A free public roundtable comes to Southbury on Saturday, March 21, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Vicinanza Studios and Gallery (VSG), 493 Heritage Road, Suite 4C – bringing together writers, musicians, and community leaders who have channeled Holocaust trauma into stories that reach well beyond their own families and communities.
Sandy Carlson – a Southbury resident, poet, and high school English teacher – is moderating.
Carlson says she was motivated largely by local efforts to share the 1937 story of Southbury residents successfully blocking Nazi plans to build a military training camp in the Kettletown area.
“The Southbury story is our legacy and a reminder to all of us to recall our history as we make decisions in the present about how to treat our neighbors on the local, national, and global levels,” says Carlson, adding, “I hope the roundtable will inspire deep conversations about the meanings of compassion and of citizenship.”
Neighboring Woodbury’s poet laureate emerita, Carlson is a widely published poet who promotes conversations about creativity locally, on her podcast People and Their Poems.
Participants include musician and poet Bernard Kaplan, librettist of Remember Warsaw, Rabbi Eric Polokoff of B’nai Israel Southbury, former Southbury first selectman and author Ed Edelson, genealogist and author Deborah Holman, and Bonnie Siegler and Helene Stapinski, co-authors of The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe.
Admission is free and open to the public. Coffee will be provided by AM Coffee & Co., and there will be light refreshments.
The Participants
Ed Edelson, Southbury’s former first selectman, is also the author of Lois’s Story: A Young Girl’s Inspiration Helps to Stop Hate and Fear, which tells the story of the time when the people of Southbury rallied to reject the Nazis plans for a military training camp in town. He has worked with Region 15 schools to have the story included in the district’s 4th-grade curriculum, and he has organized remembrances of the event in town and at Heritage Village.
“I am honored to participate in the roundtable,” said Edelson. “As time goes by, I find that societies can suffer from amnesia, just like individuals. The horror and devastation caused by the Holocaust should never be forgotten. Only by telling the stories can we fight the tendency to forget uncomfortable truths. I hope this roundtable is a positive step in that direction.”
Deborah S. Holman of Woodbury is an author, genealogist, and blogger. Her 2024 book, Nothing Really Bad Will Happen: A Holocaust Story of Loss and Legacy, grew out of her research into her maternal family’s history—and into the long shadow of displacement. Holman traces her mother’s life from the moment she was forced to leave Vienna at six years old, exploring how childhood trauma reshapes a person’s future and echoes into the next generation. The story also follows what was left behind: a great-grandfather who lost the business he spent a lifetime building, and a grandfather who was incarcerated for a time in Nazi concentration camps.
Bernard Kaplan of Sherman and Queens, New York, is a retired educator, school administrator, and active musician. He holds a master’s degree in English and Education, as well as an advanced degree in administration. Kaplan is also the vice president and treasurer of the Jewish Community Center in Sherman. He wrote lyrics for Roger Ames’s oratorio about the Holocaust when the two worked together at the high school where Kaplan was principal. For the past 15 years, he has served on the board of Samaritan Daytop Village and is currently serving as chairperson of that board. He is also on the board and vice president of the Jewish Community Center of Sherman.
Rabbi Eric Polokoff is B’nai Israel of Southbury’s founding rabbi, serving the congregation since 1997. He gives great attention to his roles here as a teacher, pastor, speaker, and community leader. His interests and activities begin locally and extend beyond our community. He is moderator of the Southbury Clergy Association and has been active in the Connecticut Community Foundation and CT Anti-Defamation League (ADL). He is an ADL Associate National Commissioner and a Board Member of “Amplify Israel.” Rabbi Eric is also known locally as one of The Three Amigos, working with a Monsignor and Imam to extend interfaith understanding.
Rabbi Eric received his BA from Johns Hopkins University; MAHL, Rabbinic Ordination, and DD from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; and a STM Degree from Yale Divinity School.
Bonnie Siegler is the founder and creative director of award-winning, multi-disciplinary graphic design studio Eight and a Half. She coauthored The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe (2023) with Helene Stapinski, which traces her grandparents’ journey from Nazi Germany to New York. She is also the author of Dear Client, a guide for people who work with creatives, and Signs of Resistance, a Visual History of Protest in America. She taught design in the graduate schools of Yale University and the School of Visual Arts for many years.
Helene Stapinski is the author of three memoirs: Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music, and Murder in Matera. Her latest book, The American Way, which she coauthored with Bonnie Siegler, follows the life of a man who escaped Nazi Berlin with the help of Superman’s publisher. She has written extensively for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Salon, Real Simple, and New York Magazine, among others. She is currently researching her family history in Poland.
“Processing Holocaust Trauma Through the Arts” is free and open to the public. Saturday, March 21, 2–4 p.m., Vicinanza Studios and Gallery, 493 Heritage Road, Suite 4C, Southbury.
The Southbury Record 