Programs

Upcoming Events

  

EVENTS: SPRING 2025

FEBRUARY 2025

SPOTLIGHT GALLERY, HORMANN LIBRARY, WAGNER COLLEGE

EXHIBIT BLACK AND JEWISH: CONNECTION, COURAGE AND COMMUNITY

Black + Jewish: Connection, Courage, Community is a ten-panel traveling exhibit  that explores the history of Black and Jewish relationships in the United States. When built on shared values and a mutual desire for civil and human rights those relationships have brought us closer to the ideal of inclusive democracy.

Exhibit Provided by the Museum of HIstory and Holocaust Education (MHHE) at Kennesaw State University

Exhibition opening and reception: February 6, time tbd.

Join speakers Léa Jean-François, former co-president of Columbia’s Jews of Color Caucus and PhD Candidate, UNC Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program and Professor of History, Dr. Rita Reynolds to celebrate the opening of our exhibition.

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DATE COMING SOON!

MANZULLI BOARD ROOM

co-sponsored by the Ramapo College Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

ISLAMOPHOBIA AND ISLAMIC YOUTH

Join us for a talk with Dr. Nadia Ansary, Professor of Psyschology, Rider University. Dr. Ansary has several research interests exploring: 1) bullying and victimization, particularly with Muslim targets, 2) Muslim youth and young adult mental wellbeing and community-based outreach, and 3) the association between problem behaviors and achievement particularly focusing on affluent youth. Her research also includes a focus on cross-cultural issues including acculturative stress and family conflict. In 2008, she was appointed by Governor Corzine to the New Jersey Commission on Bullying in Schools

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APRIL 9 @10-11:30 AM

ST. GEORGE THEATRE

 

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (by Francis Goodrich and AlbertHackett,

One Act Version by Wendy Kesselman). DIRECTED BY MICKEY TENNENBAUM

FOR GRADES 5-12

 

The Wagner College Holocaust Center and the Wagner College Theatre present “The Diary of Anne Frank” (Goodrich and Hackett), a powerful play that brings her writings to life. Witness her experiences in hiding during the Holocaust, capturing her resilience, hope, and enduring spirit. Join us for a performance of remembrance, reflection, and the timeless fight for freedom and humanity.

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April 24@ 4-6 PM

Wagner College Campus

 

Interfaith Community Awards

 

 

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EVENTS: FALL 2024

SEPTEMBER 16 @6

Manzulli Board Room and zoom

click here for zoom: https://wagner.zoom.us/j/98205352496?pwd=i3JpazymeVYb6AfyL7NolGbOhJKHJh.1

WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS?

Join Dr. Shana Kushner Gadarian,Professor, Political Science Department, Associate Dean for Research, Maxwell School, Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking, Syracuse University to discuss what is at stake in the 2024 election focusing on what the public thinks about important issues of the campaign including democracy, immigration policy, foreign policy, and the economy.

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SEPTEMBER 20, 2- 4 PM

Union 201, Holocaust Education and Action Gallery

Tours for Alumni Weekend of our WCHC Education and Action Gallery

https://wagner.edu/holocaust-center/education/

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OCTOBER 7, TBD

 

Please check back for details on event we will be participating in to commemorate the Hamas attacks of October 7 2023.

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OCTOBER 9@ 6PM, 

Joan and Allen Berkinow JCC

EXHIBIT: HUMANS OF OCT 7, Photographer Erez Kaganowitz

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OCTOBER 23 @ 4:30

MANZULLI BOARD ROOM AND ZOOM

zoom link: https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYrdOCgqz0iGN2p7cQuacB2iKJ3jCxpAUJK

co-sponsored by the Ramapo College Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

DISCUSSING HATE SPEECH IN THE DIGITAL AGE: JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON THE POLITICS OF ANTISEMITISM IN CONTEMPORARY AUSTRIA

Dr. Tim Corbett, is an award-winning historian, writer, translator, and editor based in Vienna, Austria. His research and publishing activities focus on modern Austrian history and the former Habsburg Empire, with a particular focus on Vienna’s Jewish history. He is currently affiliated as a research associate with the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and serve as a permanent member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Austrian Society for the Study of Exile. He. has held numerous fellowships and visiting positions at institutions around the world including the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Center for Jewish History in New York, Vienna University and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies

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OCTOBER 28 @ 6 PM

 

MANZULLI BOARDROOM

 

SCREENING of PBS DOCUMENTARY  NAZI TOWN  (2024) dir. Peter Yost

Nazi Town, USA tells the story of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group which in the 1930s had scores of chapters across the country, representing what many believe was a real threat of fascist subversion in the United States.
Join us for a screening followed by discussion with Dr. Steve Snow, Professor of Political Science, Wagner College.

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NOV 10: (time to be announced)

Faith United Methodist Church, Port Richmond, Staten Island
“LEST WE FORGET”: A Veteran’s Day Celebration Honoring the Fallen and the BRAVE
A service in honor of William A. Morris Jr. for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Details to follow

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NOV. 12-13 and 15

KRISTALLNACHT COMMEMORATION

EGON J. SALMON AND FAMILY  COMMEMORATION OF KRISTALLNACHT AND

THE ST. LOUIS

MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE, NYC

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NOV 14 @ 6:15 EVENT POSTPONED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED DURING THE SPRING

MANZULLI BOARD ROOM

co-sponsored by the Ramapo College Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

ISLAMOPHOBIA AND ISLAMIC YOUTH

Join us for a talk with Dr. Nadia Ansary, Professor of Psyschology, Rider University. Dr. Ansary has several research interests exploring: 1) bullying and victimization, particularly with Muslim targets, 2) Muslim youth and young adult mental wellbeing and community-based outreach, and 3) the association between problem behaviors and achievement particularly focusing on affluent youth. Her research also includes a focus on cross-cultural issues including acculturative stress and family conflict. In 2008, she was appointed by Governor Corzine to the New Jersey Commission on Bullying in Schools

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NOV. 25 @ 2

ZOOM TALK

 

Inherited Trauma, Place, Embodied Memory and Artistic Practice

Join the classroom of Dr. Laura Morowitz for a viewing of a conversation with artist and child of Holocaust survivors Lorna Brunstein
whose powerful works deal with the painful memories and history of her family. The talk will be followed by a Q and A with the artist and students in AH 291: Contemporary Art.

 

 

 

 

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EVENTS: SPRING 2024

 

JANUARY 25 @ 7 PM

Union Bldg, Wagner Campus

Launch of our Holocaust Education and Action Gallery

OUR LAUNCH IS NOW ALMOST AT CAPACITY AND WE CANNOT ACCEPT ANY MORE RSVPS.
IF YOU WISH TO ATTEND PLEASE EMAIL HOLOCAUST.CENTER@WAGNER.EDU TO BE ADDED TO THE WAIT LIST. WE WILL EMAIL YOU ON WEDNESDAY JANUARY 24 TO LET YOU KNOW IF WE ARE ABLE TO ACCOMODATE YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH,

The Importance of a Holocaust Center on a College Campus

Join us in celebrating the launch of our Gallery and our 10th Anniversary with song, interfaith dialogue, upstander award and refreshments. Tours available on request

$ 18 donation requested.

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FEBRUARY 12 @ 7

Manzulli Hall

https://wagner.zoom.us/j/91812854308?pwd=V3ZQeGMyRnErZCt6OGttNC8zQnFyZz09

Cosponsored by the  History Department

Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges

Dr. Lillie Johnson Edwards, former  founding Director of Pan-African Studies and as Director of American Studies at Drew University presents a talk based on the late Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb’s book, From Swastika to Jim Crow (1993), and the  documentary film of the same title, directed by Lori Cheatle and Martin Toub (2000). Her presentation will tell the story of the Jewish refugee scholars who fled Nazi Germany and found  positions at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the American South. The  story connects racial segregation, violence, and anti-Semitism in the U.S. and Europe to African  American agency, ambition, and leadership at HBCUs.

Dr. Edwards served as the founding Director of Pan-African Studies and as Director of American Studies at Drew University in Madison, NJ before retiring in 2016. While at Drew, she received awards for university faculty service and for excellent and distinguished teaching in the College of Liberal Arts and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. Prior to working at Drew, she taught at DePaul University (Chicago, IL), UNC-Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), and Earlham College (Richmond, IN).As a public intellectual committed to bringing African American studies to adult audiences, Dr. Edwards lectures and consults with corporations, libraries and archives, historical societies and museums, faith-based communities, and school districts.

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March 6@ 6PM for International Woman’s Day 

co-sponsored by the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University

Josephine Baker: Icon and Image

 

A dancer, singer, actress, author, politician, civil rights activist, spy, militant, and philanthropist, Josephine Baker’s (1906-1975) cultural legacy has survived beyond the hundredth anniversary of her birth. In this In 2015, Baker became the first Black woman and first American inducted into the French Pantheon, the nation’s mausolum of heroes and a few heroines. Born Frieda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, MO, she first performed in Paris in 1925 and became a citizen in 1937. She undertook spy missions for the Free French forces of Charles DeGaulle, hid Resistance fighters and Jews in her chateau and earned the French Resistance medal, the Croix de Guerre. She was the only woman to speak at the March on Washington. Dr. Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and the Director of the African and African-American Studies Research Center at the University of California, San Diego, will untangle some of her complex cultural choices and messages for a new generation.  Her areas of interest include contemporary sociological theory and semiotic studies of religious discourse, tourism, and African art and literature.  Her most recent books include Black Paris:  The African Writers’ Landscape (University of Illinois Press, 1998), Josephine Baker in Art and Life:  The Icon and the Image (University of Illinois Press, 2007), and African Art Reframed:  Reflections and Dialogues on Museum Culture ,co-authored with J.R. Osborn, (University of Illinois Press, 2020).

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MARCH 13 @ 4:30 PM

Banned Music: Works by Pavel Haas, Erich Korngold,
Luigi Dallapiccola, Darius Milhaud and Paul Hindemith

Lecture and performance by Itay Goren, concert pianist and author.

 

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MARCH 14 TO  JUNE 1

Love and Light: An Exhibit of Altered Books against
Antisemitism at the Staten Island Museum, with artist Caryn Davis and co-sponsored with Kulanu.

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MARCH 18 @ 11 AM

 Zoom talk by Holocaust survivor and author Estelle Laughlin

Kingsborough Community College

zoom link and register in advance: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErdOutqD4tHdLInP9oEiLVKvSrolNEfzqk

Estelle Wakszlak Laughlin was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1929. Her family was among the 400,000 Jews from the city and surrounding areas who were forced to live in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1943, the family was deported to Majdanek, where her father, Samek, was murdered upon arrival. Estelle, her mother Michla, and her sister Freda were chosen for forced labor. They were sent to Skarzysko concentration camp to work in a munitions factory and survived the Holocaust. After the war, Estelle moved to the United States in 1947. She authored several books including Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust (2012) and Hanna, I Forgot to Tell You: A Novel (2020). She will talk about her experiences during the Holocaust, writing historical fiction, and Holocaust education.

 

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APRIL 18@ 10 AM

RISE-UP: YOUNG HOLOCAUST HEROES, DIRECTED BY MICKEY TENNENBAUM

ST. GEORGE THEATER, STATEN ISLAND

 

The 3rd annual Youth Holocaust Remembrance for Yom Ha’Shoah, St. George Theater. Created in conjunction with Wagner College’s Holocaust Center, “Rise Up” tells the stories of six Holocaust survivors as they recall their happier days before the war and life in ghettos and camps with songs and words drawn from actual testimony. Explore how youth resisted the Nazis from forging ration cards to smuggling guns into the Warsaw Ghetto and why it matters today. Audience members will have a chance to meet a local Staten Island Holocaust survivor and ask questions of the cast after the performance.For grades 4-8

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MAY 20: 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY

NORMANDY AND PARIS FRANCE

 

Wagner College Choir Performs at the American Cemetery in Normandy and at Chartres Cathedral, France, and visits the Paris Holocaust Memorial. Tour overseas open to the public (contact holocaust.center@wagner.edu, In addition, all public schools are encouraged to consider this theme of D-Day for our annual art and poetry contest.

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June 2 @ 1 PM

Jewish Heritage Day, Ferry Stadium, S.I.

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June 6, 5:00 PM

 

WCHC International Summer Conference: Legal Issues in the Holocaust

and Genocide

Wagner College Campus

 

Join us as Holocaust scholars and legal experts discuss and share their research on the law and genocide in Germany,  Bosnia and other regions around the world. Keynote speaker Dr. Wolf Gruner, Director, USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Holocaust Research and Shapell- Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Southern California. Featured speakers include Dr. Alma Begicevic, Professor, Loyola University, Chicago, former representative to the United Nations Mission in Kosovo and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on behalf of the US, Dr. Sarah Danielsson, Professor of History, CUNY Grad Center and Associate Editor of the Journal of Genocide Research and Fay Parris, Esq. International Law Consultant, Co-Chair of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York ), International Women’s Rights Committee and as an Ex-Officio Director of the Executive Committee of NGOs in association with the United Nations Department of Public Information (UNNGO/DPI),Talks followed by a round table featuring legal scholars and attorneys. Luncheon.

Conference organized by Professor Laura Morowitz and Professor Lori Weintrob. Advising Committee Chair:Stephen R. Greenwald, Esq., Member and former President of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists

check back for further information.

 

 

 

EVENTS: FALL 2023

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SEPTEMBER 19@ 4:30 PM/ EXHIBITION CONTINUES THROUGH FALL 

The Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center, Stockton University

exhibition website: https://holocaustcenter.commons.gc.cuny.edu/exhibit-racism-and-white-supremacism-in-the-united-states/

Within and Beyond Exclusionary Communities: White Supremacy and Racism in the United States

 

Dr. Elke Weesjes Sabella, Director of the Kingsborough Community College Holocaust Center and photojournalist Anthony Karen lead a discussion at the opening of their exhibition, which is generously funded by Holocaust survivor Leo S. Ullman. The exhibition introduces visitors to several white supremacist groups in the United States and examines the lives and experiences of ordinary individuals who join (and sometimes leave) these groups. The exhibit seeks to understand what is it about their lives that seems to coincide with racist politics, and how they pass on their ideology to subsequent generations. The exhibit is part of a project by historian Dr. Elke Weesjes, titled Children of the (White Collar) Klan: Growing up in the American Far Right, 1960-1990, which was funded by Mellon/ACLS. The exhibit presents photos and captions by Anthony Karen, who has more than twenty years of experience photographing far-right extremist groups in the United States.

The exhibit will be on display through the Fall semester. It is free and open to the public, but individual and group visits require registration. To coordinate a visit, please contact 609-652-4699 or https://stockton.edu/holocaust-resource/

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OCTOBER 3@ 2:30

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

zoom link: coming soon

Art as Witness: Works of Art Made During the Holocaust

 

Dr. Laura Morowitz, Professor of Art History at 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 at Amherst in his course on Representing the Holocaust. Works of visual art made by those who experienced the Holocaust serve as testimony, lifeline and as acts of resistance. Victims and survivors created works of art in hiding, ghettos, labor and concentration camps, and under every conceivable circumstance. This talk looks at some of the themes, subjects and functions of these works, from anonymous sketches to images by David Olère, Esther Lurie and Felix Nussbaum.

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zoom link:https://wagner.zoom.us/j/97996257472?pwd=ZU14STZsSExQU1h1Zk96SWpmR05pUT09

Art Produced by Women Prisoners in Auschwitz

 

Join the classroom of  Dr. Laura Morowitz, Ah 310: Art and Aesthetics in the Third Reich as we host a guest lecture by Professor Bozena Karwowska, Professor, Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies and Chair of Modern European Studies, the University of British Columbia. 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. 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.

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OCTOBER 17@ 1 PM

Manzulli Board Room, Foundation Hall

Zoom link:https://wagner.zoom.us/j/97372649879?pwd=VTFHRjdRaE1zSm1sMkhqVHdBQ0pBdz09

co-sponsored by the Wagner College Department of Anthropology

Rescue in Rwanda

In this lecture 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 and award-winning author of Genocides Lives in Us: Women, Memory & Silence in Rwanda presents research from her new book, To Save Heaven and Earth: Rescue in the Rwandan Genocide, Cornell University Press, 2o23.In this lecture, Professor Burnet considers people who risked their lives in the 1994 Rwandan genocide of Tutsi to try and save those targeted for killing. Many genocide perpetrators were not motivated by political ideology, ethnic hatred, or prejudice. In the face of mass violence, ordinary people faced complex choices in an uncertain context. Dr. Burnet will present stories of heroism and of the good done amid the evil of a genocide that nearly annihilated Rwandan Tutsi and decimated the Hutu and Twa who were opposed to the slaughter.

Following Dr. Burnett, we will hear a presentation by Providence Umugwaneza, Survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi, and Author of  Next Couple Hours, which recounts her experience during the genocide. Provie is a speaker, author, and advocate who was 11 years old when she survived the 1994 Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis in Rwanda that claimed more than a million innocent lives. Provie worked at the Kigali Genocide Memorial and went on to found the “Kabeho Neza Initiative,” a nonprofit organization that raises awareness of the Genocide against the Tutsis and fights denial in all its forms. She advocates for women who contracted HIV/AIDS as a result of sexual assault during the Genocide against the Tutsis.  She is the youngest person ever to be appointed to serve on the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission.

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OCTOBER 23 @  2 PM

 

DAFFODIL PLANTING IN MANDELA LEADERSHIP GARDEN

Join us to plant daffodils in honor of children suffering in war and humanitarian crises today in the Nelson Mandela Leadership Garden. Located between Foundation Hall and Parker Hall, it will be next to the International Peace Pole, a Wagner College 2005 Senior Class gift of hope after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. The Daffodil Project is an effort to raise awareness of the 1.5 million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. There are almost 500 memorial gardens including this new one at Wagner College, through the efforts of the Wagner College Holocaust Center Advisory Committee. All are welcome to plant bulbs with us. Special thanks to Dan Switzer and the facilities team for their support. Email any questions to: holocaust.center@wagner.edu.

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NOVEMBER 15 @ 11:30 PM

Staten Island Museum

SPECIAL EVENT, LOVE AND LIGHT: THE ALTERED BOOK PROJECT

The Altered Book Project, lead by Caryn Davis is a mixed-media program that’s designed to teach participants how to incorporate both recycled and new materials, personal photographs and much more into their books using simple techniques. Participants in Wagner College’s Holocaust course will transform their books into personal treasures focused on Jewish history with the goal of combating anti-semitism. In addition, there will be four public sessions at the St. George library (Thursdays, October 19 and 26 from 3pm to 6pm Saturdays, October 28 and November 4 from 1pm to 4pm) to make altered books with WCHC intern’s participation.

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OCTOBER 26 @ 2:40

zoom talk:https://wagner.zoom.us/j/91536637791?pwd=K3N3WEVWczRyZFRGYVpDc2xFSHArQT09

co-sponsored by the Academic and Cultural Enrichment Program

Humor Returns? Jewish Comedians in Postwar Vienna

Dr. Frances Tanzer, the Rose Professor of Jewish Culture and Holocaust Studies at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies joins the classroom of Professors Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc, RFT 8: Artists and Writers in Exile. Professor Tanzer’s talk will examine the performances and fraught experiences of Jewish humorists as they returned to Vienna after 1945. Humorists returned in slightly higher concentrations than other professional groups and were frequently greeted by adoring fans when they arrived in Austria. Such encounters defy received wisdom: Why were cabaret artists met by such ecstatic, unrestrained praise when most Viennese Jews, including prominent figures like Arnold Schönberg, encountered a hostile population and seemingly endless hurdles if they dared imagine a future in the Second Republic? The fate of cabaret performers reveals the surprising symbolic significance of Jewish artists to Vienna’s cultural reconstruction after the Holocaust. Dr. Tanzer has received fellowships from the Center for Jewish History, the German Historical Institute, the Getty Institute, the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies, and the Central European History Society, among others. In June of 2024 her book, Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
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NOVEMBER 1 @ 1:30

Kingsborough Community College Holocaust Center

zoom link and registration:https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItdumurDIpG9BS0tj9XnnLAbKaMiTtx6hA#/registration

Art, Exhibition and Erasure in Nazi Vienna

 

Dr. Elke Sabella Weesjes, Research and Programming Director of the KCC Holocaust Center invites Dr. Laura Morowitz, Professor of Art History at Wagner College and Senior Research and Programming Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center to 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.

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NOVEMBER 2 @ 1:00-2:15

HOLOCAUST AND INTERFAITH PROGRAM

Foundation Hall, Wagner College Campus

  

 

Mr. Leo Ullman will present his and his family’s personal experiences of hiding in Amsterdam during the Holocaust, which are also chronicled in his book, 796 Days and a film, “There Were Good People Doing Extraordinary Deeds…The Leo Ullman’s Story.”
A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School and Business School, Mr. Ullman has a distinguished career as a lawyer and as a real estate entrepreneur. Mr. Ullman is devoted to promoting Holocaust education, including serving many years as Chairman of the Anne Frank Center, USA, and presently as Chairman of the Foundation for the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, Inc.
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NOVEMBER 14 @ 10:30-12:30

EGON J. SALMON AND FAMILY  COMMEMORATION OF KRISTALLNACHT AND

THE ST. LOUIS

In Partnership with NYC Department of Education, District 31

at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, Manhattan

 

The District 31 High School Borough Student Advisory Committee (B-SAC), encompassing 180 students
representing all eleven High Schools on Staten Island, will join the Salmon Family to tour the exhibit “What Hate Can
Do” and the new exhibit “Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark.” This event honors Egon J. Salmon
(1924-2022), who came to Staten Island as a German-Jewish refugee after being refused entry due to
strict U.S. Immigration Laws. He later served the U.S. Army in World War II.

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NOVEMBER 29 @ 11:30 AM:

 

 

co-sponsored by the Dr. Esther Grushkin Center for Arts and Culture and the Joan and Allen Bernikow  Jewish Community Center of Staten Isand

ZOOM LINK: https://wagner.zoom.us/j/96059661105?pwd=NHI2VkhVOFdaaS80VmQzYVo1ci9OZz09

 

 

 

 

 

PAST EVENTS:

 

SUMMER 2023:

 

WATCH OUR FULL SUMMER CONFERENCE ON HEROINES OF THE HOLOCAUST: NURSES AND DOCTORS AND RESCUERS AND RESISTERS IN THE HOLOCAUST AND OTHER GENOCIDE (SEE FULL PROGRAM BELOW)

https://youtu.be/MdGWhTLxWkg

EVENTS: SPRING 2023:

 

JANUARY 29 @ 2PM

cosponsored with the Ghetto Fighters House, Israel

Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust: Challenges and Reflections

Join us for a live zoom screening of the event, WCHC Education and Action Gallery, Room 201, Union Building, Wagner College Campus, 1 Campus Road, Staten Island, NY

zoomlink: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tce6gpzsiGN0-7ubxCOHu13VVNVsPXKaO

Dr. Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, editors, discuss their 2010 groundbreaking book on the subject of sexual violence against Jewish women during the Holocaust. They pay tribute to early researchers on the subject and reflect on the continued challenges for scholars. Including this subject in Holocaust history provides a fuller understanding of what many women endured. Opening remarks by Dr. Sharon Geva.

This program is in partnership with the Remember the Women Institute, Women in the Holocaust – International Study Center (MORESHET), Wagner College Holocaust Center, Classrooms Without Borders, Rabin Chair Forum Washington University, and the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Center

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co-sponsored with the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, The National World War II Museum. 

Art, Atrocity, and Representation: The Visual Arts Under the Third Reich

Webinar.htthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsDBBXddJdw

Join host Dr. Jason Dawsey, Research Historian, Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, The National World War II Museum, and Dr. Laura Morowitz, Professor of Art History at Wagner College and the Senior Programming and Research Associate at the Wagner College Holocaust Center as she discusses and answers questions on topics such as the Nazi policy toward the arts, the link between Nazi art and ideology, and the work of anti-Nazi artists as well as artists who perished in the Holocaust.

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FEBRUARY 19 @ 2

 

cosponsored with the Ghetto Fighters House, Israel

Birth, Sex and Violence: Women’s Voices Under Nazi Rule

Dr. Beverly Chambers

Full description and zoom link to follow

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FEBRUARY 21 @ 6

 

AUSTRIA AND THE COLD WAR

Manzulli Board Room, Foundation Hall

zoom:https://wagner.zoom.us/s/93108940387?pwd=NTRHOG02ai8zSTBCbUpLeUdRUGVoZz09#success

Although Austria was annexed into the Third Reich and contributed some of the most notorious Nazi criminals, the country was treated very differently than Germany by the Allies. Dr. Guenter Bischof, Marshall Plan Chair of History at the University of New Orleans and winner of the European Academy of Sciences 1st Class Award will present research from his 2022 publication on Austria and the Cold War: A Balance Between East and West (Leykam Press). The Cold War kept the world in suspense for almost half a century. When the Iron Curtain descended over Europe, Austria was also in danger of division. The victorious powers of the Second World War, which had liberated Austria from Nazism, were preparing for a prolonged occupation of the country. Austria was a major theater of the East-West conflict and thus also a stomping ground for the secret services. The propaganda war in the country also raged between East and West. Dr. Bischof, author of numerous books on 20th Century Austrian History and hundreds of articles and chapters shares his incomparable knowledge on the subject.

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FEBRUARY 22@ 12 PM

cosponsored with the Kupferberg Holocaust Center

 

Surviving the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan: Sohaila Kakar’s Refugee Journey

Virtual Event. Click here to register: https://tinyurl.com/3zc83bsh

In Afghanistan, Sohaila Kakar was a practicing surgeon; then, in 2021, the Taliban took over the country. Join the Kupferberg Holocaust Center as Sohaila discusses life before and after the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan–and the physical, economic, and psychological toll it had upon her family as they fled. Her story also highlights the compassionate work done by Upwardly Global, the non-profit agency that provided guidance to Sohaila’s family as they settled in the U.S.

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MARCH 8 @ 7

IN HONOR OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Concerned and Courageous: Teachers and Social Workers as Heroines of the Holocaust

zoom: https://wagner.zoom.us/j/99063387331?pwd=ajd6dHZwRmN0dzczZSswQXR5Qy9pUT09

During the era of the Third Reich, participation in social welfare-oriented professions led hundreds of thousands of women into direct contact with the Holocaust. Join Katy Matello ,Education Coordinator at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, as she presents research focused on how female teachers and social workers resisted Nazi atrocities in Germany and occupied Poland. She highlights the ascendency of these women to rescuers during the Holocaust as an extension of their professions, focusing on how their occupational skills and resources were utilized to resist Nazi oppression.

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MARCH 10- APRIL 10

EXHIBIT IN SPOTLIGHT GALLERY HORMANN LIBRARY: Routes of Disappearance. Jewish and Roma Memory of Transnistria

With a special talk on MARCH 14 by exhibition researcher and co-creator, Dr. Hanna Abakunova, Upsala University, Sweden.

 On zoom only due to weather.

zoom link

https://wagner.zoom.us/j/99298927406? pwd=ZjVxNTNqRW8vaDJtbUhUbVZvN2plQT09

 

An exhibition in our Spotlight Gallery and a talk by Dr. Abakunova about the Holocaust in Transnistria – the territory under Romanian control. The exhibition is based on interviews which she and her  colleagues from Ukraine and Poland collected in Ukraine, Moldova, and Israel in 2010-11. She organized and presented the exhibition in Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the last time at Howard Community College (Maryland, the USA) in 2018.

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March 12@ 2:00

cosponsored with the Ghetto Fighters House, Israel

BETRAYED: CHILD SEX ABUSE AND THE HOLOCAUST

Dr. Beverly Chambers

Full description and zoom link to follow

 

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Monday March 13@ 12:30

WOMEN IN THE GHETTOS

Museum of Jewish Heritage Roundtable ZOOM discussion
Moderated by Judy Baumel-Schwartz, Director, The Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University.
Fee: Members $ 18, non-members $ 36. To register:

 

Women’s experiences in Nazi ghettos in Eastern Europe during the Second World War will be presented by Professor Dalia Ofer, who will speak about daily life of Jewish women in ghettos in Poland; Professor Lori Weintrob, who will tell stories of ghetto heroines; Professor Sara Horowitz, who studies the representation of women in ghettos in literature; and Dr. Batya Brutin, who will show art about and by women in the ghettos.

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MARCH 26@2

cosponsored with the Ghetto Fighters House, Israel

VICTIMIZATION OF JEWISH WOMEN SURVIVORS BY THEIR SOVIET LIBERATORS

Dr. Daina S. Eglitis

Full description and zoom link to follow

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APRIL 17@ 7 PM

YOM HA’SHOAH v’ HA’GEVURAH PROGRAM

SISTERS IN SURVIVAL: FEMALE SOLIDARITY IN THE GHETTOS and CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Manzulli Board Room, Foundation Hall

zoom:

Join us for a very special Yom Ha’Shoah v’Ha’Gevurah (Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day) program as we commemorate two remarkable women who survived the concentration camps through the love and care of female relatives. Ram Roth will speak about his mother, Rachel (Ruchama) Roth, who endured the Warsaw ghetto and uprising, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen  alongside her Aunt Hela, as described in her memoir Here There Is No Why. Fern Zagor will remember her mother, Frieda (Wakschlag) Aaron, who survived the Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek and two other concentration camps with her mother and sister Estelle, as described in Estelle’s memoire, Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust and Frieda’s scholarly text Bearing the Unbearable: Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and Concentrations Camps. Scholar Daan de Leeuw will present his research on Dutch and Polish women in the camps, “From Circle of Care to Enduring Enmity: Jewish Women in the Lublin-Majdanek Camp System.”

 

 

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APRIL 18 @ 10 AM

RISE UP: YOUNG HOLOCAUST HEROES. ST. GEORGE THEATER

Created in conjunction with Wagner College’s Holocaust Center, and directed by Mickey Tennenbaum, “Rise Up” tells the stories of six Holocaust survivors as they recall their happier days before the war and life in ghettos and camps with songs and words drawn from actual testimony. Explore how youth resisted the Nazis from forging ration cards to smuggling guns into the Warsaw Ghetto and why it matters today. Audience members will have a chance to meet a local Staten Island Holocaust survivor and ask questions of the cast after the performance.

For grades 4-8

THEMES: Holocaust Awareness, History, Social Studies

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APRIL 18@ 7:30 PM

From Romania to Auschwitz to New York: The Hecht Family

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APRIL 19 @ 1

 

Holocaust Remembrance-Women and Resistance in the Holocaust

Presented by The Richmond County Family Court — ZOOM ONLY
The Richmond Country Family Court Gender Fairness Committee and Equal Justice in the Courts Historical Subcommittee present:.
Shirley Gottesman, who grew up on a farm in Czechoslovakia, describes her tragic experiences in Auschwitz which included witnessing the uprising in the largest Nazi death camp in October 1944 in which women like Roza Robota played a key role.
Prof. Lori Weintrob, director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center, will explore how Jewish and non-Jewish women were vital to armed resistance against the Nazis as well as to a spectrum of spiritual, cultural and educational resistance efforts. If we want the next generation to be upstanders, we should teach them the courage of those who resisted, not only the Nazi perpetrators. The special responsibility to “know our neighbors” who survived World War II is captured in the newly-opened first permanent Holocaust Education and Action Gallery on Staten Island, at Wagner College.

 

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APRIL 27 @ 4

Interfaith Tour of the Wagner College Holocaust Center for community leaders, led by Dr. Lori Weintrob and Wagner College interns.

 

A panel with community and student leaders will follow in the Faculty Dining Room, Union, for the closing event of Staten Island Community Days. Honorees who “Lead by Example” will be announced.

2023 Honorees: Mendy Mirocznik, President COJO; Aur Torah Sephardic Minyan; Bari’s Pizza Pasta (Krenar and Skelzen Fazlija); Zara Cafe and Grill (Ramazan Avci); Hassan Ibrahim (Wagner College Bio-Psychology major, co-President of the Muslim Student Association); Dr. Beqir Ardolic, Executive Director, Staten Island University Hospital; Central Family Life Center (Dr. Demetrius Carolina); Rev. Clement James, Jr., Dir. of Faith-based Outreach Office of Governor Cuomo; Patrol Borough Staten Island Frank Vega; Project Hospitality and Rev. Terry Troia.

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EVENTS: FALL 2022:

 

SEPTEMBER 28 @ 12PM

cosponsored with Kupferberg Holocaust Center

The Digitization of Genocide Memory: Consequences and Contestation 

Join us as Dr. David J. Simon, Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University discusses the memorialization of mass atrocities and genocide across a vast array of digital technologies, including both academic settings and unexpected virtual spaces like Minecraft, YouTube, and TikTok. What are the opportunities for remembrance that are made possible in these spaces? And what are the potential hazards of memorializing mass atrocities and genocide in them? This event is part of the 2022-23 Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Colloquium, “Trauma, Remembrance, and Compassion.” The event is organized by the (KHC) at Queensborough Community College and co-sponsored by the Kupferberg Center and Wagner College

click here to register:https://tinyurl.com/mwz7rrjf

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October 6@ 4:30 PM, Room TBA

cosponsored with the Wagner Civic Engagement Program

zoom link:https://wagner.zoom.us/j/91290744582?pwd=NnUzVkVONzJMY3JYTXBISTFNWU5TQT09

The Rise of Authoritarianism in the European Union

R. Daniel Kelemen is Professor of Political Science and Law and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University. He is also an adjunct Professor of European Union Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. While the European Union (EU) was founded to be a union of democracies, in recent years it has allowed some member state governments – most notably in Hungary and Poland – to backslide toward authoritarianism by attacking judicial independence, press freedom, and other fundamental democratic values. Now the EU has become stuck in an “autocracy trap”, in which autocratic governments can undermine the EU from within. Why did these regimes emerge? Why have Europe’s leaders failed to stand up to them? And what lessons may this hold for the United States? Professor Kelemen will discuss these questions and more in his public lecture. Kelemen’s research focuses on the politics of the European Union, law and politics, comparative political economy, and comparative public policy. His 2011 book Eurolegalism: The Transformation of Law and Regulation in the European Union (Harvard University Press) won the Best Book Award from the European Union Studies Association

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October 17 @  6 PM Manzulli, Foundation Hall

cosponsored with the Wagner Civic Engagement Program

https://wagner.zoom.us/j/95499883842?pwd=RFZCQ0daVUZLZDVlV25HZit5aWtEdz09

My Father the Klansman: Growing up in the American Far Right

If no one is born a racist, how are they made? This question is central to the oral history project Dr. Elke Weesjes, Research and Programming Director of the Kingsborough Holocaust Center and a visiting assistant professor at Kingsborough Community College (CUNY),  is currently working on. Based on a series of interviews with 15 children of Ku Klux Klan members (born between 1945 and 1975), auto/biographies, archival materials, and existing Ku Klux Klan historiography, her project explores what it was like to grow up on the political fringes of American society in the latter part of the 20th century. In her paper, “My Father the Klansman”, Weesjes examines the lives of two of her respondents. Both renounced their upbringing and left their family and community behind to start a life without racism and antisemitism. She will discuss their childhood experiences growing up in a KKK family, their fraught relationships with their parents, the contrast between the hateful ideology passed down by their parents at home and the moral values taught in school, the extent of social isolation experienced during their childhood, what prompted them to break with their family and community, and how they have fared since then. Her paper ultimately shows how children navigated and negotiated the differences between their home lives and public lives and developed their own views on race and sense of identity.

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October 18@ 7 PM, CASA BELVEDERI

Liliana Segre: An Italian Story of the Holocaust

 

This presentation by Dr. Francesco Bonavita, focuses on the story of Liliana Segre, an Italian Jew who was deported to Auschwitz in the winter of 1944, at age 13. Although Liliana’s family had Jewish ancestry, it did not practice Judaism. Her family had a solid middle- class standard of living in city of Milan. Like many Italian Jews, the Segre household could not have remotely imagined the horrific consequences that were unleashed from the 1938 Racial Laws enacted by the Nazi and Fascist regimes, which radically transformed its life.
Liliana Segre is a survivor of the Holocaust and for almost a half a century she was unable to talk about her experience at Auschwitz. She finally emerged as a credible witness in her book: La Memoria rende liberi, which brings to the fore a chilling account of crimes committed against humanity, not seen since Primo Levi’s classical testimony.
Register
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OCTOBER 24 @ 7 PM

Studying Zionism and Israel in the PLO

Dr. Jonathan Gribetz, Associate Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University teaches about the history of Zionism, Palestine, Israel, Jerusalem, and nationalism in the modern Middle East. The Palestine Liberation Organization, founded in 1964, became famous, or infamous, over the decades primarily for its militants and its politicians.  There was another group in the organization, however, that was less well known but no less important: PLO researchers.  In 1965, the PLO established a Research Center in Beirut dedicated to carefully analyzing what it referred to as “the Palestine Problem,” a crucial element of which was “knowing the enemy.”  This meant researching the Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and Israel.  In this lecture, Professor Jonathan Gribetz will introduce us to the PLO Research Center, upon which he is currently completing a new book, and discuss the importance of this group of activist researchers and intellectuals on the history of the PLO. His first book, Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter (Princeton University Press, 2014), investigated the mutual perceptions of Zionists and Arabs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, showing the prominent place of religious and racial categories in the ways in which these communities imagined and related to one another. Defining Neighbors was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2015. Gribetz is currently writing a book on the Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center. For the new book, tentatively titled Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO’s Research on Judaism and Israel (under contract with Princeton University Press), Gribetz has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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NOVEMBER 10 @ 7 PM

Faculty Dining Room, One Campus Road, Staten Island 10301

7th annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St Louis  

Honoring the Past: The Voices of 2G survivors

The event will feature two 2G speakers who will share their reflections on their parents’ and grandparents’ strategies to escape Nazi Germany and their compelling messages to the next generation. Susan Slater and Joan Loeb will speak about their mothers who were on the St. Louis transatlantic refugee ship. The event will also feature a candle lighting ceremony, and musical performance by Jaylen Grey ’24, Molly Nemirow ’25 and other members of the Wagner College Choir, as well as a tribute to the life lessons of Egon J. Salmon (1924-2022).
Register here:

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NOVEMBER 17 @ 1:30 PM via zoom

Discussion and Analysis of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Dekalog 8: Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

https://wagner.zoom.us/j/98856608620?pwd=dWhiUGxNUTYvQ1djMlBmMm1GMmFSUT09

Join the classroom of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for a discussion of part 8 of the brilliant series on the Dekalog (1988) directed by Polish artist Krzysztof Kieślowski. Film expert and 2022 winner of the best book award at the Polish Film Institute, Professor Mikołaj Jazdon, Institute of Film, Media and Audiovisual Arts, Adam Mickiewicz University, will speak about the film, which deals with moral issues around the saving of Jews during the Holocaust. An elderly female university professor of ethics is introduced to an American academic who is researching the fate of Jews after WW2. Sitting in on the professor’s lectures, the American offers a story – which has personal significance both for her and the professor – for the students to analyse. A Jewish child, during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, is offered sanctuary on condition that she obtain a certificate of baptism. The Catholic couple who have promised to help refuse on the grounds that they will not bear false witness, thus condemning the child to almost certain death. But as the film unfolds we learn more about the child and her connections to the characters in the film.

The film will not be shown and should be watched ahead of the talk.

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NOVEMBER 29@ 7 PM

 Laughing Off The Trauma of Jewish History: Humor and Antisemitism

Dr. Avinoam Patt, Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and Director, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at University of Connecticut presents this talk on his research.

Why the Bicycle Riders? Why The Jews? It has been commonly remarked that among the defining features of Jewish humor is the tendency to laugh at the Jewish self. As a people with a long history of persecution, Jews have neutralized the hostility of the outside world, first by internalizing it and then by detonating it through a joke. Jews have also used humor as a weapon against the powerful and as a coping mechanism to deal with persecution and trauma. In this talk, Prof. Patt will examine the many functions of Jewish humor as a response to antisemitism and the Holocaust, and ask whether the Jewish tradition of responding to persecution with punchlines can still be effective today.

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DECEMBER DATE TBA

co-sponsored with the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, The National World War II Museum. 

Art, Atrocity, and Representation: The Visual Arts Under the Third Reich

Webinar. Link to follow.

Join host Dr. Jason Dawsey, Research Historian, Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, The National World War II Museum, and Dr. Laura Morowitz, Professor of Art History at Wagner College and the Senior Programming and Research Associate at the Wagner College Holocaust Center as she discusses and answers questions on topics such as the Nazi policy toward the arts, the theft of artwork from Jewish families, and the work of anti-Nazi artists as well as artists who perished in the Holocaust.

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PAST EVENTS: SPRING 2022

JANUARY 25, @7 PM: (in person or zoom):

 

Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere in partnership with the WCHC Screening of “Our Hebrews” and Q&A live from Tel Aviv with the director to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In southern Tuscany, locals refer to their town as ‘Little Jerusalem,’ because of its striking resemblance to Israel’s ancient city. Through the medieval stone walls, the fascinating story of co-existence between Jews and Christians since the 15th century unfolds, leading to the heroic acts done by the locals during the time of the Holocaust. Naor Meninghe is an award-winning filmmaker and content creator of podcasts and vlogs. He graduated from Steve Tisch Film School at Tel Aviv University, after three years as a military filmmaker in the Israeli Defense Forces. His short films The Rat’s Dilemma (2014), An Old Score (2016) and Our Hebrews (2016) were screened in many film festivals. Proof of vaccination is required for all guests at Casa Belvedere, 79 Howard Avenue.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfpJgAW8ER8

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JANUARY 27 @ 6PM: INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY via zoom

Virtual Commemoration From Awareness to Action:
Confronting Antisemitism At Home and Abroad
Join Dr. Robert Williams for a discussion about how current conspiracy theories and tropes fuel antisemitism domestically and internationally. Deputy Director for International Affairs at the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum, Williams will also address how and why Holocaust education is one of many ways to combat it. This event is organized by the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College and is co-sponsored by the Wagner College Holocaust Center and several other Holocaust organizations.
Please register here for zoom: https://tinyurl.com/4f4yp6wx

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FEBRUARY 10 2022@ 1:00 PM

 

IGNORANCE, ABUSE AND COMPETITION IN THE POLITICS OF HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE
DR. DIRK RUPNOW, PROFESSOR AT THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK
After a period of globalization and institutionalization, Holocaust remembrance appears to be subject to profound changes. This talk attempts to outline the status and the present challenges in European, “Western” and global contexts. It will raise questions about the meaning of Holocaust remembrance in the increasingly divers European “migration societies”, not the least during a moment of a perceived refugee crises in Europe, as well as evident Racism and ever growing Islamophobia; and at the same time, the global “competition” between memory of the Holocaust and the crimes of European colonial powers, as well as their relative place in European memory. These are not new questions, but ones that are increasingly relevant and controversial.

 

register in advance: https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAuf-uorDgsGtIiXW1BUUh12hWewlShKu7A

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FEBRUARY 22 @ 2pm, zoom

Remembering Resistance: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
In 1943, Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were arrested by the Gestapo after they distributed anti-Nazi leaflets to students at the University of Munich Sophie, Hans, and Christoph Probst, another member of the White Rose group, were executed on February 22, 1943. The program will feature a conversation between Frank McDonough, author of Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman Who Defied Hitler, and Nathan Stoltzfus, the Dorothy and Jonathan Rintels Professor of Holocaust Studies at Florida State University, moderated by Dr. Lori Weintrob, Wagner College Holocaust Center. A virtual screening of the Academy Award nominated film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days will be made available one week before the program.
Register here for this virtual
discussion, a program of the Museum of Jewish Heritage:
https://mjhnyc.org/events/remembering-resistance-sophie-scholl-and-the-white-rose/
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MARCH 6@ 1:00 PM

The Politics of a New Hannah Szenes Memorial
Dr. Andrea Pető is Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University, Vienna Austria and a Doctor of Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
This talk focuses on the commemoration of Jewish and Hungarian heroine Hannah (Anikó) Szenes in Budapest, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. At twenty-three years old, Szenes parachuted into Yugoslavia in March 1944 where she was caught, tortured and executed.While her life story has been canonized in Israel, in her native land of Hungary she has largely been condemned to oblivion. The different circles of memory and forgetting around Szenes are made up of key elements of 20th century Hungarian, European and Israeli history, which intersected precisely in narrating Szenes’ life story. Dr.Pető will further shed light on the  historical oblivion that so often befalls women who perform historical deeds.

 

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkc–prTMjGdOtWpEXW2-LVKxyArJbp2K7

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March 8, 2022 @ 6pm, zoom
Telling the Story of Zionist Settlement Through Language
Liora Halperin is an Associate Professor of International Studies, History, and Jewish Studies, and the Jack and Rebecca Benaroya Endowed Chair in Israel Studies at the
University of Washington.
This talk will explore the history of Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine/Israel through the lens of language. What happened when Yiddish speaking settlers purchased land from Arabic speaking owners with the help of Ladino-speaking (Judeao-Spanish) intermediaries in an Ottoman Turkish context? How did they relate to the Arabic-speaking  workers the first of them hired? How did the story change as more of them started speaking Hebrew in a context of English control after World War I, after Zionist forces displaced most Arabic speaking Palestinians in 1948 and after Israel occupied many of them again in 1967? How did older settlers confront and content with Jewish newcomers speaking Polish, German, Arabic, and many other languages? Why did the stakes of speaking one language or another feel so consequential? How do we think about the role of language amidst shifting power relations, economic hierarchies, and nationalist
movements?

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkd-qsqDwuH9R_Pa0Seyp0pQpG1PawM2eg

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MARCH 17 2022@ 7PM, zoom

Presented at the Kingsborough-Manhattan Beach Holocaust Memorial Center

Capturing the Unspeakable: Art as a Tool for Learning about the Holocaust
Dr. Laura Morowitz is Professor of Art History at Wagner College and the Senior Research and Programming Assistant at the Wagner College Holocaust Center
Over 30,000 works of art survived the Holocaust; they serve as eyewitness sources as well as enabling our subjective and emotional understanding. In this talk, Professor Laura Morowitz explores works of art created in hiding, ghettos and concentration camps, revealing how they can serve as a unique tool in teaching and learning about the Holocaust. In contrast to sources that may attempt to convey the overwhelming nature of mass murder, works of art testify to individuality, the richness of an individual consciousness, and thus bring home the tragic loss of a single, unique human being.
Registration in advance:
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April 7, 7pm, in-person:

Opening Reception for the Education and Action Gallery of the Wagner College Holocaust Center

Please join us in celebrating the opening of the first Holocaust Center in Staten Island. Our Education and Action gallery includes a tribute wall to the Holocaust survivors of our borough. Our exhibition also highlights the role of resistors and rescuers, as well as American soldiers of all faiths in World War II. Elected officials, Holocaust survivors and their families, along with those who have helped to make this Gallery a reality, will be acknowledged.
To make a reservation, email: holocaust.center@wagner.edu

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April 14, 7pm, zoom

The Art of Survival: Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and Children’s Art at Theresienstadt

Dr. Megan Brandow-Faller is Professor of History at the City University of New York (CUNY)and teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a member of the Kingsborough Holocaust Advisory Board
Bauhaus-trained artist and designer Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944) brought the philosophies of progressive art education to the NSDAP ghetto and concentration camp at Theresienstadt, teaching drawing to imprisoned children, mostly girls, to inspire hope and self-expression under the most adverse conditions. While most of “Friedl’s girls” ultimately perished, Dicker-Brandeis’s surviving students spoke of their teacher’s remarkable ability to create a nurturing atmosphere where students could express hopes, fears and dreams as a temporary release from the brutal ghetto around them. Examining Dicker-Brandeis’s intellectual influences in Secessionist Vienna and the Weimar Bauhaus, Dr. Brandow-Faller’s talk focuses on Dicker-Brandeis’s brief but heroic teaching and exhibition career in the children’s homes of Theresienstadt, where art became a means of humanistic, if not physical, survival for its youngest inhabitants.

 

This event is organized by the Kingsborough Holocaust Center and is cosponsored by the Wagner College Holocaust Center.
Register in advance for this Zoom meeting here.

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APRIL 28,7 PM IN HONOR OF YOM HASHOAH 2022 Holocaust Martyrs and Heroism Day

“Ordinary People” as Heroes for Hiding Jews in Nazi-Occupied
Holland: Leo Ullman as a hidden child and his
rescuers in Amsterdam during WWII.
Leo Ullman emigrated to the U.S. in 1947. He attended Harvard College (A.B.), served in the U.S. Marine Corps and, in only three years, earned degrees at Columbia University’s Graduate Schools of Law (J.D)and Business (M.B.A.). A member of the New York Bar, Ullman practiced law for more than 30 years. He established and took to the New York Stock Exchange a real estate investment trust in 2003, for which he was named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in the Financial Services area. He currently heads Vastgood Properties, a private real estate company. Mr. Ullman served as a Director and later Chairman of the Anne Frank Center, USA. He presently serves as Chairman of the Foundation for the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, Inc. and the Netherlands National Holocaust Museum. At the United States National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., he and his wife, Kay (Katharine Lott Marbut), have co-sponsored at the exhibit “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda.” They have also funded the creation of the “Schimmel and Hoogenboom Righteous Remembrance Room” at Stockton University’s Holocaust Resource Center. Ullman chronicled his experiences as a hidden child in the book, 796 Days: Hiding as a Child in Occupied Amsterdam in World War II, and in a recent film, There Were Good People…Doing Extraordinary Deeds.
Of the approximately 145,000 Jews in Holland before WWII, an estimated 25,000 Jewish men, women and children went into hiding in the Netherlands, including 3-1/2-year-old Leo Ullmann. What motivated rescuers of all faiths to act with inherent goodness and courage despite the enormous risk? Among nearly 6,000 rescuers were Pieter Hoogenboom, a policeman in Utrecht, and his wife Evertje, and Hendrik Schimmel, a retired policeman in Amsterdam, and his wife Jannigje. In the face of almost certain death, they helped provide hiding places, false identity papers and food, and enabled limited contacts among Ullmann family members in hiding in Amsterdam and elsewhere. In 2015, the rescuers of Leo and his family were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
Our program with include Hebrew songs played on cello by Laura Melnicoff.

 

REGISTER IN ADVANCE:https://alumniconnect.wagner.edu/2022holocaustheroismday?erid=5683479&trid=0f8c4a53-19f1-4932-ba82-cb33edc35cc0 _______________________________________

May 16-June 20, 2022

Opening of Art Exhibit: Linda Stein’s Tapestry Series Fierce Females: Holocaust Heroes
We welcome you to visit our exhibit of original tapestries by artist Linda Stein, dedicated to heroines of the Holocaust
Heroic Tapestries represent different aspects of bravery during the time of the Holocaust: Jew and non-Jew, child and adult, World War II military fighter and ghetto/concentration camp smuggler, record keeper and saboteur. Together they represent the many types of female heroism, with war battle gear and without, during the years of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust Heroes project demonstrates that while most people are bystanders under conditions of terror, there are always a few who defy a malevolent authority and do what they feel is the right thing. If heroes existed during the Holocaust, then certainly we can increase the propensity for individuals to become more empathetic and compassionate under normal conditions.
This project is guided by an advisory group of art experts, Holocaust scholars, and individuals who are the offspring of Holocaust-impacted families, including political scientist Jerome Chanes, psychologist Eva Fogelman, healthcare expert Susanna Ginsburg, art educator Karen Keifer-Boyd, art historian and curator Gail Levin, museum director Jeanie Rosensaft, and Holocaust and human rights law professor Menachem Rosensaft. The editor of our exhibition catalog is Amy Stone and the producer of our short video and future documentary is Sarah Connors.

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May 2022 (date TBA)

Witness Theater: Staten Island Survivors
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May 25, 2022:

Chai Society Mitzvah Dinner
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June 15-16, 2022:

International Symposium “Heroines of the Holocaust: New Frameworks of Resistance.”
Organized by Professors Laura Morowitz and Lori Weintrob, Wagner College
The activities of women during the Holocaust have often been forgotten, erased, misunderstood, or intentionally distorted. Jewish women and those of all faiths fought with dignity, compassion and courage to save others from the murderous Nazi regime in over 30 nations. Often overlooked, women as well as men played critical roles in uprisings against the Nazis in over 50 ghettos, 18 forced labor camps and 5 concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Women were critical to the Jewish underground and other resistance networks both as armed fighters and as strategists and couriers of intelligence and false papers. Women played essential roles operating educational, cultural and humanitarian initiatives. In other genocides, women also faced horrendous atrocities, yet distinguished themselves with resilience and acts of moral courage. This symposium hopes to create a new narrative around agency in the Shoah and other genocides, which may inspire transformative activism today.
For information on the symposium and to register please visit the website:
https://sites.google.com/wagner.edu/heroines

https://alumniconnect.wagner.edu/symposium2021

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PAST EVENTS FALL 2021



Photo: Liberation, 1945: Lore Baer (first row, middle) and her mother Edith,
along with her rescuer Cornelia Schouten (second row, 3rd from left) and her family and other helpers in the Netherlands.

Please join us for the 6th Annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the S.S. St. Louis

BEYOND ANNE FRANKHiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands

Lore Baer Azaria, Holocaust survivor and art therapist, whose experiences are featured in the 1997 children’s book: Hidden from the Nazis by David Adler (1997) and in the film Secret Lives: Hidden Children and their Rescuers during WWII (2003), directed by Avivia Slesin.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. EST via Zoom

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Black Heroines of World War II
September 30, 11:30 a.m. via Zoom

As spies, nurses and clandestine couriers, Black women in France played vital, overlooked roles in the anti-Nazi war effort. Jane Vialle, an operative for Combat in  Southern France, was arrested in 1943 for treason, but survived and became a Senator. Josephine Baker’s fight against Hitler’s Regime from Berlin to Lisbon has earned her a place in the Pantheon of French heroism.

Annette Joseph-Gabriel is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Michigan and author, Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire (University of Illinois Press, 2020).  Introductory remarks by Virginia Allen, Staten Island’s “Black Angel” nurse.

Krakow Women and Resistance (Power of our Stories)
Sponsored by the New Cracow Friendship Society
October 17, 1:00 p.m.

An exploration of the voices and resistance activities of several notable Jewish women, including Gusta Dawidson Draenger, code name Justyna, with speaker Sheryl Ochayon, of Echoes and Reflections and Yad Vashem. Introducted and moderated by Lori Weintrob, Wagner College.

Israel Night: Media Bias (with Hillel of Wagner College)
October 5, 1:00 p.m.via Zoom and in-person

Join Wagner College Hillel as we host a guest speaker to help us discuss media biases concerning Israel and current Israeli affairs. This disucssion is bound to challenge all who attend and foster conversations for people of all religions, experiences, and backgrounds. All are welcome and encouraged to join for this powerful discussion. Several Wagner students will briefly present their own experiences in Israel.

Jews of Color Count
Wednesday, October 26. 6:00 p.m.

Co-sponsored with the Dr. Esther Grushkin Center for Arts + Culture, with Ms. Ginna Green, a political strategist, former Chief Strategy Officer at Bend the Arc: Jewish Action and a Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Green will share her vision of a vibrant, equitable, multiracial Jewish community.

More than Gold: Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympic Games
October 31, 4:00 p.m.via Zoom

Sponsored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation, this event features Jesse Owen’s grandson, Scott Owen Rankin, executive director of the Jesse Owens Foundation, Dr. Lori Weintrob, Wagner College, and Anita L. DeFrantz, Vice President of the International Olympic Committee, moderated by Robert Jacobvitz. Register here: https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/jesse-owens

Across the Pyrenees: Helping Jewish Refugees Fleeing Nazi Terror
October 14, 4:15 p.m. via Zoom

Nazi persecution caused Jews from Germany, Austria and other countries to seek refuge in France, or to travel through France on their way out of Europe. Many without proper visas were forced to walk across the Pyrenees to reach Spain and Portugal, avoiding border patrols, to then catch ships to other continents. Those who guided the Jewish refugees on this arduous trek, known as passeurs, faced many dangers. Two female passeurs will be examined in depth.

Jacqueline Adams is an award-winning sociologist and Senior researcher at the University of California, Berkeley for the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and a Research Fellow in 2021-2022 at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem.

Luncheon in honor of Rabbi Samuel Kastel, Dan Glassman, and Dr. Lori Weintrob
November 14, 12:00 p.m.

This event supports and is held at Congregation B’nai Jeshrun, 275 Martling Avenue, Staten Island, NY.

Tickets are available ($75/pp) on the CBJ wesbite: https:www.cbjsi.com/

Empowering Women: Lessons from a Survivor of Genocide
November 17, 11:30 p.m.via Zoom/In-person

This event will feature speaker Consolee Nishimwe, global human rights activist and author of Tested to the Limit: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Pain, Resilience and Hope.

 

 

 

https://casa-belvedere.org/product/10-18-tuesday-700-pm-virtual-liliana-segre-an-italian-story-of-the-holocaust/


PAST EVENTS

Spring 2021 Events

January 20, 7pm: 
One Hand, One Heart: An intergenerational celebration of Broadway and Yiddish Song

A multi-ethnic singing club, Shir Levav (Sing from the Heart) joins with Holocaust Survivor Arthur Spielman to perform music by Jewish composers of Broadway and a few favorite Yiddish songs. Guest Host: 2nd generation survivor Mickey Tennenbaum, Professor of Theater, Wagner College. Ms. Jan Martin will offer opening remarks. Co-Sponsored by the Wagner College Chai Society and Holocaust Center and the Staten Island Jewish Community Center, Esther Grushkin Seminars in Adult Jewish Education (SAJE).

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcvcO2qqD4qH90tnvM4DN6pJbCb8bbLpxdd 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. For information, contact Prof. Lori Weintrob: holocaust.center@wagner.edu

January 27, 7pm
Intergenerational Transmission of Mass Trauma in Families of Survivors

Keynote: Irit Felsen, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and traumatic loss teaches at Columbia University and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University.

With a special presentation and candle lighting by Manny Saks and Rabbi Mark Ben-Aron, 2nd Generation, and 3G grandchildren of Staten Island’s Holocaust Survivors. 

International Holocaust Remembrance Commemoration

Co-sponsored by Staten Island Inter-religious Leadership, Wagner College Holocaust Center, Chai Society and Hillel, Congregation B’nai Jeshrun, COJO (Council of Jewish Organizations of Staten Island) and CURT (Communities United for Respect and Trust).

This live talk and Q&A will explore the strengths, challenges and long-term effects of trauma, with particular relevance to children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and its relevance in the current moment. 

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtd-2sqjorH9dRcaT1nf9d47DyRVPjV4M7
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. For information, contact Prof. Lori Weintrob: holocaust.center@wagner.edu

February 24 (1-2pm NY time, 8-9pm Israel time)
The Artist as Holocaust Heroine: Friedl Dicker-Brandeis 

Speaker: Elena Makarova is a writer, educator, historian and exhibit curator, specializing in Jewish spiritual resistance in the Terezin Ghetto and Concentration Camp, particularly through art. Ms. Markova will talk about Dicker-Brandeis’ exceptional work as a teacher and her impact on modern art therapy. This event will be moderated by Prof. Lori R. Weintrob, Director, Wagner College Holocaust Center, who will discuss how Dicker-Brandeis’ political commitments informed her educational vision. 

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.

When: Feb 24, 2021 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMvd-mprT0jE9xF8lf8c9Ev6eyqCNw8ub1z

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

March 1, 7-8:15pm
Tradition!: The Making of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish.”

Join the conversation with Roy Gabay, producer of the Yiddish version of Sholem Aleichem’s work, Fiddler on the Roof, along with two actors, Jennifer Babiak and WCT graduate, Jonathan Quigley. Babiak played Golde, the mother of five daughters. A brief clip of Quigley in the “bottle dance” will be shown. We’ll discuss how the Yiddish production came to be, the hurdles the cast had to overcome and the meaningful experiences for all involved. 

Moderated by Todd Price, professor in the Theatre and Arts Administration programs at Wagner College who also serves as Director of the Stanley Drama Awards.

This event is sponsored by the Wagner College Holocaust Center and Wagner College Theatre.

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJApdeuhqDouHdGB0t1waLia6loMOdv0Sf0o 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Thursday, March 4th 7:00-9:00pm
Primo Levi (1919-1987), Holocaust survivor

How can one find the words to describe the trauma and agony suffered at Auschwitz after one’s humanity has been taken away? Francesco Bonavita will explore Levi’s life; how Italian Jews saw themselves vis-à-vis the rise of fascism; his experience at Auschwitz; and his commitment to keep alive the narrative of the Holocaust. Born in Rome, Bonavita earned his doctorate in Comparative Literature on the Italian Renaissance.  He taught at Kean University and NYU and writes about Italian cities on his blog, www.thewondersofitaly.com.

To register:

 

March 15, 4-5:30 pm
Mildred Harnack and the German Resistance to Hitler

CUNY Center for the Study of Women and Society. Free public zoom lecture:

Rebecca Donner will discuss the challenges in writing All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, a work of narrative nonfiction about her great-great-aunt Mildred Harnack, the only American in the leadership of Berlin ’ s underground resistance during the Nazi regime. She will speak about the often-lost narrative of women in the German resistance and her archival discoveries as she set out to fuse elements of biography, political thriller, and scholarly detective story, interweaving letters, diaries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, testimony of survivors, and declassified intelligence documents to reconstruct the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history.

For more information or to RSVP, click here: https://bit.ly/WWWLRebeccaDonner.

(Please note: an email with Zoom details will be sent on the day of the event.)

 

March 15, 7-8pm
With Pen and Pistol: Heroines of the Holocaust

Holocaust Memorial Center – Zekelman Family Campus
(See their website for details)
Speaker: Prof. Lori Weintrob

 “You do not know the limits of my courage,” proclaimed Marianne Cohn to the Nazi guards who captured her while smugglng children across the French border to Switzerland. Trapped in Nazi-occupied Europe, thousands of women fought with defiance and dignity with pen and pistol to save themselves and others in situations of great danger and despair. 

March 16th, 7pm Museum of Jewish Heritage
Heroines of The Holocaust

During the Holocaust, more than 3,000 women fought back against the Nazis in ghettos, forced labor camps, concentration camps, and partisan units. Join Dr. Lori Weintrob, Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center, and Holocaust survivor Rachel Roth and moderator Rokhl Kaffrissen, for a program exploring the heroic lives and legacies of these female resistance fighters. Register for the event: 

https://mjhnyc.org/events/heroines-of-the-holocaust-2/

March 29, 1:15pm
Annihilation or Selective Preservation? The Nazi ‘Cultural Genocide’ in Vienna during the Holocaust

Tim Corbett, Historian

Vienna’s five Jewish cemeteries are potent sites for construction and contestation of Austria’s Jewish heritage. Dr. Corbett will discuss issues raised in his book, Die Grabstätten meiner Väter: die jüdischen Friedhöfe Wiens Böhlau, 2021, about their destruction during the Holocaust and the post-war politics surrounding this form of cultural erasure of the achievements of centuries of Jewish Viennese men and women. A historian, editor, and translator, Dr. Corbett specializes in the modern cultural history of Austrian Jews. He was named as the inaugural 2018 Prins Fellow at the Center for Jewish History in New York. Moderated by Prof. Laura Morowitz, Art Historian. 

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqd-GspjwsHdVP6CchZ6IgDCkL3220T4xY
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

 For information, contact Prof. Lori Weintrob: holocaust.center@wagner.edu

Wednesday, April 14th @ 7pm 
From Romania to Auschwitz to New York: The Hecht Family

Film and Discussion

An international student from Romania, Rebeca Zoicas was inspired by meeting Auschwitz survivor Stefania Hecht to make a short documentary film. The film follows Stefania’s story from where she grew up in the northern part of Romania (then part of Hungary), to Auschwitz and a work camp in Czechoslovakia and finally to New York City.  Dr. Alex Hecht, Stefania’s son, founded the Northern Transylvania Holocaust Museum in 2005 to promote Holocaust education.  

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.

When: Apr 14, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://wagner.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUtc-irrD8vGda0bvhzxHWv5WFuadSJS_1Y

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

April 8th, 7pm: 
Staten Island Yom Ha’Shoah Committee Commemoration

Program TBA

April 20, 7 pm:
Anna Wrobel, Bearing Witness: Stories of the Holocaust – “Second Generation/First Person: Memory, History, and Poetry”

Birmingham Holocaust Education Center

Anna Wrobel is the daughter of Holocaust survivors – partisan and soldier – an American historian, teacher, poet and Holocaust Studies educator. Her history essays and poetry appear in Cafe Review, Lilith, Off the Coast and Jewish Currents. Anna has two poetry collections, Marengo Street (2012) and The Arrangement of Things (2018). Her poetry appeared in the University of Maine’s Holocaust Human Rights Center art/poetry exhibit, Dilemma of Memory, and are included in the Maine Jewish history exhibit at the State Museum. She’s presented at the Puffin Foundation on Jewish resistance in WWII and works with the Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation, to which her mother, Eta, was a founding consultant.  Shoah poems, taken from her manuscript Sparrow Feathers-Second Generation/First Person, have been used by history and English teachers in high schools, colleges and adult education.

Register Here

 

June 3, 12-1 PM EST
Heroines of the Holocaust: A Mini-Conference

 

 

 

The 5th Annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St. Louis

Nov. 9, 2020, 7:00 pm

 

The Wagner College Holocaust Center welcomes you to join us for the 5th Annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St. Louis on Monday, November 9th via Zoom at 7:00 p.m. The commemoration will be led by guest speaker Julian E. Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and CNN Analyst. This talk willl examine the ways in which fighting anti-Semitism and the quest for racial justice intersect, drawing inspiration from the life and theology of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-72)

Fall 2020 Events

2020_Fall_events_WCHC

 

Spring 2020 Events

SP20_Fiinal_HC Events Calendar brochure style (1)

 

 

Fall 2018 Events

FA18 HC Events Brochure
Download Events Brochure Here


Spring 2018 Events

HC_Events_Sp18_Brochure

Download Brochure Here


 

2016 Events

Download a copy of our Spring 2016 Events Calendar below:

Holocaust Center Events Spring 2016

Download a copy of our Fall 2016 Events Calendar below:

Holocaust Center Events Fall 2016

 


 

Past Events 2013-2017

  
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In Memory of Margot Capell: October 21, 2025
October 26, 2024
  In Memory of Margot Capell: October 21 2024 Only two days before her 104th birthday, Holocaust
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Estelle Wakszlak Laughlin: In Memoriam
September 5, 2024
“Sixty-four years have passed since my liberation from the concentration camp. I no longer can remember
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WCHC Director Lori Weintrob Receives Special Founders Recognition Award
April 16, 2024
On April 9 2024 the WCHC Advisory Board held its Annual Mitzvah Awards, recognizing outstanding individuals
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Professor Morowitz' book, Art, Exhibition and Erasure in Nazi Vienna, published this August
July 12, 2023
“So much has been written on the way the Nazis used art in Germany, but very little on art in Nazi
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WCHC RECEIVES GIFT OF PAINTING BY ARTIST LOST IN THE SHOAH
June 14, 2023
Sari Kingsley never got to meet her mother's brother, Mendel Schleifer, but all her life felt a strong
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Wolf Gruner’s New Book Shifts Narrative on Jewish Resistance
May 31, 2023
On August 1, 2023 Yale University Press will release Wolf Gruner’s Resisters. How Ordinary Jews fought
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Wagner’s Chai Society Chair, Fern Aaron Zagor, to be awarded by JCC
March 8, 2023
  In her welcoming letter to an international community of Holocaust scholars on our campus,
7th Annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St. Louis
November 12, 2022
On Nov. 10, 2022, the 7th Annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St.
The Sixth Annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the S.S. St. Louis
November 19, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91h-vVVVys The Wagner College Holocaust Center presents "Beyond Anne
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Interview with Survivor Estelle Laughlin, Aunt of WCHC and CHAI Society Board Member Fern Zagor
September 7, 2021
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has devoted a one hour interview special, First Person,

Video Gallery: Full Events

2014 Kristallnacht anniversary program

On Monday, Nov. 10, Wagner College hosted its annual Kristallnacht remembrance luncheon, led by history professor Lori Weintrob. Holocaust survivor Gabi Held talked about his experience as a teenager during Kristallnacht and as a Nazi prisoner in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Wagner Hillel President Julia Teichman, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, also spoke. Watch 2014 Kristallnacht anniversary program

2014 Holocaust Remembrance Day speaker Bronia Brandman

On Thursday, April 24, 2014, Wagner College hosted this year's observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, featuring keynote speaker Bronia Brandman, a survivor of Auschwitz and co-author of "The Girl Who Survived: A True Story of the Holocaust." Brandman is a gallery educator and member of the Speakers Bureau of the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Watch 2014 Holocaust Remembrance Day speaker Bronia Brandman

Remembering Kristallnacht

On Thursday, Nov. 14, Wagner College marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," with a luncheon lecture by Reni Hanau, a survivor of the Nazi terror. Watch Remembering Kristallnacht

A Holocaust Cabaret: Theater as Resistance

Survivor testimony adapted for the theater and performed by students. Based on interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation. Directed by Theresa McCarthy and Lori Weintrob. Video by Theresa Reed. Watch A Holocaust Cabaret: Theater as Resistance

Meet Consolee Nishimwe

Consolee Nishimwe is a Rwandan genocide survivor who shares her story of survival and forgiveness with global audiences. Nishimwe recently visited Wagner College where she spoke to students from Port Richmond High School. Watch Meet Consolee Nishimwe
Video thumbnail 2 2014 Kristallnacht anniversary program
Video thumbnail 3 2014 Holocaust Remembrance Day speaker Bronia Brandman
Video thumbnail 4 Remembering Kristallnacht
Video thumbnail 5 A Holocaust Cabaret: Theater as Resistance
Video thumbnail 6 Meet Consolee Nishimwe