Jane Korman and her father, Holocaust survivor Adolek Kohn, spoke with BBC Tuesdayto defend the video they made last summer, which shows the two accompanied by Kohn’s three grandchildren dancing to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” in front of Auschwitz and other Holocaust sites.
“Despite the systematic brutality and cruelty endured, we have still survived,” she said about the video’s intentions. Korman told the BBC that it was about creating something that young people could connect with:
“It was really important for me to create some sort of work that had a fresh interpretation of the Holocaust. Especially for the younger generation, because I could see that even the word ‘Holocaust’ and the images that one sees of the Holocaust were numbing and in fact, they weren’t even interested.”
Since it was put on YouTube in January, the video has received over 330,000 hits and over 2,000 comments from viewers, who have called it everything from ‘heart-warming’ to ‘despicable.’
YouTube user colonelcandoo said “I am sure the millions of peopled who died here would be ecstatic? that you and your family are alive and dancing here. Keep on dancing…”
Other viewers found a different message in Korman’s art, however, which she said is “a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit and a celebration of life.”
“This video is touching. Thank you!” Said user zeonchar.
Kohn, who dances throughout the video with the word ‘Survivor’ on his shirt, said that he did not mind dancing.
“If somebody had asked me then that I would come 62 years later with my grandchildren to Auschwitz, I would send him to a madhouse,” he said.
My Responses to this Video:
The video has stopped me from doing other work today. I am fascinated with comments from all over the globe. My book “Don’t Bring It to Work” talks about how patterns of behavior are passed from generation to generation and how they repeat and repeat until someone says “it will stop with me”. Three generations are making their own statement about freedom of speech, of expression, to dance and sing and release the past, it is fabulous. They are creating, not harming! Each of us can give to children, grandchildren great grandchildren the joy of transformation, that is a gift worth giving and giving!
What can we hand to next generations? Adolek Kohn hands his grandchildren a magnificent gift; the ability to go back to places of pain and horror, to see that the past can be cleared, can be honored. He did not defile nor destroy, he danced! And they took his hand and they danced. Children, grandchildren, great grandchildren of those who have suffered atrocities in holocausts through time bear an invisible burden until they can come together, to discuss, dialogue, and ultimately to heal.
Thank you to this beautiful family for being courageous enough to show, not just the capacity to survive, also the capacity to flourish. What if we could all come together, to sing, to dance, to join hands together to release, no longer to ignore, negate, nor wallow in history; rather to transform the past and free the present? It’s about all of us, it’s about you, it’s about me, and it’s about time!
I was doing some research about the environment. My mind went to Henry David Thoreau and how he was a “gadfly” to keep people connected to nature. He was a searcher for the truth and knew that our inner nature is connected with outer nature.
His life, his writing, was about seeking the deeper meaning, of everything. We have become such a “sound bite” nation any idea that takes more than five words to express is ignored.
Maybe we do need to stop, during these summer months and be quiet in nature’s bounty. Sit with the tress and flowers, sit with the sand and water, sit with the stars at night, and just sit. It was in this quiet that Thoreau wrote “Walden“.
What does this have to do with work you are wondering; nothing and everything?
We are living in such a polluted world and it is not just the physical chemicals, the oil, and the trash that is bearing down on us. We are also burdened with workplace conflict that seems to get worse and worse all the time.
With my coaching clients I am hearing more and more disaffection that co-workers have with each other. With all the team building programs, all the pizza parties, all the community days set aside, there is still an edge of tension in most work environments.
This emotional pollution is causing untold stress and it tumbles from home to work to little league. What can be done?
The idea of being an office environmentalist came to me as I was researching information about Thoreau. He died at the young age of 44 and left a legacy for others, including Gandhi and Martin Luther King to look at what I am calling emotional pollution and take a stand.
We are spending way too much time yelling at company officers who have done poor jobs, not just BP, check out the poor quality cement work of Halliburton in the Gulf as another example.
It’s not about how bad “they” are. What about our personal responsibilities for maintaining our beautiful planet, for being kind and civil to each other at work, in our communities?
This Thoreau quote stayed with me, I offer it to you “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
Take some quiet time this summer and think about how you can help get to the root.
Leadership and creativity are linked at a core level. Great leadersare also artists in many areas. The following amazing photographs show us how, if we trust each other and find that core creative place, we can make the ordinary extraordinary!
In Japan, rice is essential to life, both for food and as a way of life. Rice planting season has made this very small island culture into one where there is cooperation and collaboration. You can only plant and harvest rice in certain seasons, and it takes the effort of many to make this happen. Once the basics of planting are no longer an issue, look at the creativity that can come with doing the same thing year after year and making it new and unique.
As I looked at these photographs I wondered who came up with the ideas. Then I thought……………who cares? It is a team effort, and the results speak for themselves. Having been to Japan many times, I was always fascinated by the lack of “me, me, me” ego so often seen in the West. Collaboration is at the heart of the hard work that went into these works of art. Enjoy.
Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan, but this is no alien creation. The designs have been cleverly planted.
Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different color rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.
A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants. The colors are created by using different varieties. This photo was taken in Inakadate, Japan.
Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies. This was created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers and farmers located in Inkadate, Japan.
Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives are featured on the television series Tenchijin, appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture of Japan.
This year, various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan, including designs of deer dancers. Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan, such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers
The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the colored patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square meters of paddy fields.
From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.
Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen. Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees. The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces.
In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.
A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images
The saga of John Edwardsis more tragic than it is disgusting. Here is a man who has lied and lied, not just to the world, but most importantly, to himself. And my big question is why we, as a nation, are so gullible? Why did we take so long to see his charade?
Were there aspects of his tendency to cover the truth when he was running for President of the United States? He always posed with such a pretty face and spoke such pretty words. I remember having an annoying feeling in my gut that all was not right with his world and yet, and yet….it takes determination and a capacity for tenacity to even become a contender for the White House crown. He had credentials and had been vetted by his colleagues, deemed worthy of the job.
The day I knew he was down in the dirt of it was when he visited his “past relationship” late at night and on his way out was caught by a reporter and made a dash to run and hide. That made me cringe, thinking about how he would have handled a major international crisis.
Now, I can only hope he finds a way to make peace with all of his relationships: his ill wife, his children with her, his “mistress”, and the love-child they brought into the world.
This type of situation goes deeply into the psyches of the next generation, and the next. In our Total Leadership Connectionsprogram, participants are asked to chart their family history – to learn what patterns of the past have influenced their present thinking and behavior. It is an eye opening process that helps leaders become clear about what “baggage” they carry into their important jobs.
Perhaps all captains of industry, all leaders of organizations, all who are in positions of power for the public good need to take the time to do what we have named the “Sankofa Map”. The term Sankofa is from Ghana, from its mythology and means “clear the past to free the present”.
The wisdom of older cultures is that they took into account the behaviors of ancestors. There was a sense that what was done would impact both present and future generations. These concepts might serve us well in this day of instant gratification and power paradigms.
For John Edwards, Elizabeth, et al., I can only hope that there is a period of honesty and truth telling that can begin the long, arduous process of clearing the past to free the present.
I was at a seminar for authors on how to sell more books. Do I want to sell more books? Of course! Yet, there are so many shady ways to go about becoming a “best seller” or, let me put it this way, a “best seller for a day” I must admit I got really turned off.
Here is how it works: you tell everyone you know, and hopefully that is a lot of people, to go on Amazonat exactly the same time on the same day, usually right after the book comes out and buy a copy or two or three of the book. Then you sit back and watch your rating go sky high, at least for that brief moment.
Next, you have the right to state you are an Amazon “best seller”, even if before the week is over you are way down the list of popular books.
I couldn’t do it. I thought about it. In fact I thought about it for a few days. Then I decided that if my book had any merit, it would have to stand on its own, over time.
I must admit, when I check out competing books on leadership, executive development, workplace relationships, conflict resolution, personal and professional growth and the like, I sometimes become frustrated with the games that go with the process of becoming a “known“ commodity.
In any case, if you want to get some serious answers on how to navigate your professional life, how to become a leader of choice, and how to make a difference both at work and at home, please check out my book “Don’t Bring It to Work” (Jossey Bass). You can also take the Pattern Aware quiz at http://www.sylvialafair.com/quiz.html and receive a free half-hour consultation concerning the results. Then, you can decide if the book, or one of our programs, is right for you.
This may be a slower way to best seller status, or it may never happen. Either way is okay, at least I’m playing the game in an ethical and respectful way and that is really what matters to me.
Tiger Woods’ stories are touching almost every aspect of life in organizations today. Does he owe anything to the golfing community where he is seen as a CEO of sorts? Does he owe anything to his previously adoring public? Of course he owes much to his family, not just wife and children. What about his mother, and mother-in-law who fainted, assumingly from the stress, last week?
One area that could possibly shed some light on the issues of today would be to look at the life Tigerhad as a youngster and how that has played out in his adult work-life. This is simply another perspective to consider. Having worked as a family therapistfor years, I know first hand that what goes on in someone’s, anyone’s home is multilayered and complex and cannot be analyzed into two simple categories of good Tiger, and bad Tiger.
Maybe this could be a “wake up call” to parents who are uni-focused on the success of their children, perhaps at the cost of their emotional development. The same can be said for many other sports and media stars that were put into little boxes and became objects to be packaged for the world to adore.
Andre Agassi talks about the tennis court as a prison. Judy Garland never recouped from being a child star without the opportunity to be a child. Macaulay Culkin, Lindsay Lohan, and of course, Michael Jackson.
This is not about pointing fingers of blame; it is about redirecting our priorities. How many parents suggest that their youngsters, especially those with a wee bit of talent, focus on that strength at the expense of becoming a whole person?
All leadership developmentprograms need to address this insanity of what success really means. Think about it – with all his homes, yacht, fame and money, what does Tiger have in terms of contentment and joy? Was he running after sex or something deeper and more illusive that is still haunting him from his childhood? Let me know what you think.
Are leaders measured by different standards than the rest of us? If not, they should be! They are the ones who set the standards of what matters at work, or in society, and if they are in the “Follow me, I know the best way to go” mode, then we really need to ask and understand what and why we should follow.
It is time to evaluate our teachers, our politicians, our gurus by standards that show they live what they teach. However, are sports stars or media moguls in the same classification? They are great at letting us know the best way to swing a bat, make a basket, run a race or what to wear to be hip and in. That is a far different cry than how to live a life.
What are the questions we should be asking of our leaders? Do we have a right to ask about their personal lives or is it enough that they show us how to make money or gain an edge over our competition at work?
Perhaps all the “news” about affairs and betrayals are exploding so that we can ask the real questions about what it means to compose a life, to live with integrity. All leadership development programsneed a section to look at the ethics of living a purposeful life, one that can withstand today’s demand for radical transparency.
Eugene Robinson’s article in The Washington Postis a great example of what we are searching for in our own lives as we explore the foibles and mistakes of others. A big question is why we are spending so much time dissecting Tiger Woodsand his troubles when we have global warming and starvation and wars to contend with. Perhaps we are all looking at the rich and famous and seeing ourselves in them, No, not the big houses or shiny cars, more the underlying human dilemmas of what it really takes to be happy aside from the glitz and glitter.
Maybe it is time for us to sit with each other and redefine success. Do the Tiger Woods of the world exemplify successful living just because they can be golf wizards or Wall Street magicians?
It is time for all of us to think about, and share with each other, how we can bring forth in our culture what we all desire: love, truth, fairness, trust, and empathy. If out of all the messes in relationships we have seen this year, we can begin to open up dialogues about our human connection, then Tiger, Governor Sanford, Bernie Madoff, and the like will have given us a gift beyond just the ramble of gossip.
In a recent Psychology Today article, there was an old spin on the Tiger Woods affair. He did what he did, “because he could”, suggests the PhD psychologist. It was the aphrodisiac of power that lured him into “misbehaving”.
Remember when Bill Clinton had the whole world riveted with his shenanigans in the oval office? Lots of time went into the discussion of “should we care or not, and “whose business is it anyway”? and “it only belongs with the family”.
I could go on and on with names. Anyone remember Governor Mark Sanford? Elliot Spitzer? John Edwards? And if we continue to peel the onion back, we can find female names to add to the mix. Did Kate Gosselin “do it” with her security guard or not?
Why so much hype about what goes on in various bedrooms or motel rooms around the world? Is it just the love of gossip or, is it something else, something deeper in the generic psyche of people struggling to make sense out of relationships and what it means to commit to another?
Maybe the gossip, the endless articles, the “experts” on T.V. dissecting the reasons and back stories of the rich and famous are really our stories too – all of our stories. Maybe we, both men and women, want to make sense out of the commitment of marriage, out of the sacredness of family, out of how we should behave as models for future generations.
This appears to be a time of “radical transparency” when sexual and monetary transgressions are coming to light faster and more intently than in the past. It is too easy to brush this subject off with the “because s/he could” psychology.
Is there such a thing as sexual ethics? Is this the time for leadership development programsto tackle the issue of the ethics of how we relate to each other, to those we love, to sex, to money? Is this a time for teens to learn more than how to prevent pregnancy or just say “no” to sex, drugs, or cheating?
Now, I am not the type of prude that Europeans, who disregard most American, laugh about; those righteous individuals who spend so much time spying into the bedrooms of others and wagging their fingers at the results. I believe if folks want to carouse and test out different relationships, that is their prerogative. However, and this is a big HOWEVER, I do put out a plea for deeper discussion and understanding of the power of intimate relationships – actually, all relationships.
You see, I know that we can only get out of relationships as much as we are willing to put into them. So, if we dabble, well, don’t expect long term deep commitment back. And if we are willing to deep-dive into the mystery of relating, there are the priceless pearls that can only be retrieved from way at the bottom of the ocean of emotional and personal commitment.
It is time for us to break the patternsof the past that said “look away, ignore, deny, and avoid what is difficult and unpleasant”. It is time for all of us to ask what really matters and stop giving superficial answers to issues that are at the core of what it means to be a human being of integrity. It’s about you, it’s about me, and it’s about time!
I asked folks to send in stories about those who have helped them personally or who they have encountered who make a difference. Here is a powerful one from Katherine Matson who is a participant in our “Total Leadership Connections Program“.
Katherine is a skilled technology expert who spent years at IBM. She is also an individual who cares about making the world a better place and developing models for user friendly work settings, both technically and relationally.
Sylvia asked us to share stories about one person making a difference. Last week my oldest daughter called me to tell me about a guest speaker in her Public Policy class, a young man named John Dau. Dau was one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan, one of 27,000 who walked over one thousand miles to reach freedom. I know some came here to Michigan, and perhaps there are some in your area as well.
Dau arrived in Syracuse in 2001 just before 9/11. From never having seen electricity (they had to show him how to turn the lights on and off) he has graduated from Syracuse University, started a foundation, and has finished building a clinic in Sudan. A few weeks ago he was honored with a Caring People award (along with Colin Powell and Dalai Lama). Helping Sudan has become his life’s work.
Every leadership development programshould have a module on burnout; how to avoid it and what to do when yikes, too late, it’s right there in front of you.
Burnout is one of the leading causes ofconflict in the workplace. When you are exhausted even the softest squeaky wheel will set your teeth on edge. Burnout causes you to be irritable, unfocused, and less willing to hear others.
In a great article by Joe Duffy in FastCompany.com (Oct.27)he talks about creative types and how to keep their mojo. His advice works equally well for the rest of us worker bees, those of us who think we are the drudges at work.
Drudge is an interesting word. It is a word from Old English that means to work, to suffer. Fascinating how work and suffering are so often linked together.
So, ask yourself, are you a creator or a drudge? Is your life about finding the new in the mundane? Is your life about being a suffering servant to others? Once you claim the mantle of being a creative type everything in your life will take on new colors and dimensions.
So, whether you have the freedom to come and go at work that Joe suggests, or you are a 9 to 5’er, you can garner new ideas and help spark the inspiration of your whole team. Here are a few suggestions:
* Go for a brief 20 minute walk by yourself
* Close your eyes for 20 minutes and hum to yourself
* Check out a joke site and have a few laughs
* Share the laughs with colleagues
* Call someone and say thank you
* Keep crayons in your desk and take 20 minutes to scribble
* Take a new route home from work or to work the next day
Give power to the creative part of you and burnout will have to find another home! We were born to create not drudge!!!!
I was doing some research about the environment. My mind went to Henry David Thoreau and how he was a “gadfly” to keep people connected to nature. He was a searcher for the truth and knew that our inner nature is connected with outer nature.
Leadership and creativity are linked at a core level. Great 
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