By Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
When Doug Lipman speaks, it is easy to get drawn into the story he tells.
This comes as no surprise since Lipman, 60, is a folk musician and nationally known storyteller living in Edmond. His special talents will be showcased Sunday as he weaves together a series of vignettes for the 16th annual Holocaust Remembrance Program.
The program, held by the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, will be at Millwood High School.
Edie Roodman, the federation's executive director, said she is excited about "Chasidic Tales of the Holocaust,” Lipman's poignant one-man show.
Having the storyteller is in keeping with the federation's plan to offer the Holocaust remembrance event in different formats.
"We've done dance and art and video, reader's theater. We're always looking for different ways to share the Holocaust message,” Roodman said.
"If you keep doing it the same way, people become numb to it. It doesn't register. They don't internalize it. If ... you tell it each time in a unique and powerful way, they remember.”
Lipman said he recently performed his show at Millwood, two Moore junior high schools, a Jewish high school class at a local synagogue, the Hillel Foundation at the University of Oklahoma and Southern Hills Christian Church in Edmond.
He said his interest in the Holocaust was sparked when he was a young boy looking at his father's photographs from his World War II military career. Lipman said his father was a liberator of the Ebensee camp in Austria and had taken several pictures of Holocaust survivors at the camp.
"The first time I saw them was when I was 8 years old. It was quite disturbing to think that someone would do this to people on purpose,” he said.
Years later, a friend played "The Ballad of Mauthausen” for him. The song about the Mauthausen concentration camp struck a chord within him. As a folk musician, the song stirred his heart and reminded him of his father's pictures.
Later, he found out the two camps — Ebensee and Mauthausen — were less than four miles apart.
"The music went straight to my heart, and over the years, I did several shows based on this song,” Lipman said.
The song, along with his one-man act, "is wrapped up in me discovering the Holocaust through my father's photos.”
He said response to the show has been positive.
"People say they hear statistics about the Holocaust and facts about the Holocaust, but when they hear stories and songs of particular people, it has a whole new kind of meaning for them.”
In addition to Lipman's vignettes and songs, the Millwood Choir will perform a song based on the poem "Sunset” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
Cathy Pettijohn, the federation's director of Holocaust Education and Community Resources, said the program, under the direction of Richard and Ruth Charney, will conclude with a traditional candle-lighting ceremony to commemorate the 6 million Jews and 5 million additional victims murdered at the hands of the Nazis.
She and Roodman said other participants include civic leaders and community members who contribute to Holocaust education and remembrance through their words and deeds.
"It's our obligation in the Jewish community to tell the story over and over, but we shouldn't be the only ones telling the story and hearing the stories,” Roodman said. "It's all about humanity.”
