Dr. Kristine F. Hoover is Professor at Gonzaga University in the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program, facilitating the Change Leadership concentration, and directs the university’s Institute of Hate Studies. The Institute bridges the academy with community engagement, through research, teaching and partnerships with students, staff, faculty, and community members. She is a former Chair of the Washington Legislative Ethics Board and former Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) trainer. Dr. Hoover is concerned with questions regarding how organizations and communities shape inclusion and cultures of dignity.   

A Holocaust survivor who has lived in Spokane, WA since 2004, Carla Peperzak risked her life to help others as a member of the Resistance while living under Nazi occupation in Holland. Carla was born in Holland in 1923. She grew up in Amsterdam with her family, which was close-knit and fairly well-to-do. Her father was Jewish, and her mother was born Catholic, but raised in a Jewish family when her parents died. Carla's comfortable, normal childhood included vacations on the coast, field hockey, rowing, ice skating and sailing. She loved school and dreamed of one day becoming a doctor. Carla's family also lived very near Anne Frank and her family and attended the same Reform temple.

When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, everything changed. The following year, Jews had to register with the German authorities. Carla was required to have an ID card with a large "J" on it. In 1942 the Nazis went a step further and forced all Dutch Jews to wear the Star of David on their clothes. Carla's father, however, acquired papers from a lawyer that identified Carla, her sister, and her mother all as non-Jewish, allowing them greater freedom.

Carla was able to enroll in a medical technology program, and while working in a hospital she stole a German ID and bought a German nurse's uniform. With this disguise, she became active in the Resistance. Her first job, in 1942, was to find a place for her uncle and his family to hide in the countryside. She was able to do the same for about forty other people, and helped them obtain food, medical supplies, and fake IDS. Carla often biked for hours to visit those hiding outside the city.

Although her immediate family survived, about seventy-five percent of Carla's extended family was killed in the Holocaust. After the war, Carla married her husband Paul, who was Catholic. In 1948 they left Holland, and they and their four children lived on four different continents because of Paul's work with the United Nations and the World Bank. She and Paul eventually settled in the U.S. and became citizens in 1958.

Carla has been sharing her story with students and the community members since 1992 and continues to inspire all of us with her bravery, kindness and spirit.