A Holocaust survivor and educator says Montreal’s Vanier College failed in its responsibility to students after cancelling a planned Holocaust commemoration event this week over security concerns.
Eva Kuper, a volunteer with the Montreal Holocaust Museum and a retired educator who has taught early childhood education at Concordia University, said she was scheduled to speak at the event Wednesday before it was called off less than a week in advance.
“I was scheduled to participate and speak at a commemoration of the Shoah, the Holocaust,” Kuper told Global News over Zoom on Thursday.
“It was very disappointing that Vanier decided to cancel the commemoration in fear, I was told, of demonstrations and problems with agitators outside the college.”
Vanier said in a statement Wednesday that its 34th Symposium on the Holocaust and Genocide is continuing as planned, but the commemorative event was postponed.
“While the College was not the target of a specific threat, in light of the current geopolitical context and information provided by our security team, we elected to review the event’s scheduling and format to err on the side of caution,” the statement said.
Kuper said the decision was based on fear rather than principle.
“When fear rules your decisions rather than conviction of what is right, that’s dangerous,” she said.
“I think that it was cowardly.”
She said educational institutions have a duty to foster understanding and remembrance, particularly at a time of rising tensions.
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“We live in a very fractured world now, and I think that we have to remember our history,” Kuper said. “I think that an educational institution such as Vanier has an obligation to educate their students and help them see each other as human beings.”
Kuper, who was born in 1940 and hidden as a child in Poland during the Second World War, said she survived with the help of non-Jewish rescuers and later immigrated to Canada in 1948.
She said her planned talk would have focused on responsibility and the importance of education.
“My talk was really going to be about our responsibilities as human beings, about the importance of remembrance, and how if education is the only tool, are we using it to the best of its possibilities,” she said.
Vanier College’s director general, Benoit Morin, said the situation has been a “misunderstanding” and emphasized that the broader Holocaust symposium has gone ahead.
“The Holocaust symposium has been unfolding this week as planned, with over 15 talks on different themes pertaining to the Holocaust and Jewish history,” he said in an interview to Global News on Friday.
Morin said the decision was not made unilaterally, but through discussions among multiple senior officials at the college.
“Most of those decisions are made by the executive team, composed of all the directors of all the departments, including the department responsible for the security.”
Morin added that the decision applied only to the commemorative portion of the event.
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“That came with parameters that we felt, given the geopolitical situation, were not optimal for us to ensure the safety and security,” he said. “We felt it would be best for us to explore alternatives to be able to hold it under safer parameters.”
Morin added that the commemoration will still take place but be geared toward internal participants instead.
Students and staff will be encouraged to attend and that external speakers could still be included under revised conditions, Morin said.
“I do understand that the misunderstanding that took place could have been very disturbing… and I’m sincerely sorry about that misunderstanding,” he added.
The Jewish Community Council of Montreal sharply criticized the college’s decision Thursday, calling it “a disgraceful act of capitulation.”
“When a Holocaust commemoration is deemed a ‘security risk,’ that is not a reason to cancel the event, it is proof that something has gone deeply wrong,” the organization said in its statement.
The group also pointed to the significance of survivor testimony.
“One of the last living witnesses to history was ready to share her testimony, and an institution of higher learning decided that it was safer to cancel her than to stand behind her.”
Kuper said the timing makes such events even more critical.
“If we don’t learn from our history, then we’re condemned to repeat it and we’re well on the way to repetition,” she said.
She added she hopes the college reconsiders in the future.
“I would hope that Vanier reconsiders this decision, if not for this year, then for next year, and allow students to learn from it.”
Meanwhile, Morin said Vanier does plan to hold the external commemorative event for speakers like Kuper and the generic public later this year under safer conditions.
The Montreal Holocaust Museum will also be offering free admission to Vanier students in the coming weeks as a gesture of goodwill, according to Kuper.
There were students at the college in classes when this event was to take place. The only reason Vanier exists is because of students. As a mother of someone going to the college I don’t care what the threat is and for what I am happy it was cancelled and my baby is safe. People love to make things about themselves and forget the bigger picture. Student safety!
It’d be nice if the smooth brains out there learned anything from this, but I know they won’t.
@Try This
Equating war crimes with genocide is peak stupid. Go back to your hole you neo-n@zi
Sad when a past genocide survivor is upset when remembrance is cancelled because of current genocide, being caused by the offspring of the survivors.
They do not remember the lessons of the Holocaust, so why should the rest of us?