So many stories of the pivotal eras of 20th century history are being lost with every passing day.

The Holocaust Museum and Study Center in Spring Valley is rushing to document local and area Holocaust survivors’ testimonies first-hand before they, too, are lost forever.

One survivor who is participating in the museum’s interactive audiovisual project said she felt compelled to talk about how she became part of the Jewish resistance in Hungary because she wanted to set the record straight.

“Everybody thinks ‘they all went to their deaths like sheep,’ and that’s not so,� Helen Laitman of Montebello said shortly after she had finished recording her story.

The project is similar to efforts that are being conducted in other institutions and organizations across the country.

Last week saw the debut of Ken Burns’ multi-part PBS documentary, “The War,� which tells the story of World War II soldiers from four diverse American towns.

Thousands of World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors are dying every day, and efforts like these are a race against time.

The historic march in support for the Jena 6 in Jena, La., on Thursday, appears to have achieved a great deal, and some of the results are probably not what organizers had hoped for.

Blacks and others united around a common cry that resonated across America, and came to Jena by the tens of thousands. In the wake of the peaceful march, though, some white supremacist groups appear to be using the incident as fodder for their agendas.

According to reports, one neo-Nazi Web site published the names and addresses of the six teens, with calls to find them and drag them out of their homes.

The American National Socialist Workers Party has started a nationwide campaign dubbed “Noose on the Loose� in which it urges whites across the county to hang nooses from trees to show defiance of black (they didn’t say “black� though; they the used the N-word) “mob rule� and to show support for their “Lynch the Jena 6� campaign.

According to reports in the Associated Press and The Chicago Tribune, Jena’s mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised pro-white groups’ efforts to organize counterprotests, and told one white supremacist leader that “your moral support means a lot.â€?

Civil rights advocates across the country have expressed strong concerns about a white supremacist backlash in the wake of the march on Jena.

For those who aren’t clear on the background of the case, read about it here.

Local advocates are reacting to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Friday announcement that the state would soon begin to provide driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants who possess valid foreign passports.

The announcement — which is of particular interest to the Rockland community, where a few police departments routinely issue summonses to illegal immigrants for unlicensed vehicle operation — has drawn a firestorm of debate from lawmakers, security experts and the general public.

Opponents worry that the move may enable security breaches and threaten the nation’s security, since licenses are accepted almost universally as a form of identification, particularly at airports and banks.

But supporters have welcomed the change, saying that bringing the undocumented out of the shadows establishes a record of their whereabouts and gets uninsured and unlicensed drivers off the roads.

An estimated 500,000 to 1 million undocumented immigrants in New York are currently driving without licenses or car insurance or with fake documents, Spitzer said.

The new policy represents a reversal of the Gov. George Pataki administration’s move to verify Social Security numbers as part of a tightening of the procedure for foreign-born applicants.

Immigrant advocates uniformly applauded Spitzer’s decision, saying the policy represents fair treatment of hardworking family people. But critics have roundly condemned it, recalling that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers had legally acquired licenses when they boarded the airplanes they used as murder weapons.

Questions continue to be raised as to how the new policy will fit into developing federal immigration legislation.

Currently, eight other states — Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington — do not require drivers to prove legal status in order to obtain a license.

Hispanic Heritage Month begins Sept. 15 and runs through Oct. 15.

For the estimated 44.3 million Hispanics living across the nation, it will be a time of celebration.

Hispanics in Rockland mark the month with great enthusiasm, particularly since the period encompasses the independence anniversaries of several Spanish-speaking nations.

In fact, the federal government selected the date for Hispanic Heritage Month in order to coincide with those independence celebrations.

Five Latin American countries — Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica — observe their independence on Sept. 15. And Independence Day is Sept. 16 in Mexico, and Sept. 18 in Chile.

Congress declared a week for Hispanic Heritage commemoration in 1968. Twenty years later, the observance was expanded to one month.

If you want to know more, read on for some quick facts about Hispanics in our area and around the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau:

• Rockland’s population is almost 13 percent Hispanic — or about 38,000 people of the estimated county 295,000 total — according to figures released by the Census Bureau last month.

• Hispanics now account for more than 18 percent of Westchester’s almost one million residents, a 22 percent spike since the 2000 Census. Putnam’s Hispanic population is almost 10 percent of its total estimated 100,000 people.

• About half of the people added to the nation’s population between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006, were Hispanic. The population grew by 1.4 million Hispanics over the period.

• There was a 3.4 percent increase in the Hispanic population between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006, making Hispanics the fastest-growing minority group in the nation.

• The Hispanic population of the United States on July 1, 2050 is projected to be 102.6 million, or about one-quarter of the nation’s population by then.