Esther Toporek Finder is a professor of psychology and has lived in Las Vegas, Nevada since 2010. She was born May 28, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Washington D.C. in 1979 after graduating with her Masters from the University of Chicago. While in Washington D.C, Finder was able to jump start her career as an oral historian recording Holocaust survivor stories with the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Shoah Foundation. Esther Finder is a second generation Holocaust survivor. Her passion for Holocaust education and its representation in society has led her to many opportunities to teach, facilitate, educate, create and contribute to many survivor oriented groups such as The Generation After where she was President for 15 years, the Holocaust Era Assets Conference as representation of the American survivor community, as well as the creation of the Generations of the Shoah International group in October 2002. When Finder moved to Las Vegas, she quickly and deeply involved herself in the Las Vegas Holocaust survivor community. She has been integral with Nellis Air Force Base?s Days of Remembrance, the opening the Generations of Shoah Nevada Chapter, and partnering with the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Descendants to bring conferences to the Las Vegas Valley. In addition, she has been an organizer of commemoration programs for students attending UNLV and schools within the Clark County School District. Her involvement with the Governor?s Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust and the television series Eyewitness to History have highlighted the Holocaust survivors living in Las Vegas. In this interview, Finder discusses her childhood as well as the paths that led her to realize her passion for the Holocaust survivor community and her deep association with the community. She shares her experiences interviewing survivors and second generation survivors giving a deeper insight into the stories that they have shared with her over the years. In addition, she reflects on her long reach within the survivor community and brings to light the foundation of family being a survivor gives. Finder highlights the traveling, teaching and community service opportunities she has had over the years while enlightening people about the importance of countering hate through education.
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Interview with Irving Kirshbaum by Cheryl Rogers on February 23, 1979. In this interview, Kirshbaum discusses the Riviera Hotel where he began working in 1955. He also talks about the landscape of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1950s, and the state of gambling, comps, customer service, and dealer training. The interviewer asks about the treatment of minorities at the Riviera, and in Las Vegas generally, and the effect of corporate ownership on casinos.
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Interviewed by Monserrath Hernández, Nathalie Martinez and Rodrigo Vázquez. Irene Cepeda is a woman dedicated to serving the Latinx as well as all minority groups in education in Southern Nevada. As a Las Vegas native, she grew up alongside the Latinx community here and is a proud Latina from Nicaraguan roots. She is dedicated to uplifting the Latinx community through her work with the Latino Youth Leadership Conference and college access specialist at Nevada State College. Now, as representative of District D on the Clark County School District Board of Trustees, she seeks to tackle the issues the district faces from acts of White supremacy to a lack of funding for English Language Learner families.
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On March 25, 1976, David Anderson interviewed Sherwin “Scoop” Garside (born May 26, 1915 in Tonopah, Nevada) about his life in Southern Nevada. Garside first talks about his father’s business in running an early Nevada newspaper and his personal knowledge of the early mining that took place in different parts of Nevada. He also talks about living in the town of Tonopah, the American Indians who lived in the area, and his experiences from living in Las Vegas. Garside also mentions the beginnings of gambling in Las Vegas, the population boom periods of Las Vegas, and his experiences in witnessing the aboveground atomic testing.
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On March 3, 1978, Monica Lehman interviewed Clark Crocker (born 1920 in Westfield, Massachusetts) about his experiences while living in Nevada. Crocker first talks about his family and educational background before describing his experiences from going to school in both California and Massachusetts. Crocker then describes what he knows about the building of Hoover Dam and later talks about his career as a teacher and school principal. The two also discuss Crocker’s hobbies and volunteer work, including that for the fire department in Pahrump, and they later discuss Crocker’s experiences as both a frogman and navigator for the United States Navy during World War II. The interview concludes with some of Crocker’s thoughts and philosophies on how curriculum should be structured in schools.
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With a liveliness of a man decades younger, Harry Kogan looks at his 100th birthday with cheer and satisfaction. Born March 11, 1916 to poor Russian immigrant parents in the Jewish ghetto of Philadelphia, Harry vividly recalls walking to school shoeless, with no hat or no raincoat. A treat would be his mother handing him ten-cents to go to the theater and enjoy a silent movie. After graduating from high school in 1933, Harry quickly took one of the rare jobs available in a garment manufacturing company where he worked his way into being a skilled and valued fabric cutter-a job that paid $35 a week. Harry was raised with two brothers and lived in Philadelphia for the first 91 years of his life before moving to Las Vegas. One of his brothers learned the refrigeration business while enlisted in the Navy and after the war formed a commercial refrigeration business named Kogan Brothers. Harry is a philosophical and philanthropic man. He was slow to retire and traveled the world, took classes and donated to his favorite causes; among which are the Boys Town Jerusalem and the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. He sat for this interview to honor his Jewish roots, to share his life experiences and spending the past years in Las Vegas.
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Ron Lawrence is one of the busiest people in the gay community, so I want him to know how much I appreciate his reserving time for me so that I could complete this oral history interview. The importance of his work toward the well-being of the gay community in Las Vegas cannot be measured, and much of what he's accomplished and otherwise made possible will live long after he leaves us. With Ron's consent to this interview, our knowledge of Nevada's gay history is greatly enriched and our record preserved.
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In this oral history, Gary explains how the family came to live in the United States?Cleveland and Los Angeles. In 1957, he married Noreen and they eventually came to live in Las Vegas where Gary worked for Sears selling washing machines, had a repair business and an importing business with Noreen. Gary was an entrepreneurial soul and inventive much like his father. He owns three patents.
On August 25, 1931, Augusta and Herman Sternberg welcomed their second child, Gerd (aka Gary), into the world of Cuxhaven, Germany. Augusta was a devout Christian of Polish ancestry who had fled Russian persecution. Herman was a German-born Jew salesman and inventor. The couple fell in love and had two children, Gary and Ruth who was a year and half older. By 1938, German politics were targeting Jews and Herman was ripped away from his Christian wife and children and sent to a concentration camp. Fate and friendship rescued Herman with the option to go to China. And so begins the history of the Sternberg family and how they all would eventually live together during World War II in the confines of a Jewish ghetto in Hongkew, China from May 1939 to July 1948. Gary had an extraordinary career as a dealer. He was not the stereotypical young dealer-to-be: he was in his 40s when he signed up for the Michael Gaughn Dealing School in the mid-1970s. Gary?s charming wit and ease of making friends soon gained him a position at El Cortez and then Caesars Palace. It was the same personality that would sustain his stellar thirty-one year career at Caesars. He was employed there from April 1974 until his retirement May 8, 2005. Though Jewish tradition would identify Gary as Christian, he self-identified as Jewish, officially converted and has been an active member of the Jewish community. Among his anecdotes-and he has many-is one about securing a $30,000 donation from Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo for Congregation Ner Tamid.
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