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The Holocaust in European Memory
July 8-11, 2013
Room 710 Social Sciences
9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Register here.
Registration deadline: June 24, 2013

In this workshop we will examine questions such as how the Nazi murder of European Jews became "The Holocaust"? How is this story conveyed through public memorials, school curricula, art, literature and film? How has the Holocaust been contextualized and rendered meaningful within the diversity of European nations and in the distant US? And what are its implications for teaching the Holocaust in the classroom?

We will approach the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective, with internationally recognized scholars in the fields of history, sociology, literature and German/European studies from the University of Minnesota and Gustavus Adolphus College. Speakers will focus on historiography, testimony, media and visual arts and will assist educators in creating curriculum and lessons they can incorporate into their classrooms.

Instructors:
Alejandro Baer,
Director and Stephen C. Feinstein Chair, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota
Leslie Morris, Associate Professor, Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch, University of Minnesota
Joachim J. Savelsberg, Professor Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota
Elizabeth Baer, Professor English, African Studies, Gustavus
Jodi Elowitz, Outreach Coordinator, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota

The critically acclaimed films The Flat (2011) and Hitler's Children (2011) are now streaming on Netflix. The Flat is a documentary film about director Arnon Goldfinger's 98-year-old grandmother who lived in Israel after emigrating from Berlin in the 1930's. After his grandmother passes away the family is tasked with cleaning her flat. While going through her belongings they discover a secret that causes renewed reflection on the family's relationship to the past and the memory of the Holocaust.

Hitler's Children (2011) is a standard documentary that examines the lives of some of the descendants of the Third Reich's more notorious Nazi leaders. One of the most fascinating of these is the segments dealing with Rainer Hoess the grandson of Rudolf Hoess the commandant of Auschwitz and Eldad Beck an Israeli journalist and grandson of Holocaust survivors. They travel to Auschwitz together to help Hoess put context to his troubled connection to his father and grandfather.

Both films explore Holocaust memory and seek to show how the generations handle these memories in order to be able to live in the present.

Sky Tinged Red is the chronicle of Isaia Eiger's two years as a prisoner in Auschwitz- Birkenau. Eiger immediately wrote of his experiences in the camp shortly after the war. The book focuses on his experiences and his role in the resistance movement that took place at the camp.

Isaia Eiger passed away in 1960, leaving the manuscript unpublished for his family. Discovered by his daughter Dora Eiger Zaidenweber, it was put aside until the mid 80's when she set out to translate her father's story. After translating the nearly 100 pages of the typed manuscript she was surprised to find that it abruptly ended prior to his liberation. It would be another 20 years before she would find the remainder of the memoir, which was handwritten in Yiddish. The pages were small and the writing detailed and cramped, which made the process of translating the remaining pages incredibly challenging considering Zaidenweber was now legally blind. Determined, she invented a process to translate the pages. Even so, it took a great deal of patience and persistence on her part to finish the memoir that has now been published. The process she underwent to translate her father's words is a true testament to her strength of character.

The book is now available for purchase and more information can be found by clicking here.

For more information about Dora's story please visit her CHGS web page.

The Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies congratulate Whitney Taylor and Katie Menke as the recipients of the 3rd annual human rights awards.

Taylor is the recipient of the Sullivan Ballou award, and Menke received the Inna Meiman Award. These two exemplary students have demonstrated incredible aptitude, commitment, and passion in their service of others throughout their time at the University of Minnesota.

An awards luncheon will take place on Friday, May 3 at 12:00 p.m. 280 Ferguson Hall.

Whitney Taylor is a dedicated and emerging human rights activist and scholar, who exhibits incredible energy and intellect inspiring and mobilizing all of those around her.
Taylor has contributed expertise in editing and assisting various human rights research projects and publications and has conducted some of her own human rights research.
Whitney has also contributed to the promotion of human rights through her travels to South Africa during the summer of 2011, where she worked to empower individuals as a research intern for the Southern African Media and Gender Institute. While in Cape Town, Whitney worked to bring meaningful change and to give a voice to those who might otherwise not have been heard through facilitating empowerment workshops in women's prisons.

As an employee at the Human Rights Program, Whitney has assisted in successfully carrying out countless human rights events, which have served to raise awareness on many different critical human rights issues.

Katie Menke, is a devoted human rights activist and scholar whose summa thesis examines the work of the Salvadorian organization, Pro-Busqueda, which reunites families with children who were kidnapped during the country's civil war. In addition to her academic attention to issues of human rights and social justice, Katie has given freely and extensively of herself to advocating on behalf of human rights, particularly in relation to youth, homelessness and inequality. This past winter, Katie took the initiative to spread information about resources for the homeless in Minneapolis, including a program established by St. Stephen's Outreach. During the fall/winter of 2010-11, Katie volunteered with the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), working throughout the Twin Cities specifically on their retail cleaning campaign, which focused on bringing attention the poor working conditions of retail cleaners.

Sunday April 28th, 6:30 p.m.
Sabes Jewish Community Center
$5 donation requested.
Dessert reception to follow in honor of: Susette Liepmannssohn Freund

Presented by the Children of Holocaust Survivors in Minnesota (CHAIM)

The Heart of a Mother: Susette's Story: A Film by Rod Martel

Like so many refugee families from Nazi Germany, Rod Martel's experience was typical, if that is the word you can use for the horror visited upon a generation of German Jews. While many of his relatives perished, his parents barely escaped to start a normal life in the United States. His fraternal grandparents fled to Australia, but he always wondered exactly what had happened to his maternal grandmother, Susette, (ex-wife of cinematographer/director Karl Freund) who had been swallowed up by the Nazi war machine.

April 26th - May 2nd
Landmark's Edina Cinema
3911 West 50th Street - Edina, MN

No Place on Earth

In 1996, Chris Nicola, an ex-NYC cop and world-renowned cave explorer, makes a discovery deep underground in the largest cave system in the Ukraine. Buttons, shoes, a key and names scrawled on the cave wall, are mute testimonies to what happened here long ago. The story that Nicola has stumbled upon begins in 1942, when Ukrainian authorities, in conjunction with the Nazi occupiers, begin rounding up the Jews for deportation to concentration camps. Encouraged by one mother's burning wish to save her children, five families defy the soldiers and descend into the eerie cave system outside of their town. It is the beginning of a 544 day odyssey into a dark, damp maze and never-ending night. No Place On Earth recounts the longest recorded underground survival in human history.

I

Wednesday, April 24
7:00 p.m.
St. Sahag Armenian Church

The Armenian Cultural Organization of Minnesota in conjunction with St. Sahag Armenian Church will be observing the 98th anniversary commemoration of the Genocide. This year's theme is one of renewal ("the Armenian phoenix") as we look towards the end of a century of genocide and a greater understanding of human rights for all.

Remarks by Alejandro Baer, music and readings.

Free and open to the public.

For more on the Armenian genocide visit the Armenian CHGS page.

Monday, April 8, 2013
7:00 p.m.
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
10500 Hillside Lane West, Minnetonka, MN 55305

The 2013 Twin Cities Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Commemoration will feature Eli Rosenbaum, Director of the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. Rosenbaum is the longest serving prosecutor and investigator of Nazi criminals in history.

The annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration honors the memory of the six million Jews and other victims murdered in the Holocaust. As is tradition at Yom HaShoah, Holocaust survivors are invited to light candles in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Members of the Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Minnesota (CHAIM) will assist in the lighting of candles.

The Yom HaShoah Commemoration is co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC), Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Minnesota (CHAIM), Adath Jeshurun Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater St. Paul, and Minneapolis Jewish Federation.

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Department of History, University of Minnesota Announce a Call for Applicants for the Bernard and Fern Badzin Graduate Fellowship in Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

The Fellowship is for the 2013-2014 academic year.

The Badzin Fellowship will pay a living stipend of $18,000, and the cost of tuition, mandatory fees and health insurance.

Eligibility: An applicant must be a current student in a Ph.D. program in the College of Liberal Arts, currently enrolled in the first, second, third, or fourth year of study, and have a doctoral dissertation project in Holocaust and genocide studies. The fellowship will be awarded on the basis of the quality and scholarly potential of the dissertation project, the applicant's quality of performance in the graduate program, and the applicant's general scholarly promise.

Required application materials:
1) A letter of application (maximum 4 pages single-spaced) describing the applicant's intellectual interests and dissertation research and the research and/or writing which the applicant expects to do during the fellowship year

2) A current curriculum vitae for the applicant

3) An unofficial transcript of all graduate work done at the University of Minnesota

4) TWO confidential letters of recommendation from U of MN faculty, discussing the quality of the applicant's graduate work and dissertation project and the applicant's progress toward completing the degree, sent directly to the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (chgs.umn.edu).

All application materials must be received by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies electronically chgs.umn.edu, no later than 3:00 pm on Friday, March 15, 2013. The awardee will be announced no later than Friday, April 26, 2013.

Three of the films to be introduced by Alejandro Baer and Jodi Elowitz
Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival
February 28-March 17, 2013
For information on the Festival and all films please click here.

These Holocaust Films will have their Minnesota premier at the Minneapolis Film Festival.

No Place on Earth
Saturday, March 9 at 8 pm
Sabes JCC Theatre

Becoming Henry (Short) /I Shall Remember
Sunday, March 10 at 4pm
Sabes JCC Theatre
Introduction by Jodi Elowitz, Outreach Coordinator, CHGS

For complete descriptions of the films and ticket information please click here.