Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre

Kristallnacht Public Lecture: Escape Journey Through Japan by Fumiko Ishioka
2019-11-14 20:00 - 22:00 (Africa/Johannesburg) | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
The Story of Dora Grynberg
A few thousand Jews escaped from the German- and Soviet-occupied Poland to the Far East during WW2. Among them was Dora Grynberg from Warsaw, seven-months pregnant, she was determined to give her child a life of freedom. In order to cross international borders , she, her husband Oskar, and other Polish Jewish refugees received rare assistance from representatives of Dutch government-in-exile, and Nazi Germany’s ally, Japan. A remarkable collection of heart-breaking letters exchanged between young mother Dora and her parents left in Europe. They remind us both of lives lost during the Holocaust and those who courageously survived.
Fumiko Ishioka is an educator and the Executive Director of the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center (THERC). The THERC teaches children about the dangers of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination.

Talk and Film Screening: Sugihara: Persona non Grata
2019-11-19 20:00 - 21:30 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Rabbi Yossy Goldman will give an opening address. His late father was a Sugihara visa recipient and was the sole survivor of his entire family from Poland.
Rabbi Yossy Goldman is the Senior Minister at the Sydenham Highlands North Hebrew Congregation and the President of the South African Rabbinical Association.
The film ‘Sugihara: Persona non Grata’ shows how the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara went against his country’s orders by issuing visas to refugees. In the process, he saved over 6,000 Jewish lives at the outbreak of World War II.
Film running time: 2hrs 20mins | Language: English and Japanese with subtitles
Light refreshments will be served. Booking essential: 021 462 5553 or admin@holocaust.org.za.
Suggested donation R30

Book launch: The First into the Dark Dr Michael Robertson
2019-11-28 20:00 - 22:00 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Please join Professor Leslie Swartz in converstion with the author Dr Michael Robertson on his latest book “The First into the Dark.”
Over the 12 years of Nazi dominion, more than 300,000 Europeans with disabilities were murdered by Nazi doctors and nurses; a further 400,000 were sterilised against their will. This aggregate of crimes, now known as Krankenmorde (the murder of the sick), was organised and performed by ordinary doctors, nurses, and bureaucrats.
The First Into the Dark is a ground breaking book that uses eye-witness testimony to reveal the history of the victims, witnesses, opponents to, and perpetrators of the Krankenmorde, and to grapple with the relevance of these crimes in the 21st Century.
Michael Robertson is a Clinical Associate Professor of Mental Health Ethics at the Sydney Health Ethics, University of Sydney and a visiting Professorial Fellow at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
Michael’s co-author Dr Edwina Light will also be present at the event to engage with guests, answer questions and sign copies of the book.

Edwina Light is a postdoctoral research fellow at Sydney Health Ethics (SHE) at the University of Sydney, and a visiting fellow at the Sydney Jewish Museum. With a background in health journalism and communications, she completed her bioethics training at SHE. Her research seeks to inform public debate and policymaking where matters of health ethics, policy and law intersect, with a particular focus on mental health ethics. Her research publications include works on mental health policy, involuntary treatment and systems of coercion, the experiences and perspectives of stakeholders, and the psychiatric profession under National Socialism.
RSVP essential: 021 462 5553 or admin@holocaust.org.za

Exhibition Opening: Objects from the concentration camps
2019-12-09 20:00 - 21:30 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Objects from the Concentration Camps:
A Photographic Exhibition by Richard Wiesel
The exhibition examines the personal objects left behind by Holocaust victims in the concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen, Germany. Photographed by Richard Wiesel and inspired by the stories of his cousin, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize writer Elie Wiesel, these images depict the various stages of life within the concentration camp system from entry, to daily existence, hope, to liberation. Dr. Robert Sommer researched each artefact back to its original owner enabling viewers to connect with the victims’ stories.
Selected from the closed archives of the two memorial sites, this stark and poignant imagery and text shares both stories of horror and hope during the years of the camps’ existence.
The keynote address will be given by Andrew Lamprecht
Andrew Lamprecht currently works at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Andrew does research in Curatorship, Contemporary African Aesthetics and History of Art.

Concert: Freda Davis Chanukah Concert
2019-12-22 21:30 - 23:00
Join us for the Freda Davis Chanukah Concert under the theme “Bringing Light into the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre”
Featuring performances by Cantor Ivor Joffe, Zola and Khayalitsha United Mambazo Choir.
Musical accompaniment by Evelyn Green Musical Ensemble
Candle Lighting Dvar Torah by Rabbi Wineberg
Coffee and doughnuts will be served
Book now by contacting Dianne: 021 462 5553 or admin@holocaust.org.za

Commemoration: International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
2020-02-02 17:00 - 19:00 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Join us in a ceremony to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
The event will include a candle lighting ceremony and a message from the UN Secretary General António Guterres and a keynote address by Professor Omer Bartov. The keynote address is entitled “Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz.”
Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University. He is the author of Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, along with several other well-respected scholarly works on the Holocaust and genocide, including Germany’s War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories and Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine. He has written for The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and The New York Times Book Review. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Public Lecture: The Garden of Memory by Alberto Rollo
2020-02-07 12:00 - 13:30 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Join us for a public lecture entitled “The Garden of Memory: Literature and Jewish Identity in Italy after the Holocaust” by Alberto Rollo
The Italian post-war generation discovers more about Jewish history and culture through the literature than institutions of learning. Alberto Rollo will explore how prominent Italian writers explore the Jewish identity within their works and the changes in the landscape brought by the works of Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani
Alberto Rolo is an Italian editor, writer, essayist, and literary critic. He is editing director of fiction at the publishing house Mondadori; before which he was, for more than twenty years, literary director at Feltrinelli Editions. He has translated numerous contemporary English and North American authors, from Jonathan Coe to Harold Brodkey, as well as the autobiography of Frank Capra The Name Above the Title. He is the author of Un’ educazione milanese (ed. Manni Editori, 2016), a book which won the Alvaro-Bigiaretti and Pisa awards.

Public Lecture: The Garden of Memory by Alberto Rollo
2020-02-07 12:00 - 13:30 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Join us for a public lecture entitled “The Garden of Memory: Literature and Jewish Identity in Italy after the Holocaust” by Alberto Rollo.
The Italian post-war generation discovers more about Jewish history and culture through the literature than institutions of learning. Alberto Rollo will explore how prominent Italian writers explore the Jewish identity within their works and the changes in the landscape brought by the works of Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani.
Alberto Rollo is an Italian editor, writer, essayist and literary critic. He is the editing director of fiction at the publishing house Mondadori; before which he was, for more than twenty years, literary director at Feltrinelli Editions. He has translated numerous contemporary English and North American authors, from Jonathan Coe to Harold Brodkey, as well as the autobiography of Frank Capra: The Name Above the Title. He is the author of Un’ educazione Milanese (ed. Manni Editori, 2016), a book which won the Alvaro-Bigiaretti and Pisa awards.

Survivor Talk with Ella Blumenthal
2020-02-12 20:00 - 21:30 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Join us for a public lecture by Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal as she shares her testimony.
Ella is 98-year-old survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, and the Majdanek, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.
RSVP essential: 021 462 5553 or admin@holocaust.org.za

Survivor talk with Helene Joffe
2020-02-20 12:30 - 14:00
Join us for a Holocaust survivor Helene Joffe as she shares her testimony.
Helene is a 84-year-old child survivor who went into hiding in France during WWII.
RSVP essential: 021 462 5553 or admin@holocaust.org.za

Public Lecture: The Heroines of the Warsaw Ghetto Doctor Corps by Luc Albinski
2020-02-27 20:00 - 21:30 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Join us for a public lecture by Luc Albinski entitled “The Heroines of the Warsaw Ghetto Doctor Corps.”
Luc, a fluent Polish speaker brought up in a Polish-Catholic home, is based in Johannesburg. His interest in Holocaust and genocide work springs from his personal history as well as from his on-the-ground involvement with a non-profit during the Bosnian conflict.
RSVP essential: 021 462 5553 or admin@holocaust.org.za

Temporary Exhibition: Survivors Portraits Exhibition
2020-02-29 - 2020-03-13 | Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
Survivors Portraits Exhibition
Portraits of Holocaust survivors who chose to make Cape Town their home. The portraits were painted by Highlands House artists supervised by Haim Menashehoff.
