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A Message from the Director VOLUME 25 THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT SPRING 2021 A Message from the Director A year ago, my colleague Alan Steinweis noted on these pages growing, and several students who are specializing in the history of that the spring 2020 semester was “like no other.” The same can Nazi Germany and the Holocaust will be receiving funding from the be said of the 2020-2021 academic year at the University of Ver- Miller Center in the form of assistantships and fellowships. mont. Despite the many challenges associated with the COVID-19 Finally, with a view to the years ahead, we have initiated a program pandemic—diverse teaching modalities, student absences due to to expand the Holocaust Studies curriculum through course develop- illness or quarantine, the challenges of new technologies, to name ment grants to select faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences. This a few—the work of students, faculty, and staff associated with the year, Professors Lutz Kaelber and Jonah Steinberg will be developing Miller Center for Holocaust Studies has continued and prospered. courses on “The Sociology of the Holocaust” and “The Romani Holo- A special word of the thanks is due our students: enrollment in our caust,” respectively (see p. 6), and in the coming year, Professors An- courses has been strong, tonello Borra (Romance and students have shown Languages/Italian Stud- energy and commitment ies) and Hilary Neroni in their academic work. (English/Film and Tele- Unfortunately, the pan- vision Studies) will be demic required the cancel- planning new courses in lation or postponement of their respective fields. the public events planned As the pages to fol- for the preceding two se- low reveal, our students mesters, but we are opti- continue to engage in mistic that we will be able innovative research, our to host a series of compel- alumni are making great ling lectures by nationally strides in graduate study and internationally recog- and their professional nized scholars during the pursuits, and faculty affil- 2021-2022 academic year iated with the Center re- (see page 14). main productive as ever. Despite the challenges During the upcoming fall of the pandemic, the Miller The Billings Library–Home to the Miller Center for Holocaust Studies. 2021 semester, I will be Center has undertaken Photo by Sally McCay. on leave as a fellow at the a number of new initiatives and programs. With the support of the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, Germany, returning Miller Center and in cooperation with the Department of German in January 2022. I am grateful to Alan Steinweis for serving as Interim and Russian, UVM hosted a post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Catherine Director of the Miller Center during my absence. Finally, my thanks Greer, over the past two semesters. Catherine was not only able to to Ande Tagliamonte for her outstanding administrative support over move forward with her research on musical and artistic life in the the past academic year and to Katherine Quimby Johnson for her as- Theresienstadt ghetto; she also taught, to high acclaim, two courses in sistance in editing this issue of the Bulletin. the Holocaust Studies curriculum: “Representing the Holocaust” in On behalf of all my colleagues at the Miller Center, I wish you the fall 2020 semester and, in the spring of 2021, “Postwar Germany good health in the summer and academic year ahead. and the Holocaust.” The Miller Center has also increased its support for graduate study Jonathan Huener at UVM. Enrollment in the Department of History’s M.A. program is Professor of History and Director IN THIS ISSUE A Message from the Director ..................... 1 Kaelber, Steinberg, Receive Course Development Student News ............................... 11 Wolfgang Mieder and Richard Sugarman Retire ....... 2 Grants ..................................... 6 Alumni News ............................... 12 Spotlight on Alumni ........................... 3 Update on the Ordinary Soldiers Project ............ 7 Preview of Events 2021-2022 .................. 14 Book Review, Hitler’s First Hundred Days: News from the Faculty ......................... 8 Berghan Books .............................. 15 When Germans Embraced the Third Reich .......... 4 Holocaust Studies Courses Offered 2020-2021 ...... 10 Contact Information .......................... 16 THE BULLETIN OF THE CAROLYN AND LEONARD MILLER CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST STUDIES SPRING 2021 Wolfgang Mieder and Richard Sugarman Retire after Decades of Service to Holocaust Studies at UVM By Katherine Quimby Johnson Today’s Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at UVM is needed; with David Scrase, Wolfgang co-edited The Holocaust: inconceivable without Richard Sugarman and Wolfgang Mieder. Introductory Essays (1996), produced at a time when materials for Each has been vital not only to the Center’s ongoing work during the high school and college classroom were in short supply. The the past three decades, but also to its very existence. Both were need for this book was evident in the regular orders and requests members of the Faculty Advisory Board that came together for permission to reproduce certain chapters that arrived from to create the Center as a way of honoring the scholarly and various colleges across the country. pedagogic legacy of Raul Hilberg following his retirement from Wolfgang and David also co-edited a companion volume, UVM in 1991. The Holocaust: Personal Accounts, in 2001. This collection Once the Center was approved in 1992, both became crucial compiled 20 first-person testimonies by seminar presenters to the establishment of the academic minor in Holocaust both local and international, in order to record their experiences Studies, which was approved in 2003—both in their advocacy before old age could take too great a toll. This volume gave for the minor and in their classroom practices. Two of Richard’s voice to a wide range of experiences of a generation of victims, courses, “Judaism in the Modern World” and “Moral and but also of those who liberated the camps and who worked Religious Perspectives on the Holocaust” have been popular in the Displaced Persons camps. Personal Accounts continues with students since the minor’s inception. The experience of to be used by students and scholars, and was translated and Julia Kitonis, a 2021 graduate featured in this issue’s “Student published in German in 2016 as “Nichts konnte schlimmer sein News” (see p. 11), is far from unique; Julia’s work for “Moral als Auschwitz!” Űberlebende des Holocausts und ihre Befreier and Religious Perspectives,” investigating and discussing berichten (Bremen: Donat Verlag, 2016). Jewish leaders’ and thinkers’ responses to and recognition of Wolfgang took the lead on his next co-editing venture with the Holocaust, inspired the interdisciplinary research that David. Reflections on the Holocaust: “Festschrift” for Raul Hilberg on resulted in her senior honors thesis. His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (2001) gave Wolfgang the opportunity Early on, in 1993, Richard presented a lecture, “On the 50th to honor a former colleague whose work and work ethic he Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” as part of UVM’s admired, respected, and emulated. commemoration of that event, and, more recently, he gave David and Wolfgang’s fourth collection, on which I shared the Miller Center’s 2018 Yom HaShoah lecture: “Response, editorial duties, honored long-time member of the Center’s Resistance & Rescue During the Holocaust.” He also contributed Board of Advisors Marion Pritchard, named Righteous Among a chapter, “Rabbi Michoel Dov Weissmandel and the Holiness the Nations in 1981 for her work rescuing Dutch Jews. Making of Rescue: Jewish Religious Perspectives and Responses” to the a Difference: Rescue and Assistance During the Holocaust. Essays Center’s publication Making a Difference: Rescue and Assistance in Honor of Marion Pritchard included a chapter by Wolfgang on During the Holocaust, Essays in Honor of Marion Pritchard, edited one of his scholarly passions, Victor Klemperer. “‘The Chorus by David Scrase, Wolfgang Mieder, and me (2004). of Voices of the People:’ Everyday Germans and the Survival David Scrase, the Center’s founding director, says of Richard: of Victor Klemperer” looks at the language and gestures of “He was 100% supportive in all we did in Holocaust Studies. His the ordinary people, some of whom were utterly casual in enthusiastic assistance in reaching out to a general public was their antisemitism, some of whom offered a few words of greatly appreciated, his knowledge of the history and the depth encouragement or committed small acts of compassion that of his philosophical knowledge always in evidence.” The gravitas helped Klemperer cope with the extreme difficulties of living in of his presence will be greatly missed. the darkest of times. In recognizing Wolfgang Mieder’s many contributions to the Wolfgang ends that essay with the hope that those who offered Center, David Scrase said, “As a native German, Wolfgang was Klemperer encouragement to persevere serve as a reminder that always conscious of German guilt. He was fully supportive, and “standing up for what one believes and exercising compassion actively so, in all aspects of the Center’s mission.” He was actively and morality can make a difference.” It seems fitting to close this involved in the many publications put out by the Center in its tribute by saying: Richard, Wolfgang, you have each stood up for early days and, if memory serves, may be credited with naming what you believed. You have exercised compassion and morality. this newsletterThe Bulletin at a time when David and I were You have certainly made a difference to the Miller Center for searching for a title. Holocaust Studies and the many students who have enrolled in In the Center’s early years, the Summer Seminar on the your courses over the decades. The Miller Center has been the Holocaust and Holocaust Education for teachers in the region grateful recipient of your knowledge, expertise, and generosity was an annual feature of the Center’s public programming.
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