THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, October 25, 1995            TAG: 9510250496
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                            LENGTH: Short :   49 lines

JEWISH GROUP DONATES HOLOCAUST BOOKS TO LIBRARIES CITY, SCHOOL FACILITIES COULD CHOOSE BOOKS TO MEET THEIR NEEDS.

The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater on Tuesday gave more than 800 books about the Holocaust to city and school libraries across South Hampton Roads, in an effort to promote education and understanding of the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews.

The gift marks the completion of a fund-raiser that started this spring during Yom Hashoa, the annual day of Holocaust remembrance. The federation's Holocaust Commission raised $10,000 from local donors to buy the books.

Librarians at middle schools and high schools in the five cities of South Hampton Roads - including private schools like Cape Henry Collegiate and Nansemond Suffolk Academy - got the chance to select books suited to their students' needs. Public libraries also received books for their collections.

The federation's fund-raiser was named for the ``White Rose'' German resistance group, whose leaders - professors and students at the University of Munich - were executed in 1942 for distributing leaflets protesting Hitler's policies. Every library received one book chronicling the group's crusade against the Nazis.

``The message of the White Rose is that courage, compassion and moral conviction are important,'' said Betsy Karotkin, the federation's director of human resource development. ``It is a lasting contribution to all of us.''

Many librarians picked up the books on Tuesday and attended a speech by a Holocaust expert, designed to help them teach about a genocide so terrifying that many people deliberately avoid reading about it.

Margaret Drew, who is a consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, suggested that parents and teachers must be careful to find a balance between extremes when explaining the Holocaust to children: Don't overprotect them, but don't overwhelm them.

Holocaust literature for young children often overplays the role of resistance fighters, Drew said. While these books may have the well-intentioned goal of giving children inspirational role models, she said, the result may be a distortion of history - unless children read other books to provide a broad context.

``The Holocaust is not a story of resistance. It is the story of atrocity and extermination,'' she said. ``We have to keep the rescue efforts in proportion to what they really were.'' by CNB