EX-SKINHEAD, HOLOCAUST VICTIM TO MEET DIVERSITY ENCOUNTER SET AT VALENCIA HIGH.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - A former neo-Nazi skinhead will share the stage with a Holocaust survivor at Valencia High School, a suburban campus ripped apart last year by accusations of racism.

The program, aimed at children in the fifth grade and up, will be held Oct. 6 as part of the city of Santa Clarita's Human Relations Forum presentation Celebrating Diversity, a monthlong series to promote tolerance and cultural awareness.

Timothy Zaal, former member and Los Angeles area director of operations, recruitment and propaganda for the White Aryan Resistance, disavowed the neo-Nazi organization and eventually became a consultant to the Task Force against Hate sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Drawing on personal experience, Zaal speaks on how hate groups recruit and organize racist youths.

The city and the William S. Hart Union High School District have worked together since a group of African-American families complained last year of racism on district campuses, particularly Valencia. While most of the incidents they reported had taken place off-campus, school officials responded by preaching tolerance and urging parents to teach their children to deal with the growing diversity in the predominantly white Santa Clarita Valley. A civil-rights lawsuit is pending on behalf of three students.

Sharing the stage with Zaal at the 7 p.m. lecture will be Renee Firestone, who was born in Czechoslovakia and at age 19 was imprisoned in the infamous Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp for 13 days in the last years of World War II. Most of her family was slain by the Nazis.

After the war, Firestone was reunited with her brother, Frank, and her soon-to-be husband, Bernard. The family came to the United States in 1948 and over the years she has become a leader in social justice and Holocaust education.

Firestone is the founding lecturer for the Wiesenthal Center's education outreach program.

Patricia Farrell Aidem, [phone]

pat.aidem(at)dailynews.com

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY

--Oct. 1, 2-4 p.m., Santa Clarita Activities Center:

The award-winning film ``Paper Clips'' is a documentary that tells the story of a rural Tennessee middle-school class that goes on a quest to collect 6 million paper clips to represent each Jewish person killed in the Holocaust.

--Oct. 6, 7 p.m., Valencia High School theater:

Former neo-Nazi skinhead Tim Zaal and Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone speak on racism and hatred.

--Oct. 11, 6:30 p.m., Santa Clarita Activities Center:

``What's Cooking,'' a comedy about colliding worlds and sensibilities when children return home to the family camp for the Thanksgiving weekend in four ethnically diverse Los Angeles families. Rated PG 13.

--Oct. 19, 2 p.m., Valencia Library:

Craig Newton Story Hour features music and stories from around the world. For preschoolers and up.

--Oct. 26, 7 p.m. Boys & Girls Club Sierra Vista Jr. High Branch:

Terrance Roberts' Little Rock Nine depicts the author's experiences as a 15-year-old 11th-grader when he joined eight other students, and became one of the first black students to go to a formerly segregated public high school in Little Rock, Ark.

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CELEBRATING DIVERSITY (see text)