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Upcoming Events
October 2023
ART AS WITNESS: Works of Art Made During the Holocaust
Dr. Laura Morowitz, Professor of Art History, Wagner College and the Senior Research and Programming Associate of the Wagner College Holocaust Center guest lectures in the classroom of Dr. Jonathan Skolnick, Professor of German, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Works of visual art made during the Holocaust serve as testimony and as acts of resistance.
Event will be via Zoom and is co-sponsored by the Wagner College Holocaust Center. For Zoom info email holocaust.center@wagner.edu.
Black Angels: The Nurses Who Cured Tuberculosis
Not unlike the recent COVID epidemic, TB or tuberculosis raged across the United States, killing over 5 million Americans in the early 20th century. Fearing a public health crisis in New York City, in 1929, officials made a call for Black nurses seeking to work on the front lines and promising them good pay and an escape from Jim Crow. The Black Angels follows the intrepid women who risked their lives caring for the city’s poorest—1,800 patients at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital—and aided in the 1951 clinical trial of a breakthrough tuberculosis treatment.
About the Speakers
Author Maria Smilios chronicles the voices of these extraordinary women in "The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis" (G. P. Putnam’s Sons; on sale: Sept. 19, 2023). Smilios has a Masters of Arts from Boston University in Religion & Literature where she was a Henry Luce Scholar. She worked as Development Editor in the Biomedical Sciences at Springer Science & Media. She has written for The Guardian, American Nurse, and The Jewish Daily Forward among others.
Virginia Allen worked as a nurse at Sea View Hospital (1947-57), is a volunteer at the Schomburg Center and many other not-for-profits, and is a 2005 Staten Island Woman of Achievement.
This event is made possible by the NetVUE Saga Grant and the Lily Foundation, and is in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Evelyn L. Spiro School of Nursing.
Art produced by women prisoners in Auschwitz
Join Dr. Laura Morowitz's AH310 class as we host a guest lecture by Bozena Karwowska, Professor, Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies and Chair of Modern European Studies, the University of British Columbia.
About the Lecture
Art created in Auschwitz is an important testimony of prisoners’ experience of the camp; it is a source of valuable information about many aspects of the camp. There are also interesting differences between art created by male and female prisoners, in large measure related to them occupying different spaces of the camp complex, but also due to the arrival of the first women only after two years of the camp’s existence. This talk will discuss the art created in Auschwitz (official and “forbidden”) with a special focus on women as both artists and subjects, their roles, and how these are relayed through their painted, drawn and written testimonies.
About Dr. Karwowska
Dr. Karwowska is the author of a study of Polish literature of the Holocaust, with a particular focus on the first hand testimonies written immediately after the war, Gender, Sexuality, Concentration Camps (Krakow University, 2009). Her 2013 book, Second Sex in Exile. Migration in Narratives by Polish Postwar Female Writers, was nominated for Jan Kochanowski Prize for the best book on Polish literature and culture.
This event is co-sponsored by the Wagner College Holocaust Center. For Zoom link email holocaust.center@wagner.edu.
Rescue in Rwanda
Jennie E. Burnett, Director of the Institute for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at Georgia State University presents research from her new book, To Save Heaven and Earth: Rescue in the Rwandan Genocide, Cornell University Press, 2023, joined by Providence Umugwaneza, Survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi, author Next Couple Hours.
Guests can attend in person in Manzulli Board Room or vitually via Zoom. Email the Holocaust Center at holocaust.center@wagner.edu for Zoom link.
November 2023
Art, Exhibition and Erasure in Nazi Vienna
Dr. Laura Morowitz, Professor of Art History at Wagner College and Senior Research and Programming Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center will discuss her newly published book, Art, Exhibition and Erasure in Nazi Vienna (Routledge 2023). Her book examines three exhibitions of contemporary art held at the Vienna Künstlerhaus during the period of National Socialist rule and shows how each attempted to culturally erase elements vilified in Nazi ideology: the City, the Jewess and fin-de-siècle Vienna. Each of the exhibits was large scale and ambitious, part of a broader attempt to situate Vienna as the cultural capital of the Reich, and each aimed to reshape cultural memory and rewrite history.
This event will take place via Zoom. Email the Holocaust Center at holocaust.center@wagner.edu for link.
Albanian Muslims role in assisting Jews during the Holocaust
Mr. Leo Ullman will present his experiences of hiding in Amsterdam as a child during the Holocaust and how a Muslim businessman helped his family, based on his book, 796 Days and a film, “There Were Good People Doing Extraordinary Deeds: The Leo Ullman Story.”
Mr. Ullman has a distinguished career as a lawyer and real estate entrepreneur and serves as Chairman of the Foundation for the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, Inc. Imam Tahir Kukaj will make welcome remarks focusing on BESA, the Rescue of Jews by Albanian Muslims in the Holocaust. Dr. Lori Weintrob, Director, Wagner College Holocaust Center, will introduce the program.
Event will take place at the Albanian-Islamic Cultural Center located at 307 Victory Blvd.
Kristallnacht Commemoration
Middle school students from the Jewish Foundation School of Staten Island will join Wagner College students of all faiths in discussions of the importance of the “Night of Broken Glass,” November 9, 1938.
Egon J Salmon Commemoration of Kristallnacht and The St Louis
District 31 High School students will tour two Museum of Jewish Heritage exhibits with the Salmon family, "What Hate Can Do" and "Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark". This event will also honor Egon J Salmon (1924-2022).
Location: The Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, NY, NY
LOVE AND LIGHT: The Altered Book Project Against Antisemitism
Led by artist Caryn Davis, this mixed-media program guides participants to incorporate recycled and new materials to represent the Jewish history, the diversity of Jewish communities, and the fight against antisemitism.
In partnership with the Wagner College Holocaust Center, participants will transform their books into personal treasures.
April 2024
RISE UP: Young Holocaust Heroes Performance
Wagner College students will perform an original play about six Staten Island survivors, the meaning of resistance and being an upstander.
The largest youth Holocaust Remembrance in New York City, with over 1000 students, will include awards for Holocaust Educator of the Year.
Event will take place at the St. George Theatre located at 35 Hyatt Street, Staten Island, NY.