By Linzy Upton-Spatz
As part of the 20th annual Holocaust Awareness Week this February at Colorado State University, students set up over 2,000 flags to represent the number of lives lost in the Holocaust.
Each flag represents 5,000 deaths and each color dictates the group of people targeted during the Holocaust such as Jews, Soviets, and political prisoners.
This annual display of flags helps to visually quantify the amount of people who were killed during the Holocaust that remains in the center of campus for all of Holocaust Awareness Week.
Students from different Jewish organizations such as Hillel, Students for Holocaust Awareness, Chabad, Alpha Epsilon Pi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi as well as members of the CSU and Fort Collins community came together to display the flags outside of the Lory Student Center.
This event was particularly important this year as a wave of anti-Semitic acts occurred at CSU.
It brought the community together and raised awareness about the atrocious acts of the Holocaust in hopes that nothing like the Holocaust will ever happen again.
Along with the Field of Flags, students brought a survivor to speak on campus, read a litany of names of martyrs all week, displayed the film The Zookeeper’s Wife, and had a memorial walk as part of Holocaust Awareness Week.
My name is Linzy Upton-Spatz. I’m a junior at CSU double majoring in journalism and business with a marketing concentration and am the marketing coordinator at Hillel. I am originally from Chicago and Aspen. I love the Chicago Blackhawks, my munchkin cat and spending time with friends and family.
CSU Hillel serves as an important bridge from the Jewish kid world to the Jewish adult world. We empower students to become leaders, and provide a warm and welcoming home-away-from-home for every student. Additionally, at CSU Hillel we take pride in cultivating a strong community with our weekly shabbats, sustainability projects and community mitzvahs around Fort Collins, as well as, helping our students learn about Judaism and Israel in whatever capacity most comfortable to them. To learn more about CSU Hillel visit our website and make sure to follow us on social media on Facebook at CSU Hillel and Twitter @CSUHillel.