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Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Programs
Years of pandemic have taken a toll on everyone, and 2022 has seen new sources of stress, not least Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting refugee crisis. At the same time, many feel strongly that antisemitism in the United States and globally is on the rise and gaining legitimacy. The Northeastern students, faculty, and staff who make up the Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee — a Northeastern committee that has planned Holocaust commemorative and educational programming since the 1970s — felt an acute need this year to make the university the physical center, again, for our community of learning. After pivoting to online programming during the pandemic, Northeastern’s Holocaust
and Genocide Awareness Committee returned in 2021-22 to a robust calendar of in-person
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and hybrid events. Gathering together in a shared space is an important part of learning, and an activity we were thankful to be able to do again. The shift to hybridity also opened up new possibilities to include members of the Northeastern community and public who could not make it to campus, and to bypass geographical limits and reach hundreds of friends and colleagues around the world. In the fall of 2021, the Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee co-sponsored, as part of the Myra Kraft Open Classroom, a program on Plunder, Reparations, and Historical Justice, which featured Menachem Kaiser, author of the book Plunder, in conversation with Margaret Burnham, the Director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. This year’s Open Classroom — a program in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs that invites public participation in a Northeastern class around theme of current interest — was organized by Ted Landsmark (Director of the Dukakis Center) and Jonathan Kaufman (Director of the School of Journalism) in consultation with Lori Lefkovitz (Director of Jewish Studies) on the theme of Repairing a Divided America. Mr. Kaiser explained the motivations behind his efforts to seek restitution of property owned by his family in Poland before the Holocaust and had a lively discussion with Prof. Burnham about philosophical questions relating to the purpose of restitution and how or whether restorative justice is something that can be achieved.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2021 • 6-8 PM ET
PLUNDER, REPARATIONS, & RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
What does reparation and justice look like for surviving generations of families with brutal histories who experienced immeasurable losses? Are there lessons for America to be learned from the German reparations that Holocaust survivors received?
MARGARET BURNHAM
University Distinguished Professor of Law and Director, Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, Northeastern University IN CONVERSATION WITH
MENACHEM KAISER
Author of Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure about his family’s efforts to recover property left behind in Poland after the Holocaust.
CO-SPONSORED BY
Boston3G College of Arts, Media and Design College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Africana Studies Program Department of English Department of History Humanities Center Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee Jewish Studies Program Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy Open Classroom School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs
FOR ANY QUESTIONS CONTACT d.levisohn@northeastern.edu
Registration for either in-person or virtual: bit.ly/OpenClassroom-Reparations
THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT. REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. IN PERSON ATTENDANCE IS LIMITED TO NORTHEASTERN STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF. LIVE-STREAMING ATTENDANCE IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
From left: Simon Rabinovitch, Lori Lefkovitz, Menachem Kaiser, Margaret Burnham, Uta Poiger, Ted Landsmark, and Jonathan Kaufman
The Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee has long relied on the generosity of the Giessen and Morton families in sponsoring what is the keynote lecture of our annual Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week, the Robert Salomon Morton Lecture, which showcases a prominent scholar or public figure working in the fields of antisemitism research, Holocaust history, or genocide prevention. This year we expanded the Morton program into a lecture series, featuring the work of three prominent historians doing important work on antisemitism and historical memory. The first lecture was by Jeffrey Veidlinger, Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, who talked about his new book, In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust. Prof. Veidlinger gave his lecture on February 28, just four days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and was able to explain not only how anti-Jewish violence during Ukraine and Russia’s civil war operated as a precursor to the Holocaust, but Prof. Veidlinger also led a broader discussion on how much Ukraine has changed in the decades since the end of the Soviet Union. The second Morton Lecture for 2022 was by Charles Gallagher, Professor of History at Boston College, who spoke about his new book, Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten History of the Christian Front, 1939-1945. Prof. Gallagher told the story of how Catholic theology fueled both antisemitic violence and a Nazi spy ring in Boston during the years of World War II and the Holocaust, and he did so from the perspective of both a historian and a Catholic priest.
ROBERT SALOMON MORTON LECTURE SERIES
JEFFREY VEIDLINGER
Jeffrey Veidlinger is Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. Professor Veidlinger is the author of In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust, and the awardwinning books, In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine, The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage, and Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire. Veidlinger is the chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Academy for Jewish Research, a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a former vicepresident of the Association for Jewish Studies.
IN THE MIDST OF CIVILIZED
EUROPE: THE POGROMS OF 1918-1921 AND THE ONSET
OF THE HOLOCAUST
Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine and Poland by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Aid workers warned that six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination.
Drawing upon archival materials acclaimed historian Jeffrey Veidlinger shows for the first time how this wave of genocidal violence created the conditions for the Holocaust.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2022
5:30 PM • MUGAR 201 • FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
For more information about this, and other 2022 Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee events, please visit bit.ly/HAGAW2022.
Co-sponsored by Department of History Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee
ROBERT SALOMON MORTON LECTURE SERIES
CHARLES R. GALLAGHER, S.J.
Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., is an Associate Professor of History at Boston College. In 2017, he was the William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellow on America, the Holocaust, & the Jews, at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. In 2009, his book, Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII (Yale, 2008), won the American Catholic Historical Association’s John Gilmary Shea Prize. Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front was published in September 2021 by Harvard University Press.
NAZIS of COPLEY SQUARE:
The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front
The men of the Christian Front imagined themselves as crusaders fighting for the spiritual re-conquest of the nation. AntiSemitic and anti-Communist, they created an undetected Nazi spy ring headquartered in the Copley Square Hotel and conducted some of the most damaging espionage against the US during WWII. Nazis of Copley Square is a grim tale of faith perverted to violent ends.
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022
5:30 PM • MUGAR 201 • EVENT WILL BE LIVESTREAMED
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Please adhere to NU visitor guidelines. For more information about this, and other 2022 Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee events, please visit bit.ly/HAGAW2022.
Co-sponsored by Department of History Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee
From left: Morgan Knight (student), Laurel Leff, Simon Rabinovitch, Lori Lefkovitz, Charles Gallagher, and Jody Kipnis
The 29th Annual ROBERT SALOMON MORTON LECTURE
FROM HOLOCAUST DENIAL TO HOLOCAUST DISTORTION
The State-Sponsored Attack on the Memory of the Holocaust in Poland
Holocaust denial has recently been replaced with Holocaust distortion. In Poland, and in other countries of Eastern and Central Europe, it entails admitting that the Holocaust happened while denying, against the historical evidence, the widespread complicity of the members of one’s own national or ethnic community. Particularly alarmingly, in Poland, Holocaust distortion is sponsored by the state.
JAN GRABOWSKI is a Professor of History at the
University of Ottawa and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Professor
Grabowski’s book: Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in GermanOccupied Poland has been awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for 2014. In 2018 he co-edited and co-authored Dalej jest noc, to be published later this year in English. His most recent book, On Duty: The Role of the Polish “Blue” Police in the Holocaust, was published in Poland in March 2020.
THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022
6:00–7:30 PM • WEST VILLAGE F020 • IN PERSON & LIVESTREAMED
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Please adhere to NU visitor guidelines. For more information about this, and other 2022 Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee events, please visit bit.ly/HAGAW2022.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
Presented by the Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Humanities Center. Sponsored by the Robert S. Morton Lecture Fund at Northeastern University.
Our final Morton Lecture, held during Holocaust and Genocide Awareness week, featured Jan Grabowski, Professor of History at the University of Ottawa and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Prof. Grabowski spoke about the dangers of a new form of Holocaust distortion spreading through Eastern Europe, where countries admit the Holocaust happened but deny and repress evidence of complicity in the event. Prof. Grabowski discussed his own first-hand experience of facing legal action in Poland for his research and publishing. Each of these fascinating Morton Lectures dealt with an aspect of how the Holocaust is remembered, not remembered, or distorted to specific political or national ends; the corrective work these scholars shared left our community enriched and better informed about the challenges of sustaining an accurate history of the events of the Holocaust.
The programming of Holocaust and Genocide Awareness week in 2022 similarly highlighted questions of memory and justice. One of the highlights of each Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week is always the exposition of student work through a presentation by the Gideon Klein Scholar, a student selected to receive a scholarship supporting their work on music, the arts, and the Holocaust. Zachary Richmond, a graduating senior in the Music Industry Program in the College of Arts, Media, and Design, gave a gripping presentation and performance called Syncopating Freedom: The Third Reich’s Use of Jazz as Propaganda, in which he walked the audience through instances when the Nazis appropriated and distorted the work of jazz musicians for their own propaganda, and performed the original works live with his own band. The Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee is thrilled that
the continuation of the Gideon Klein Scholarship has been assured by a new and generous endowment established through a gift of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, founded
by Todd Ruderman and Jody Kipnis.
Gideon Klein Scholar Zachary Richmond, on drums
Dr. Agnes Kaposi delivered virtually from London the 2022 Philip N. Backstrom Jr. Survivor Lecture. Dr. Kaposi spoke about her childhood in Hungary, how she survived the Holocaust there, her reasons for immigrating to the United Kingdom from communist Hungary, and the problems with Holocaust memory in Hungary today. Dr. Kaposi is very prominent in the UK, both as as an engineer and a Holocaust educator: she was only the third woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and in 2021 Queen Elizabeth awarded her the honor of Member of the British Empire for her work in Holocaust education. We also featured a “Third Generation Student Presentation,” as Northeastern student Randall Evers spoke about his late grandfather George, and we listened to a recording of George Evers telling his story of survival in and after Auschwitz. Finally, Northeastern’s Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee has worked to expand its mission to commemorate and understand all forms of genocide. Students and faculty were led on a guided visit to the Armenian Heritage Park, a memorial to the Armenian Genocide on the Greenway, and were introduced to the park and memorial by its architects, Barbara and Don Tellalian. Students and faculty also learned in a lunch seminar from Nicole Fox, the author of After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda, about her experiences on the ground in Rwanda as a scholar documenting ordinary Rwandans’ efforts to memorialize genocide.
The importance of the Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee’s work seems only more urgent each year, as members of the generation who experienced or bore witness to the Holocaust leave us, and humans continue to demonstrate their capacity for hate and violence. As committee chair, I continue to feel particular pride in our students’ engagement in Holocaust education, and their energy and commitment to study, learning, and memorialization. With all of the difficulties our world faces, we can take a measure of solace from the seriousness, compassion, and intellect of the next generation.
Simon Rabinovitch Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies, Chair, Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee
PHILIP N. BACKSTROM JR. SURVIVOR LECTURE
FEATURING
DR. AGNES KAPOSI, MBE, RFEng
ADVOCATE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-PREJUDICE AND EQUALITY
Dr. Kaposi is a Hungarian-born British engineer, educator and author. In 2020, she published her autobiography Yellow Star-Red Star about her life as a child in Hungary before and during the Second World War and under Communist rule, and her subsequent escape to Britain. She earned her PhD in Computer Aided Design and led the electrical engineering department at what is now London South Bank University and consulted in engineering around the world. She became the third woman in UK history to have been elected as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2021, Queen Elizabeth awarded her the honor of Member of the British Empire for her work in Holocaust education.
APRIL 5, 2022
NOON EDT • ONLINE
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. For more information about this, and other 2022 Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee events, please visit bit.ly/HAGAW2022.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
Presented by the Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Humanities Center.
Read more about the HAGAW 2022 events.
