do it anonymously. My sense is that she would prefer to do it anonymously, and she would continue to do the just thing.”

The witness, who calls herself honored to be Harran’s friend, lauds the educator’s Holocaust efforts.

“It’s so marvelous to meet a human being who understands that we have to hurry up. She has the same urgency about educating and preventing that I do as a survivor. That’s a divine thing.

“She is an educator who understands that the hope is within us, especially those who can be potentially evil. Marilyn Harran is not looking for the one good Nazi trying to help someone. She would thank him, but she wouldn’t exonerate him. She wants to tap into the good before the bad comes out.”

To that end, Harran serves as the founding director of the newly established Barry and Phyllis Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman University. The Center supports course offerings and outreach programs as well as the possible development of a minor in Holocaust studies.

Phyllis and her husband, Barry, were impressed by Harran’s contributions to Holocaust education; consequently, they chose Chapman in Orange for their philanthropic largesse.

“We’re very passionate about the concept of eliminating genocide through education,” explains Phyllis Rodgers. “That’s why we’re providing the resources for spreading the word for why genocide is bad.”

Harran has spread the word inside and outside the academic arena. A contributing author to the just released “The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures,” she wrote 50 articles and captions for 500 photos. (See related story, page 40.)

Although the task was emotionally draining, Harran considers her discomfort insignificant compared with the experience of those depicted in the photos.

“What must it have been like to have lived it? How big the abyss is for any of us who have not experienced it.”

Harran views herself as someone who would like to be a link from all the “wonderful survivors” she’s met to the non-Jewish community in general, young people in particular. “I see myself as a connector, especially here in Orange County.”

Her dream is to have the Barry and Phyllis Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education connect with middle and high schools in Orange County, filling the niche as a resource center. She moved closer to that dream earlier this year when she helped launch an essay contest for Orange County and Los Angeles County middle and high school students.

Given a photo of a young girl found at Bergen-Belsen which appears on the cover of “The Holocaust Chronicle,” and a writing prompt, students were asked to write a 500-word essay. Each participant received a copy of the book and a certificate from Chapman. The two winners — who also received $500 prizes from The “1939” Club — were honored at a public ceremony in March at the university where students met Holocaust survivors who signed copies of their book.

“To see the generations connect was the real high point,” Harran says. “The most effective thing is the meeting of people. Nothing can take the place of it.”

It’s an impressive array of achievements for a woman who was raised in Tucson and never remembers hearing the Holocaust discussed.

As the only child of now-deceased parents, Harran has no immediate family. “My life is more focused on looking at young people and adopting them in terms of the Holocaust.

“When I first started teaching I felt somewhat embarrassed that I wasn’t Jewish. I thought, ‘Who am I to be talking about this?’ I have no family connection. I haven’t lived within the tradition. I don’t know it from the inside. I’ve tried to do it with sensitivity. I worry that I may unwittingly offend someone.”

With typical humility and understatement, Harran says, “I’m not a Holocaust scholar, but I’m trying to be.”

The Holocaust in Academia

Dr. Marilyn J. Harran believes that learning is a matter of the head and the heart.

“Averting acts of genocide is education of the head, which is terribly important. It’s also a matter of the heart, the empathetic sense. That’s what motivates us to think about our own ethics.”

It is within this context that Harran teaches two courses: “Germany and the Holocaust: From Anti-Semitism to Final Solution” in the fall semester, and “Topics in the Holocaust: Perpetrators, Witnesses, and Rescuers” in the spring semester. To foster personal interaction with the speakers, students and herself, Harran limits enrollment to 25 students.

Both classes require rigorous reading assignments (one student complimented Harran for her “special ability to assign an overabundance of readings that actually get read by the students”), a field trip to a place connected to the Holocaust such as the Museum of Tolerance, “informed participation” in class discussion and “fulfillment of responsibilities,” among other things.

But what really makes an impression on Harran’s primarily non-Jewish students is meeting and connecting with the Holocaust survivors. “That really leaves them thinking and stays with them,” says Harran.

Elane Norych Geller lauds the “extraordinary caring nature” of the questions asked by Harran’s students. “They’re all the right questions. They understand what she mandates they understand.”

Student Krista Lupicadescribes Harran’s courses as “more than classes. They are life-altering experiences.”

In a moving tribute to Harran when she recently was honored with The “1939” Club’s Teacher of the Holocaust award, Lupica said that she knew nothing about Harran or the Holocaust before taking the “Germany and the Holocaust” class.

“I will never forget Dr. Harran’s response when she was asked why she is so passionate about something that had happened over fifty years ago. Her answer was simply, “Why aren’t you?'”

Lupica has learned, “We must never forget the lessons history, in its most evil sense, has taught us and that a single individual has the potential to make a difference if they are committed to basic human values and concern for others.”

Such sentiments provide some comfort to Norych Geller.

“As a survivor who lives in fear — not that it won’t happen again, but that the world won’t learn — I feel less afraid at a place like Chapman with a person like Marilyn Harran. She makes me feel that there’s hope and there’s some degree of safety.”

Harran devotes nearly half of the “Germany and the Holocaust” class to the origins of Judaism and the historical context for animosity against Jews before she delves into the Holocaust.

“The Holocaust did not occur because of one evil person. It began in a highly educated culture. How could so many people go along and contribute to it? I guess smart people are better at rationalizing. ”

In the “Perpetrators, Witnesses, and Rescuers” class, Harran focuses on issues of obedience to authority and the limits individuals set. By examining the difference between law and justice, Harran wants to inspire students to be more involved in reading newspapers and more involved in the world around them.

Lupica exemplifies one of Harran’s numerous success stories. In her testimonial to Harran, the student concluded:

“Dr. Harran, in her brilliant and stimulating teaching of the Holocaust, lit a spark in me that I can neither simmer down nor subdue. In Dr. Harran’s class, we briefly touched upon the surviving legacy of Nazism in America, and I find this to be a travesty which I yearn to do something about.

“I wish for my future career to embody the fight against such hate crimes. I believe that divine providence led me to this decision and that Dr. Harran was the catalyst, the match that lit my flame.”

S.L. Good, Contributing Writer

S.L. Good is an Orange County-based journalist, educator and publicist.

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