DA's Office Teams Up With Holocaust Center For Training

Press release from Napa County District Attorney's Office:

March 23, 2021

Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley announced today that in coordination with the Holocaust Center, the staff of the District Attorney’s Office received training on Jewish history and the causes and consequences of antisemitism, racism and discrimination. The Napa County District Attorney’s Office is committed to the pursuit of equal justice for all members of our community and the prosecution of hate and violent crimes.

To assure success in that pursuit, the District Attorney’s Office teamed up with the Holocaust Center which is a program of Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. The Center, Northern California’s primary resource for education about the Holocaust and genocide, is dedicated to the remembrance, research, documentation and education about the Holocaust.

District Attorney Allison Haley stated: “The Napa County DA’s Office is looking for meaningful ways to be more inclusive, more accessible and more aware of how we are showing up to the Napa community. How can we be of service? How can we be more sensitive? These are conversations worth having and our participation as an organization is long overdue.”

The training was done virtually over Zoom by Anita, a Holocaust survivor and member of the William J. Lowenberg Speakers Bureau. Anita was born to a German mother and Dutch father in 1936 in Emmen, a small town in northern Holland. She had an older brother and three younger sisters. When the Germans invaded Holland, Anita and her family were ripped apart. While most of the Jewish families were sent to Auschwitz and other concentration camps to die, Anita was given a new name and forged papers and sent to live with a Dutch family. She was told that if anyone found out she was Jewish, she would die. In 1944, when the Americans liberated the south of Holland, Anita’s family was reunited and they came to the United States in 1952. Anita described her harrowing experience in exceptional detail and highlighted the effects of being hated simply for who she was on her personal and professional development.

The District Attorney’s Office is committed to training on critical issues of equity and awareness. We have recently trained on LBGTQ best practices, Race and Bias, and now, anti-Semitism. We look forward to continued trainings for our staff.

Any questions may be directed to Assistant District Attorney Paul Gero.

This press release was produced by Napa County District Attorney. The views expressed here are the author's own.