Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre

Book launch: The First into the Dark Dr Michael Robertson
2019-11-28 20:00 - 22:00 (Africa/Johannesburg) | 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

Talk and Film Screening: Sugihara: Persona non Grata
2019-11-19 20:00 - 21:30
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

Kristallnacht Public Lecture: Escape Journey Through Japan by Fumiko Ishioka
2019-11-14 20:00 - 22:00
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.

Finding the Good - Rwanda’s Pathways Back to Trust by Carl Wilkens
2019-11-04 20:00 - 21:30
Finding the Good – Rwanda’s Pathways Back to Trust
Carl Wilkens will share about recent visits to Rwanda as well his personal stories from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The “firing” of new brain pathways and our ability to reframe the “other” are some of the powerful tools and practices he has learned from survivors, perpetrators, and his own journey.
Carl Wilkens is the only American who chose to stay in Kigali, Rwanda throughout the 1994 genocide. He and his Rwandan colleagues worked together to save the lives of hundreds. His harrowing yet hopeful journey weaves together stories of tremendous risk and fierce compassion in the midst of slaughter. Each year he returns to Rwanda with students and educators to see for themselves how people are working together to rebuild their country and rebuild trust.

Public Lecture: Documenting History Through Art by Leora Raikin
2019-10-16 20:00 - 21:30
This talk will focus on Jewish life in Eastern Europe before, during and after the Holocaust through the eyes of Lithuanian Israeli artist David Labkovski.
Leora Raikin is an international speaker, educator, author and is the founder and executive director of the David Labkovski Project, an organisation that teaches students about the Holocaust and Jewish life in Eastern Europe through the artwork of Labkovski.

Book Launch: Epitaph of no words by Jeanine Hack
2019-10-03 12:30 - 14:00
Join us for the special book launch by Jeanine Hack of the book “Epitaph Of No Words.”
The book details Emil and Martha Galliner struggles as they fled Nazi Germany through Shanghai, United States before moving to South West Africa (Namibia), and finally to Johannesburg. This book records their trauma and recognizes their attempts to restore their dignity.
Jeanine Hack
Jeanine is the great-granddaughter of Emil and Martha Galliner whom this book is about. She grew up in Windhoek, and has lived in Cape Town for thirty-six years. It was her grandmother Dodi who gave the postcards to Jeanine which formed the basis for this book. As a direct descendent, Jeanine felt compelled to respond to how the lives of her great-grandparents were affected by the forced expulsion from Nazi Germany in June 1941.

Commemoration: 75th Anniversary of the Rhodes Island deportations
2019-09-16 20:00 - 22:00
Join us for commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the deportation of the Rhodeslis from Rhodes Island. The keynote speaker will be Milena Cosentino and her talk is entitled “Trauma and Memory.”
Milena’s talk discusses the trauma and memory of the Holocaust in Rhodes and Cos, considering historical and contemporary issues related to genocide, antisemitism, collective memory and identity. In addition, how trauma, memory and nostalgia can be correlated and transmitted across generations. The link between history and psychology has a significant part to play in helping people around the world to come to terms with their very difficult past involving traumatic events.
Milena’s Bio:
Milena Callegari Cosentino is a PhD Teaching Fellow at University of Limerick (Ireland) – Post-Graduation Program in History and Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (FAHSS). Her preview academic experience was at the Department of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo (USP – Brazil). Also, she has experience working as clinic psychologist. Milena does research in Clinical and Social Psychology, and History. Her current research project is “Rhodes and the Holocaust: repercussions and legacies for later generations.”

Film screening: Murer: Anatomy of a Trial
2019-09-10 21:00 - 23:00
MURER: ANATOMY OF A TRIAL reconstructs the 1963 proceedings against Franz Murer, a respected local politician and family man who was in charge of the Vilnius ghetto from 1941 to 1943, where its residents called him the “Butcher of Vilnius”. Only 600 of the 80,000 Jews who originally lived there survived Nazi rule, and Survivors came from around the world to testify at the trial, leaving little doubt of Murer’s guilt.
The film shows how little weight truth and justice possess when competing with the interests of political power

In My Father's Words - film and discussion by Richard Lowy
2019-09-05 20:00 - 22:00
Leo’s Journey
Narrated by Christopher Plummer, this 60-minute documentary chronicles the first hand story of Nazi Doctor Josef Mengele and his “medical experiments” on Jewish twins in Auschwitz during World War II. Survivor Leo Lowy’s heart-wrenching journey is interwoven with historical footage and interviews that include: a surviving Jewish slave doctor at Auschwitz; the world’s leading expert on Nazi medicine, Dr. Benno Muler-Hill; and the grandson of Dr. Otmar von Verschuer – Mengele’s twin project sponsor and mentor. This film reveals the absolute disregard for human life that occurred when medical science sacrificed its ethics to serve a perverse political ideology.

Srebrenica Memorial
2019-08-29 21:00 - 23:00
The theme of the commemoration is “Bridging the Gap”. The event includes a short film, candle lighting ceremony and a theatrical performance of “Sarajevo.”
“Sarajevo” is a play about a South African photo journalist recording a soon-to-be-taboo love affair between a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman at the dawn of the Yugoslavian war.

Accountant of Auschwitz
2019-08-21 20:00 - 21:30
Seventy years after WWII, Oskar Gröning, one of the last surviving members of the SS, goes on trial as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
