By Diane Gasper-O’Brien

University Relations and Marketing

HAYS, Kan. – Dr. Patricia Levy, a professor in the social work department at Fort Hays State University, was born and raised in Seattle but learned about the Holocaust at a young age. Some killed in the genocide during World War II were members of her own family.

Dr. Levy, a Jewish descendant of Poland, particularly remembers a horrible feeling one day in her early 20s while looking at family photos with one of her great aunts.

Her aunt, who had migrated to Seattle before Hitler’s dictatorship, picked up a photo with about 20 people and started crying. She said in broken English, “Do you see these people here? They all died.”

“The people in that photo,” Dr. Levy said, “were her parents and her siblings and their children.”

Jan. 27, 2020, marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz.

It is recognized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And Dr. Levy always remembers. She will never forget the genocide that saw the Nazi regime kill six million Jews and 11 million others in gas chambers, furnaces, and firing squads. Numerous memories and photos can be found on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., at www.ushmm.org.

As a young woman, Dr. Levy joined some friends traveling to Israel, and she ended up living there off and on for about 18 years. She learned a lot more about the Holocaust, and ultimately found her career, while teaching English As A Second Language in Israel, which became a homeland for Jews after World War II.

She worked in a hospital and a day care center for the elderly. She worked with doctors who had family killed in the Holocaust. While working as a medical social worker in a hospital, some of Dr. Levy’s patients were survivors of the genocide, and she said they talked about the experience openly because it’s part of Jewish Israeli history.

Even though people rebuilt their lives after the genocide, studies show the effects of that trauma has been passed down from generation to generation.

“It’s important for all of us to remember this,” Dr. Levy said, “and to remind people to stand up against all kinds of injustices.”

Dr. Levy realized that teaching about diversity was a natural fit for her, and thought she had a lot to offer. She has two bachelor’s degrees, in English and social work, and went on to earn  master’s and doctorate, both in social work. 

She arrived at Fort Hays State just before the terrorist attacks on New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. While talking about it in one of her classes, a student – knowing of her Israeli background and her family history with the Holocaust – commented “you must be used to this.”

“You never get used to it,” Dr. Levy said. “You just go on.”

She has written and published articles on terrorism and developed a social work course on mass trauma and intervention focusing on disaster and terrorism. She stresses the dangers of staying silent about an injustice is like contributing to it.

As a university professor, Dr. Levy hopes she can make a difference.