Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre

Virtual tour of the Holocaust History Museum by Dr David Deutsch
2021-03-24 16:00 - 17:00 (Africa/Johannesburg)

To be a woman in the Holocaust by Cheryl Ochayon
2021-03-17 16:00 - 17:00 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHwf5fN2MtU

Yad Vashem’s educational philosophy and tools by Dr Noa Mkayton
2021-03-10 16:00 - 17:00 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRaGzLs6BE

Life Before the Holocaust: Portraits of Character
2021-03-04 13:00 - 14:00 | https://ctholocaust.co.za/event/life-before-the-holocaust-portraits-of-character/
Join us on Thursday 4 March at 1pm (SAST) for an exclusive webinar for Members and Volunteers with photographer Jono David on Life Before the Holocaust: Portraits of Character
Please register using the link below: bit.ly/3aDlBtH

Witnesses of the Witnesses
2021-02-23 19:00 - 20:30 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISdrPcJWwHA
Join the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation in partnership with the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute for a fascinating discussion inspired by the film and installation “Witnesses of the witnesses”. This inter-generational conversation includes H.E. Paolo Cuculi (Ambassador of Italy to South Africa), Lina Kantor Amato (Holocaust Survivor, Island of Rhodes), Dr Gary and Dr Linda Kantor (Lina’s children), Rene Pozniak (Leader of March of the Living, South Africa), and Noah Tradonsky (Alumni of March of the Living, 2015 & Emerging Leaders March of the Living Conference, 2019).

Based on the interactive exhibition of the same name displayed in Rome in 2019, this project stems from a group of students who participated in the Journey of Memory to Auschwitz. The group wanted to take charge of the transmission of the memory of witnesses who survived the killing centres, so that the expression “not to forget” is not reduced to a mere formula of consolation. The video document is a choral memory that weaves different viewpoints into a layered fabric, guided by the voices of surviving witnesses, who met the students in the Journeys of Memory.
This event is part of an annual collaboration between the Embassy of Italy, the Italian Cultural Institute and the SAHGF, and the project was promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with the video produced by Studio Azzurro.
Click this link to register and receive a link to the live webinar: http://bit.ly/3jD8ATM
Please note that the film will not be shown during the live webinar and should be watched in advance.
Click this link to watch the film: https://vimeo.com/499141034/3768804aa4
Please be aware that there are some distressing scenes in the film which are not suitable for sensitive viewers.

International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
2021-01-27 21:00 - 23:00 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4NrZdzuTv8
Join us on 27 January at 7pm (SAST) to mark the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust with a keynote address from Professor Aomar Boum on “Revisiting Vichy Forced Labour Camps in the Sahara, 1940-1945“.
Please register using the link below:
http://bit.ly/3sC2FST
Since the end of World War II (WWII), historical and autobiographical works on Nazi camps throughout Europe have dominated Holocaust and genocide literature. Compared to Nazi history of detention and concentration camps, the relative historical amnesia and historiographical silence toward other camp experiences is largely reflected in the absence of broad historical studies that detail the complexities of camps established by other governments during WWII such as the United States, Japan, Italy, Spain and France.
Despite the growing historical interest in concentration and labour camps across the world today, the memory of WWII is finally becoming a regular topic of academic interest in a few North African and Middle Eastern academic circles. These intellectual conversations promise to break through the walls of taboo in societies where Jews and non-Jews were affected by colonial regulations.
–
Aomar Boum is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles and faculty fellow at the Université Internationale de Rabat (Morocco). He is the author of ‘Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco’ (2013), and co-editor of ‘The Holocaust and North Africa’ (2019) with Sarah A. Stein.

From Citizens to Outsiders: Burma’s Path to Genocide
2021-01-14 21:00 - 22:30 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ0mI_PQ8U0
Join us for a panel discussion and a virtual tour of the new online exhibit “Burma’s Path to Genocide” with former political prisoner and Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu, exhibit curator Greg Constantine and policy expert Andrea Gittleman.
Register for this discussion and virtual tour using the link below:
https://bit.ly/2X6fcjh

The Roma Genocide under Nazi Rule by Dr David Deutsch
2020-11-25 21:00 - 22:30 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAZnApJekOI
As part of the Nazi world view of “restructuring” Europe, ethnic groups such as the Sinti and Roma were branded as a dangerous threat and were violently targeted. This webinar, presented by Dr. David Deutsch, a Yad Vashem educator, will focus on the persecution of this group.
Register for the webinar using he link:
https://bit.ly/3krK4nt

From Non-racialism to Anti-racism: Conversations in Black and White
2020-11-19 21:00 - 22:30 | https://ctholocaust.co.za/event/from-non-racialism-to-anti-racism-conversations-in-black-and-white/
Please join us on Thursday 19 November at 7:00pm (SAST) for an online panel discussion on Racism and Xenophobia in South Africa. To receive the zoom webinar link via email, please register using the following link:
https://bit.ly/38v0s4q

A Picture Book Guide to Growing Up with a Survivor and other Mermaid Tales by Mirah Langer
2020-11-12 21:00 - 22:30 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VIEbIP6IBo
Please join us on Thursday 12 November at 7:00pm (SAST) for a webinar by Mirah Langer on “A Picture Book Guide to Growing Up with a Survivor and other Mermaid Tales”

Progressive Antisemitism by Ben M. Freeman
2020-10-18 15:00 - 16:00 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJMilGW8pHM
This webinar will explore the historical roots and modern manifestations of Progressive Antisemitism.
It will offer the opportunity for an in-depth examination of anti-Jewish racism, illuminating a deep understanding of what Jewish people are facing today.
Ben M. Freeman is a world-renowned educator who focusses on Jewish identity, antisemitism and raising awareness of the Holocaust. His first book, Jewish Pride: Rebuilding A People, coming out next year, will educate, inspire and empower Jews to reject the shame of antisemitism and to begin the process of exploring and embracing their own identities as proud Jews.
Registration link: https://https://bit.ly/3ioyGIW

Artists in the Archive: Remembering the Genocide in Namibia Through the Arts by Dr Pedzisai Maedza
2020-09-15 19:30 - 21:00 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9xagjdYwI
This talk considers the role of performance in remembering, memorializing and sustaining the memory of the 1904 to 1908 Herero and Namaqua genocide. It interrogates how contemporary artistic and cultural performances from within and outside of Namibia inform the way in which societal history and the present are presented and remembered across time and space.
Registration link: https://bit.ly/2EADuMa

White Rose Creative Project Awards Evening
2020-08-30 17:00 - 18:00
Join us for an online ceremony honouring high school learners who participated in this year’s White Rose Creative Project.
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86391486684

The Present and Future of Yiddish and Litvak Religious and Secular Culture by Dovid Katz
2020-08-25 19:30 - 20:30
The speaker will give a survey, starting with a brief summary of the postwar situation, of the present-day remnants and studies of both religious and secular
Dovid Katz, a Vilnius-based Yiddish and Holocaust scholar, has taught at Oxford, Yale and Vilnius universities. He edits the web journal Defending History and is at work on a new Yiddish Cultural Dictionary.
This event forms part of the Mervyn Smith Memorial Lecture Series
Register for events in this lecture series using the link below:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/katz/

My 30 Years on The Road Looking for the Litvaks in their Native Lands by Dovid Katz
2020-08-18 19:30 - 20:30
This talk will give a personal history of a Yiddish dialectologist (and son of a Litvak Yiddish poet), from New York to London to Oxford to Yale to Vilnius.
Dovid Katz, a Vilnius-based Yiddish and Holocaust scholar, has taught at Oxford, Yale and Vilnius universities. He edits the web journal Defending History and is at work on a new Yiddish Cultural Dictionary.
This event forms part of the Mervyn Smith Memorial Lecture Series
Register for events in this lecture series using the link below:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/katz/

The Lithuanian Holocaust and Why It Is So Controversial by Dovid Katz
2020-08-11 19:30 - 20:30
The Lithuanian Holocaust and Why It Is So Controversial
This talk outlines the history and major chapters of the Lithuanian Holocaust and goes on to question the uniqueness of the Baltics (and western Ukraine) vis-à-vis the outbreak of violence before arrival of the first Nazi German forces in 1941. The talk will also look at the post-Soviet rise of Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation, the 21st century heirs to classic Holocaust Denial.
Dovid Katz, a Vilnius-based Yiddish and Holocaust scholar, has taught at Oxford, Yale and Vilnius universities. He edits the web journal Defending History and is at work on a new Yiddish Cultural Dictionary.
This event forms part of the Mervyn Smith Memorial Lecture Series
Register for events in this lecture series using the link below:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/katz/

Women's Day Celebration with Elizabeth Rosner
2020-08-09 14:00 - 15:00 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DJ_SFXeOK0
Please join us for the 2nd Annual Women’s Day Celebration with our special guest speaker the international award winning author Elizabeth Rosner on Sunday 9 August at 2pm (SAST).
To receive the zoom webinar link via email, please register using the following link:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/womens-day/

The Unique Challenge to Jewish Mothers in the Ghetto by Rabbi Moshe Cohn
2020-08-06 19:30 - 20:30 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsdedQeFCLY
Register for the Webinar using the link:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/Cohn/
The unique role of Jewish women and mothers during this terrible time is often an opportunity to see powerful sparks of light in the overwhelming darkness that consumed humanity during the war. This presentation will focus on the unique struggles Jewish women faced, the moral dilemmas no person should ever have to experience, and the often heroic attempts many of these women made as they strove to maintain continuity and morality in a time of unprecedented rupture and immorality for themselves, their families and their communities.
Rabbi Moshe Cohn is the Head of the Jewish World Section in the International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. He is a dynamic educator with more than thirty five years of extensive experience in both formal and informal education. In Israel he pioneered creative educational experiences for post high school students, first as the founder of Torat Shraga Yeshiva, a GAP year boys learning program in Jerusalem, and then as Principal of Halichos Bais Yaakov Seminary for Girls. Prior to his making Aliyah in 2000, Rabbi Cohn served for almost twenty years as the Director of the Central Eastern and Southern Regions of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.

The Yiddish Language by Dovid Katz
2020-08-04 19:30 - 20:30
This talk looks at the origins of the Yiddish language. It goes on to look at the developments in the Germanic lands, the rise of the major East European dialects and the rise of modern Yiddish literature.

Dovid Katz, a Vilnius-based Yiddish and Holocaust scholar, has taught at Oxford, Yale and Vilnius universities. He edits the web journal Defending History and is at work on a new Yiddish Cultural Dictionary.
This event forms part of the Mervyn Smith Memorial Lecture Series
Register for events in this lecture series using the link below:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/katz/

Liberation and the return to Life by Ephraim Kaye
2020-07-30 11:30 - 12:30
Register for the Webinar using the link:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/Kaye/
This presentation will raise two major questions that survivors were confronted with after their liberation; Where do we go? What do we do with our lives? A number of survivors will provide their personal answers to these questions and through their answers will inspire us with the hope, faith and resilience they had in spite of what they lost and suffered.
Ephraim Kaye has a BA and an MA in Modern Jewish History and the History of the Holocaust from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. From 1978-2000 he taught in the Israeli high school system. During this time he taught courses on the Holocaust at several different colleges in Jerusalem. Since 1980 he has been involved in Holocaust research and education.
In 1988, he joined the educational staff at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Since 1994, he has been Director of the International Seminars at The International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem. During this time, he has coordinated and led over 450 international seminars from over 20 countries in 8 different languages.
Over the past 30 years, he has led and guided more than 17 trips to Poland for high school students, graduates of the Yad Vashem seminars and IDF Officers. In 2015 he became the Director for the Jewish World and International Seminars. From 1999 to 2020, he has organized 10 International Conferences on Holocaust education at the International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem.
Ephraim has been a guest speaker and lecturer in different Holocaust centers and conferences throughout the world – among them, Beth Shalom in England; Ravenna in Italy; Frankfurt in Germany; Vilna in Lithuania; Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Darwin in Australia; Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg in Canada; Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Nanjing, Kaifeng and Xian in China; Wellington, New Zealand; and throughout the USA and Canada in different Holocaust Centers and schools.

The Litvaks on the Stage of Jewish (and World) History by Dovid Katz
2020-07-28 19:30 - 20:30
This talk survey of Jewish history jumping rapidly from Biblical times to the advent of Ashkenaz, more slowly to the rise of Líte (Lita), and in greater detail on Jewish Lithuania itself, from the fourteenth century to 1941.

Dovid Katz, a Vilnius-based Yiddish and Holocaust scholar, has taught at Oxford, Yale and Vilnius universities. He edits the web journal Defending History and is at work on a new Yiddish Cultural Dictionary.
This event forms part of the Mervyn Smith Memorial Lecture Series
Register for events in this lecture series using the link below:
http://ctholocaust.co.za/katz/

Webinar: The Holocaust and Masculinities
2020-07-26 22:00 - 23:30
Please join us on Monday 1st June at 8pm for a Online Webinar with a panel of experts on “The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries Into the Presence and Absence of Men.”
To receive Zoom link, please register using the following link:
https://forms.gle/N5g8KxttoFjTsP2F6
The webinar will also be broadcast live on our Facebook page.

An acclaimed panel of experts will discuss what can be learned when applying a consciously gendered approach to the historical, social and political realities of genocide.

Panellists

Björn Krondorfer is Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University and Endowed Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies. His field of expertise is religion, gender and culture, and (post-) Holocaust and reconciliation studies. His scholarship helped to define the field of Critical Men’s Studies in Religions. In 2007-08, he was guest professor at the Institute of Theology and the History of Religion at the Freie University Berlin, Germany, and he held the status of visiting Faculty Affiliate at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He received a Senior Research Fellowship at the Research Institute CLUE+ (in affiliation with Faculty of Theology) at the Vrije University in Amsterdam (2016/2017) and he is the recipient of the Norton Dodge Award for Scholarly and Creative Achievements. He has been invited to speak, present his research and facilitate intercultural seminars in Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel & Palestine, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States.

Publications include Unsettling Empathy: Working with Groups in Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020); The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries into the Presence and Absence of Men (SUNY 2020); Reconciliation in Global Context: Why it is Needed and How it Works (SUNY, 2018); Male Confessions: Intimate Revelations and the Religious Imagination (Stanford UP, 2010); Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism (London, SCM, 2009); Men’s Bodies, Men’s Gods (New York UP, 1996); Remembrance and Reconciliation (Yale UP, 1995); and Body and Bible (Trinity Press, 1992). He guest-edited four journal issues: Strangers or Neighbors? Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Perspectives on Refugees (CrossCurrents 2018), Antisemitism and Islamophobia (CrossCurrents 2015), Masculinities and Religion (Religion and Gender 2012), and Embattled Masculinities in the Religious Traditions (CrossCurrents 2011). He also published three volumes in German on the cultural and theological legacy of the Holocaust, and edited Edward Gastfriend’s My Father’s Testament: Memoir of a Jewish Teenager, 1938-1945 (Temple UP, 2000). He serves on several editorial and advisory boards.

As director of the Martin-Springer Institute, he has organized several international academic symposia and has mentored the creation of several exhibits, Through the Eyes of Youth: Life and Death in the Bedzin Ghetto; Resilience: Women in Flagstaff’s Past and Present; and on the Berlin Wall. He has curated the art exhibitions Wounded Landscapes (2014) and Echoes of Loss: Artistic Responses to Trauma (2018). He has been awarded a one-month residential fellowship at the Santa Fe Art Institute on the theme of “truth and reconciliation” (2019).

Monika Rice is an Assistant Professor and Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program at Gratz College. She received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. She is the author of “What! Still Alive?! Jewish Survivors in Poland and Israel Remember Homecoming” (Syracuse University Press, 2017; Choice Outstanding Academic Title), as well as chapters in edited volumes and articles exploring postwar identities of Polish Jews, and Polish-Jewish relations.

Lisa Pine is Associate Professor of History at London South Bank University, UK. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and obtained her doctorate from the University of London in 1996. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her main research interests are the social history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. She is the author of Nazi Family Policy, 1933-1945 (Berg, 1997), Hitler’s “National Community”: Society and Culture in Nazi Germany (Hodder, 2007; Bloomsbury, 2017), Education in Nazi Germany (Berg, 2010) and Debating Genocide (Bloomsbury, 2018). She is the editor of Life and Times in Nazi Germany (Bloomsbury, 2016) and The Family in Modern Germany (Bloomsbury, 2020). She has also published many journal articles and chapters in books including: ‘Germany’, in A. J. Angulo (ed.), Miseducation: A History of Ignorance Making in America and Abroad (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016); ‘Testimonies of Trauma: Surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau’, in P. Leese and J. Crouthamel (eds), Traumatic Cultures: World War Two and After (Palgrave, 2016); ‘The Family and Private Life’, in C. Szejnmann, S. Baranowski and A. Nolzen (eds), A Companion to Nazi Germany (John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2018); ‘The Experiences of Male Holocaust Victims at Auschwitz’, in B. Krondorfer and O. Creanga (eds), The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries into the Presence and Absence of Men (SUNY Press, 2020).

Robert Sommer is a Berlin historian and scholar in Cultural Studies. He received his Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany in 2009. His research focuses on sexuality and sexual exploitation in Nazi concentration camps as well as prostitution politics in the “Third Reich”. For his dissertation on camp brothels, he conducted research in 70 archives in Germany, Poland and the U.S.A. and 30 interviews with survivors of the holocaust. He has been working as research associate for the concentration camp memorials of Ravensbrück and Flossenbürg and for various documentaries such as the BBC documentary “Auschwitz. The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution'”. He is the author of Das KZ-Bordell: Sexuelle Zwangsarbeit in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern [The Camp Brothel: Forced Sexual Labor in National Socialist concentration camps](Schöningh, Paderborn 2009). Sommer teaches at various universities such as DePaul University (Chicago) and Hampshire College (Amherst, Massachusetts). He currently is the curator of the exhibition of photographs by Richard Wiesel called “Objects from the Concentration Camps: Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen”.

Online Webinar: The Holocaust and Masculinities
2020-06-01 22:00 - 23:30
Please join us on Monday 1 June at 8pm for a Online Webinar with a panel of experts on “The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries Into the Presence and Absence of Men.”
To receive zoom link via please register using the following link:
https://forms.gle/N5g8KxttoFjTsP2F6
The webinar will also be broadcast live on our Facebook page.

An acclaimed panel of experts will discuss what can be learned when applying a consciously gendered approach to the historical, social ,and political realities of genocide.

Panellist

Björn Krondorfer is Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University and Endowed Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies. His field of expertise is religion, gender, and culture, and (post-) Holocaust and reconciliation studies. His scholarship helped to define the field of Critical Men’s Studies in Religions. In 2007-08, he was guest professor at the Institute of Theology and the History of Religion at the Freie University Berlin, Germany, and he held the status of visiting Faculty Affiliate at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He received a Senior Research Fellowship at the Research Institute CLUE+ (in affiliation with Faculty of Theology) at the Vrije University in Amsterdam (2016/2017) and he is the recipient of the Norton Dodge Award for Scholarly and Creative Achievements. He has been invited to speak, present his research, and facilitate intercultural seminars in Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel & Palestine, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Publications include Unsettling Empathy: Working with Groups in Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020); The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries into the Presence and Absence of Men (SUNY 2020); Reconciliation in Global Context: Why it is Needed and How it Works (SUNY, 2018); Male Confessions: Intimate Revelations and the Religious Imagination (Stanford UP, 2010); Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism (London, SCM, 2009); Men’s Bodies, Men’s Gods (New York UP, 1996); Remembrance and Reconciliation (Yale UP, 1995); and Body and Bible (Trinity Press, 1992). He guest-edited four journal issues: Strangers or Neighbors? Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Perspectives on Refugees (CrossCurrents 2018), Antisemitism and Islamophobia (CrossCurrents 2015), Masculinities and Religion (Religion and Gender 2012), and Embattled Masculinities in the Religious Traditions (CrossCurrents 2011). He also published three volumes in German on the cultural and theological legacy of the Holocaust, and edited Edward Gastfriend’s My Father’s Testament: Memoir of a Jewish Teenager, 1938-1945 (Temple UP, 2000). He serves on several editorial and advisory boards.

As director of the Martin-Springer Institute, he has organized several international academic symposia and has mentored the creation of several exhibits, Through the Eyes of Youth: Life and Death in the Bedzin Ghetto; Resilience: Women in Flagstaff’s Past and Present; and on the Berlin Wall. He has curated the art exhibitions Wounded Landscapes (2014) and Echoes of Loss: Artistic Responses to Trauma (2018). He has been awarded a one-month residential fellowship at the Santa Fe Art Institute on the theme of “truth and reconciliation” (2019).

Monika Rice is an Assistant Professor and Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program at Gratz College. She received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. She is the author of “What! Still Alive?! Jewish Survivors in Poland and Israel Remember Homecoming” (Syracuse University Press, 2017; Choice Outstanding Academic Title), as well as chapters in edited volumes and articles exploring postwar identities of Polish Jews, and Polish-Jewish relations.

Lisa Pine is Associate Professor of History at London South Bank University, UK. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and obtained her doctorate from the University of London in 1996. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her main research interests are the social history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. She is the author of Nazi Family Policy, 1933-1945 (Berg, 1997), Hitler’s “National Community”: Society and Culture in Nazi Germany (Hodder, 2007; Bloomsbury, 2017), Education in Nazi Germany (Berg, 2010) and Debating Genocide (Bloomsbury, 2018). She is the editor of Life and Times in Nazi Germany (Bloomsbury, 2016) and The Family in Modern Germany (Bloomsbury, 2020). She has also published many journal articles and chapters in books including: ‘Germany’, in A. J. Angulo (ed.), Miseducation: A History of Ignorance Making in America and Abroad (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016); ‘Testimonies of Trauma: Surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau’, in P. Leese and J. Crouthamel (eds), Traumatic Cultures: World War Two and After (Palgrave, 2016); ‘The Family and Private Life’, in C. Szejnmann, S. Baranowski and A. Nolzen (eds), A Companion to Nazi Germany (John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2018); ‘The Experiences of Male Holocaust Victims at Auschwitz’, in B. Krondorfer and O. Creanga (eds), The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries into the Presence and Absence of Men (SUNY Press, 2020).

Robert Sommer is a Berlin historian and scholar in Cultural Studies. He received his Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany in 2009. His research focuses on sexuality and sexual exploitation in Nazi concentration camps as well as prostitution politics in the “Third Reich”. For his dissertatzion on camp brothels he conducted research in 70 archives in Germany, Poland and the U.S.A. and 30 interviews with survivors of the holocaust. He has been working as research associate for the concentration camp memorials of Ravensbrück and Flossenbürg and for various documentaries such as the BBC documentary “Auschwitz. The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution'”. He is the author of Das KZ-Bordell: Sexuelle Zwangsarbeit in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern [The Camp Brothel: Forced Sexual Labor in National Socialist concentration camps](Schöningh, Paderborn 2009). Sommer teaches at various universities such as DePaul University (Chicago) and Hampshire College (Amherst, Massachusetts). He currently is the curator of the exhibition of photographs by Richard Wiesel called “Objects from the Concentration Camps: Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen”.

Online Webinar: Holocaust memory and education practices during the Covid-19 Pandemic
2020-05-18 17:00 - 18:30
Join us for a rountable discussion reflecting upon Holocaust memory and education practices during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Click here to go to register
Speakers include:
Stephen D. Smith (Director of USC Shoah Foundation, California)
Heather Blumenthal (Director of the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre)
Anna Hirsh (Senior Archivist, Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne)
Louise Stafford (Director of Learning, National Holocaust Centre, UK)
2020 was the year in which many 75th anniversaries related to the Holocaust and the end of World War II were to be marked with commemorative events and education programmes. However, many of these were cancelled, happened with staff-only behind closed doors, or moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As many countries around the world begin to consider plans to emerge from lockdown in the coming months, we are certainly looking towards a ‘new normal’. Whilst social distancing and other measures that will remain in place for some time present restrictions, such a moment also encourages us to reflect on the opportunities regarding how we might define the future of Holocaust education, memory and heritage practice, particularly in terms of the integration of digital technologies. In this roundtable event, our panel will consider what might this new normal look like for organisations dedicated to Holocaust memory and education, and what have we learnt from experiences working during these unprecedented times?

Webinar: Holocaust memory and education practices during the Covid-19 Pandemic
2020-05-18 17:00 - 18:30
Join us for a round table discussion reflecting upon Holocaust memory and education practices during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Click here to go to register
Speakers include:
Stephen D. Smith (Director of USC Shoah Foundation, California)
Heather Blumenthal (Director of the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre)
Anna Hirsh (Senior Archivist, Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne)
Louise Stafford (Director of Learning, National Holocaust Centre, UK)
2020 was the year in which many 75th anniversaries related to the Holocaust and the end of World War II were to be marked with commemorative events and education programmes. However, many of these were cancelled, happened with staff-only behind closed doors, or moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As many countries around the world begin to consider plans to emerge from lockdown in the coming months, we are certainly looking towards a ‘new normal’. Whilst social distancing and other measures that will remain in place for some time present restrictions, such a moment also encourages us to reflect on the opportunities regarding how we might define the future of Holocaust education, memory and heritage practice, particularly in terms of the integration of digital technologies. In this round table event, our panel will consider what might this new normal look like for organisations dedicated to Holocaust memory and education, and what have we learnt from experiences working during these unprecedented times?

Webinar: Debunking Digital Myths by Dr Victoria Walden
2020-04-30 22:00 - 23:30
Please join us for an online webinar by Dr Victoria Walden on “Debunking Digital Myths: What’s so ‘new’ about New Media Experiences with Holocaust Memory?”
Dr Victoria Grace Walden is a senior lecturer in media studies at the University of Sussex, UK. Her research explores how digital technologies are used in memorial museums and archives through a philosophical lens. Her most recent book is Cinematic Intermedialities and Contemporary Holocaust Memory (2019). She is currently editing The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age and Digital Holocaust Memory, Research and Education, and writing a monograph Digital Holocaust Memory: Museums and Archives for the Future.
You can follow her research at http://digitalholocaustmemory.com

Online Webinar: Debunking Digital Myths by Dr Victoria Walden
2020-04-30 22:00 - 23:30

24-Hour Virtual Global Vigil to Unite Against Hate
2020-04-30 08:00 - 2020-05-01 08:00
On April 30th, join us for an unprecedented 24-hour global vigil online to conclude Genocide Awareness Month and unite the fight against hate worldwide. With hate on the rise and a global pandemic keeping us apart, it’s essential that we come together virtually across lines of difference. The #TogetherWeRemember Coalition, made up of leading genocide education and human rights organizations, invites you to join us for twenty-four hours of inclusive name-readings, insightful speakers, and inspiring performances that honour the victims of and upstanders to identity-based violence and genocide throughout history. Join us as we remember humanity at its worst to demonstrate what humanity can be at its best.
This global vigil is the culminating event of the #TogetherWeRemember Campaign – thirty days of virtual events organized by museums, schools, and communities to bridge the gap between awareness and action in the fight against hate. On April 30th, we intend to demonstrate the diversity and depth of work being done by incredible organizations around the world to make “never again” a reality – once and for all.
REGISTER: bit.ly/TWRglobal-vigil
Participating Organizations:
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center (USA)
Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre (South Africa)
Durban Holocaust and Genocide Centre (South Africa)
Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre (South Africa)
Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh (PA, USA)
Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum (USA)
Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (USA)
CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center (USA)
Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis (USA)
Purdue University at Fort Wayne Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (USA)
SUNY Empire State College (USA)
Center for Holocaust, Human Rights, and Genocide Education (USA)
MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!

24-Hour Virtual Global Vigil to Unite Against Hate
2020-04-30 08:00 - 2020-05-01 08:00
On April 30th, join us for an unprecedented 24-hour global vigil online to conclude Genocide Awareness Month and unite the fight against hate worldwide. With hate on the rise and a global pandemic keeping us apart, it’s essential that we come together virtually across lines of difference. The #TogetherWeRemember Coalition, made up of leading genocide education and human rights organizations, invites you to join us for twenty-four hours of inclusive name-readings, insightful speakers, and inspiring performances that honor the victims of and upstanders to identity-based violence and genocide throughout history. Join us as we remember humanity at its worst to demonstrate what humanity can be at its best.
This global vigil is the culminating event of the #TogetherWeRemember Campaign – thirty days of virtual events organized by museums, schools, and communities to bridge the gap between awareness and action in the fight against hate. On April 30th, we intend to demonstrate the diversity and depth of work being done by incredible organizations around the world to make “never again” a reality – once and for all.
REGISTER: bit.ly/TWRglobal-vigil
Participating Organizations:
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center (USA)
Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre (South Africa)
Durban Holocaust and Genocide Centre (South Africa)
Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre (South Africa)
Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh (PA, USA)
Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum (USA)
Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (USA)
CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center (USA)
Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis (USA)
Purdue University at Fort Wayne Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (USA)
SUNY Empire State College (USA)
Center for Holocaust, Human Rights, and Genocide Education (USA)
MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!

Yom HaShoah Commemoration
2020-04-21 13:45 - 15:30
Please join us on Tuesday 21 April at 11:45am as we commemorate Yom HaShoah virtually. The Yom HaShoah virtual commemoration recording can be found on our Facebook page.
