Each year, the VHEC presents the Meyer and Gita Kron and Ruth Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education to a British Columbia teacher in any discipline who has demonstrated excellence and commitment to teaching students about the Holocaust and its important lessons for humankind.

The award was established in memory of Meyer and Gita Kron, Lithuanian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who re-established their lives in Vancouver. Through their lifelong involvement with education and community, they touched the lives of thousands of students. Their daughter, Ruth Kron Sigal, who survived the Holocaust in hiding, was a dedicated VHEC outreach speaker before she passed away in 2008.

At the VHEC’s annual general meeting in June, the 2023 Kron Sigal Award was presented to Lindsay Hutchison, a gifted and remarkable educator who has been committed throughout her career to teaching high school students about the Holocaust. Lindsay is the head of the Social Studies department at Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey, where she has taught for almost two decades. She includes the study of the Holocaust in each of the courses she teaches: Social Studies 10; Twentieth Century World History; and Genocide Studies 12.

We are pleased to publish her remarks upon accepting the award.

—Lise Kirchner

Acceptance Speech of Lindsay Hutchison, recipient of the 2023 Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education

Thank you all so much for this award. I’m honored and humbled by your recognition and more importantly, I’m grateful to get the chance to be able to share with you all how impactful the work of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre has been to me and my students.

As a high school student in the 1990s, I was lucky to attend two Vancouver Holocaust Symposia at UBC. My high school usually reserved this event for grade 12 students but for some reason I was invited to attend when I was younger. I jumped at the chance to attend. History was my passion, and I was excited to get the chance to learn from eyewitnesses to history. I remember that Faye Schulman was a featured speaker. She had just written A Partisan’s Memoir, which I devoured in advance of the symposium. Up until that point, I had learned history as a series of dates and facts but not much emphasis was placed on the human story. The symposium changed that.

Dr. Christopher Friedrichs’ compelling lecture gripped me from the outset. It raised important questions of choice, complicity and responsibility. But more importantly, it was the survivor speakers who connected the head with the heart. That afternoon, I attended a few breakout sessions with survivors who generously shared the gift of their testimony. I can’t imagine the courage that it must have taken to share their most personal stories—the stories of connection, love and laughter before the war; the stories of persecution, horror and loss of the Holocaust; and the stories of rebuilding after the war. I walked out of the first symposium feeling a profound responsibility to carry my learning forward to others and to continue to learn more. That feeling only deepened the following year when I got the chance to attend the symposium again.

As Elie Wiesel once said, “Whoever listens to a witness, becomes a witness.” Through these two symposia, I had become a witness and I was coming to realize that a witness who says nothing is a bystander. And so, I made a conscious decision to carry this learning forward through education. I decided to pursue a bachelor of arts in history and a bachelor of education with a social studies specialty. I was lucky to very quickly obtain a teaching position in that discipline at Tamanawis Secondary in Surrey.

Throughout my time at Tamanawis, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre continued to play an important role in both my teaching and learning journey. I have taken students to more symposia than I can count. Together we listened to countless stories. We have been honored to hear from so many, including Dr. Robert Krell, Alex Buckman, Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Janos Benisz, Mariette Doduck, David Ehrlich and so many others. We have also engaged in such thoughtful programming at the VHEC itself. The meticulously curated exhibitions and accompanying activities have been profoundly impactful — so much so that I still reference the teacher packages today.

Like the annual Symposia on the Holocaust and annual exhibitions, the biennial Shafran Teachers’ Conferences have shaped my capacity to, and confidence in, teaching the Holocaust and, as an extension, other difficult histories and social justice issues. These conferences introduced me to the work and resources of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem and Facing History, for who I now co-facilitate seminars for educators across Canada. It’s not an understatement to say that none of this would be possible without the VHEC. Your work has ripple effects that go far beyond what you can see.

With the rising tide of antisemitism and polarization, this work grows more and more important. We are hearing and experiencing the echoes of history and we know what this can grow into. We have a responsibility to educate and to push back against hatred and oppression, and we must equip students with the tools to do so.

Thank you all for your tireless work to make a hate-free world a reality. And a heartfelt thank you for supporting me on my journey to carry this learning forward to my students. I am beyond humbled to be acknowledged tonight.

Lindsay Hutchison is the Social Studies Department Head and Gifted Facilitator at Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey, BC.