Dear Mr. Baldele:

Thank you so much for your application to serve as a "Gedenkdienst" intern at The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre as of March 11, 2002. The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre will be extremely pleased to welcome you as a Gedenkdienst intern under the auspices of Austria's Gedenkdienst program, for a period of 14 months.

Please allow me also to introduce you to the work that you will be performing at the Centre. The post you will occupy will require forty (40) hours of full-time work per week. This work will be completed in the following areas:

1) Archives - The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre holds approximately 5,000 items (artifacts, documents, photographs, pieces of personal memorabilia, and the like) in its archives collection. The entire archive will be catalogued and prepared for integration of archival material in the new exhibits. The work of the Gedenkdienst interns will encompass direct assistance in the cataloguing, describing, and indexing of the materials for the new exhibits. As well, there are considerable documents in German which will require translation and the interns will assist in the translations. This work will be directly supervised by The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre archivist.

2) Exhibits - During the 2002-2003 program year, The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre will be preparing and issuing revised educational documents for use of teachers and students at the high school and college level. Part of the documentation includes the development of lesson plans that incorporate the teaching of moral responsibility, most directly focused on the development of attitudes which will help young people to counter intolerance, racism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial. A part of the regular work of the interns will be occupied in assisting The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre professional staff in researching, writing, and developing these packages and the accompanying educational exhibits that will be issued with the documentation.

3) Museum - The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre museum and its new exhibit, which will be opened to the public in the fall 2002. Until then you will work on accessions and development of the museum contents. The interns will be involved in greeting museum tours, assisting in tour giving, speaking to groups of visitors and the like. They will work with the museum hosts and the docents of the Museum on a regularly scheduled basis.

4) Research: During the year there are a series of research projects which develop including our "Witness-to-History" video tape project, publication of witness testimony (print), follow-up in tracing of families and family members and the like. The interns will be assigned research responsibilities in each of these projects, most particularly in research of families and survivors who emigrated from Austria. This research will be completed both locally in interviews and follow-up with survivors and members of their families, through the Internet, and general and specific contacts with Yad Vashem, the USHMM, and other institutions in the Association of Holocaust Organizations world-wide.

5) Translations: Many of the museum volunteers and general museum visitors (Docents, Hosts, Speakers etc) will require and will seek assistance in translation of documents in their possession. The interns will assist these individuals according to scheduled times made available for this service to them.

7) Other: The interns will be recognized as official members of the MHMC staff and will be expected to conduct their work experience in accordance to the fashion in which regular staff members of the institution do so. During the course of the year there will be from time-to-time special projects that evolve and the interns will be actively integrated into the completion of the tasks that may be presented.

I have read carefully your curriculum vitae and I am most pleased to have you join us at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre. Please advise me when you will be arriving and if you require any assistance.

We look forward to meeting you and wish you a safe journey to Canada.

Bienvenue!

Yours truly,

Ann Ungar
Executive Director