Speaker Hackney appoints child survivor of the Holocaust to NC Council on the Holocaust

Posted Friday, February 29, 2008

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Fearrington Village, NC - Speaker Joe Hackney has appointed Ms. Renée Fink to the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust.

Ms. Fink is a Dutch Hidden Child. She was hidden by a Catholic family in Holland from 1942 until the end of World War II. She says the family risked their lives every day they kept her hidden while the Nazi regime in Germany persecuted Jewish people. Ms. Fink's parents died in the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.

Ms. Fink is a retired medical staff coordinator. She resides in Fearrington Village in Chatham County. Her appointment to the council will expire June 30, 2009.

"I am deeply honored to be appointed to the Council by Speaker Hackney. It is a meaningful culmination of the war experience at this point in my life," Ms. Fink said. "Being a child survivor makes me a member of the last generation to bear witness to the Holocaust, and all too soon we will be the only ones left to tell the story."

The North Carolina Council on the Holocaust is a 24-member body that focuses on preventing genocide and violence through education about the Holocaust. The Governor, Speaker of the House, and President Pro Tempore of the Senate each appoint six members of the Council. The remaining six are appointed by these eighteen members.

The Holocaust council holds teacher workshops and distributes Holocaust-related materials to middle and high schools. The council has distributed 10,000 copies of its North Carolina Resources Guide and trained more than 12,000 teachers throughout the state. Many of these teachers had not attempted to teach about the Holocaust before they attended the workshops. More than 1.2 million North Carolinian students have been educated on the Holocaust as a result of these workshops.