HOLOCAUST AWARENESS WEEK
JANUARY 23-26, 2017
The College of Social Sciences and Humanities, the Holocaust Awareness Committee, and the Northeastern Humanities Center invite you to a series of commemorative and educational events that reflect on the Holocaust's legacy in the 21st century.
Personal Confrontations With the Past
northeastern.edu/hac ABOUT HOLOCAUST AWARENESS WEEK
The Holocaust Awareness Committee at Northeastern University publicly remembers the Holocaust each year, not only as historical fact and a memorial to its millions of victims, but also as a warning that the horrors of the past must never be repeated.
The programs that we present bear witness to the Holocaust's events and explore issues arising out of the war of extermination against Jews and other groups targeted by the Nazis. Speakers ask how lessons learned from the Holocaust can be applied to our own historical moment.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Northeastern Holocaust Commemoration The Portraitist: Wilhelm Brasse and Photography Ethics in Auschwitz Alison Campbell The Search for Meaning: Survivors' Children and Their Choice of a Life in the Law Rose Zoltek-Jick Monday, January 23 4:30 - 6 p.m. Cabral Center 40 Leon Street Reception to follow.
Philip N. Backstrom, Jr. Survivor Lecture Series A Talk with Holocaust Survivor Anna Ornstein Tuesday, January 24 12:30 - 2 p.m. Raytheon Amphitheater 120 Forsyth Street Lunch will be served. Bill Giessen Film Screening What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy Followed by Q&A with Philippe Sands, Screenwriter Moderated by Professor Natalie Bormann Wednesday, January 25 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Raytheon Amphitheater 120 Forsyth Street Hors d'oeuvres will be served during the film.
The 25th Annual Robert Salomon Morton Lecture East West Street: A Personal Account of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity Featuring Philippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals, University College London Thursday, January 26 6 - 7:30 p.m. Raytheon Amphitheater 120 Forsyth Street All events take place at Northeastern University and are free and open to the public. NORTHEASTERN HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION
Monday, January 23 ⁄⁄ 4:30 p.m. ⁄⁄ Cabral Center ⁄⁄ 40 Leon Street
Welcome Uta G. Poiger, Dean, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Opening Remarks
Introduction of Speakers Lori Lefkovitz, Ruderman Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of English; Director, Northeastern Humanities Center; Director, Jewish Studies Program, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Gideon Klein Scholar Presentation The Portraitist: Wilhelm Brasse and Photography Ethics in Auschwitz Alison Campbell, International Affairs and Political Science '17, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Keynote Presentation The Search for Meaning: Survivors' Children and Their Choice of a Life in the Law Rose Zoltek-Jick, Associate Teaching Professor Northeastern University School of Law
Questions and Discussion
Closing Remarks Lori Lefkovitz Gideon Klein Scholar Presentation The Portraitist: Wilhelm Brasse and Photography Ethics in Auschwitz
As the 2016-2017 Gideon Klein Scholar, Alison Campbell explores the life and work of Wilhelm Brasse, who photographed extensively in Auschwitz. Her project adopts an interdisciplinary approach in examining the role of photography through the lenses of memory, history, and culture throughout the Holocaust, and juxtaposes Brasse's work with her own photographs. Brasse is famous for the identity photographs and documentary work he shot in the camp, but he is also known for the lengths to which he went to save film negatives and photographs upon the closure of the camp—a decision that was dangerous but that resulted in a massive, as well as intimate, archive of the inner workings of Auschwitz. In her work, Campbell probes the ethical complexities of Brasse's role, questioning the ramifications of having once passion- driven work twisted into a tool for genocide and the moral legitimacy of spectating his work today.
Alison Campbell is a senior double majoring in Political Science and International Affairs with a minor in Urban Studies. Outside of her courses, she works as a photographer, videographer, and designer, and has completed co-ops in Rwanda and Guatemala. She has also completed independent research projects on educational socio-ecology in Boston, atrocity footage in Rwanda, and Syrian refugees in Jordan. She is interested in photography's role in society, and through her research and work alike seeks to understand representation and meaning behind imagery.
Keynote Presentation The Search for Meaning: Survivors' Children and Their Choice of a Life in the Law
Survivors' children are reported to be "over-represented" in the healing and helping professions. This talk posits that through their careers, the second generation has been trying to make meaning of their parents' lives and understand their suffering and survival. Through those who chose law, we may also be able to see the second generation's desire to avenge and protect their parents, revealing the fragility of this generation's fantasies of rescue and redemption.
Rose Zoltek-Jick has taught at Northeastern University School of Law for thirty years, specializing in criminal law and procedure, evidence, law and psychiatry, and professional responsibility. She also serves as the Associate Director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, which is building a narrative archive of racially motivated murders of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South from 1930 to 1970.
Zoltek-Jick's academic writing has focused on statutes of limitation, cold cases, and civil lawsuits on cases of sexual abuse. More recently, she was appointed to the International Advisory Board of McWilliam’s Criminal Cases, the leading authority on Canadian evidence law, where she is contributor to the annual review of the Top Ten Cases in evidence law in the United States.
Originally from Toronto, Zoltek-Jick attended the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School and worked as an appellate lawyer and special counsel for the Criminal Division of the Ministry of the Attorney-General before moving to the United States. After receiving her L.L.M. from Harvard Law School, she began teaching at Northeastern University School of Law in 1986. She has served on the board of Lilith magazine, a Jewish feminist quarterly; the Jewish Women’s Archive; and Shakespeare & Company, a Berkshire-based performance, training, and educational organization. PHILIP N. BACKSTROM, JR. SURVIVOR LECTURE SERIES
Tuesday, January 24 ⁄⁄ 12:30 p.m. ⁄⁄ Raytheon Amphitheater ⁄⁄ 120 Forsyth Street
A Talk with Holocaust survivor Anna Ornstein
Anna Ornstein is a retired Professor of Child Psychiatry at University of Cincinnati and is now Lecturer in Child Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ornstein has served on numerous editorial boards and has published over 100 articles in her field of psychoanalysis, including several papers related to the Holocaust. Her memoir My Mother’s Eyes has become a favorite reference in schools and universities where the Holocaust is taught.
Dr. Ornstein was born and raised in a small agricultural village in northern Hungary in a traditional Jewish family. Allied with the Germans during WWII, the Hungarian government adapted the anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws passed following Hitler’s rise to power. These laws severely curtailed Jewish life on all levels. Jews could not work for non-Jewish companies, they could not travel freely, and persecutions and harassments became daily experiences. In 1944, German troops occupied Hungary and the deportation and killing of Hungarian Jewry quickly followed. In five short weeks, 450,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered, mainly in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Anna and her mother survived several concentration camps. Her father and extended family perished in Auschwitz and her two brothers (ages 20 and 22) died in forced labor battalions.
Anna and her mother returned to Hungary in the summer of 1945. She married Paul Ornstein, a fellow survivor, in 1946. The young couple escaped Communist Hungary into West Germany, where they attended medical school at the University of Heidelberg. In 1951, the Ornsteins immigrated to the United States, where they both became psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. The Ornsteins were on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati Department of Psychiatry until their retirement in 2000, when they moved to Boston to be near their children and grandchildren.
Lunch will be served.
About the Philip N. Backstrom, Jr. Survivor Lecture Series
The survivor lecture series is named for Dr. Philip N. Backstrom, who died in 2015 at age 83. Phil taught European history at Northeastern for 35 years, until his retirement in 1995. A passionate advocate for civil rights, Phil was instrumental in the founding of the Holocaust Awareness Committee in 1991. BILL GIESSEN FILM SERIES
Wednesday, January 25 ⁄⁄ 5:30 p.m. ⁄⁄ Raytheon Amphitheater ⁄⁄ 120 Forsyth Street
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy A poignant, thought-provoking account of friendship and the toll of inherited guilt, What Our Fathers Did explores the relationship between two men, each the child of very high-ranking Nazi officials, who possess starkly contrasting attitudes toward their fathers. Eminent human rights lawyer Philippe Sands investigates the complicated connection between the two, and even delves into the story of his own grandfather who escaped the same town where their fathers carried out mass killings. The three embark on an emotional journey together as they travel through Europe and converse about the past, examining the sins of their fathers and providing a unique view of the father-son relationship, ultimately coming to some very unexpected and difficult conclusions.
Hors d'oeuvres will be served during the film.
Post-Film Discussion/Q&A Phillippe Sands, Screenwriter and Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals, University College London (See Sands' biography on the next page.) Moderated by Natalie Bormann, who joined the Department of Political Science in 2007, after holding positions at Brown University and the Universities of Manchester and Edinburgh in the UK. She is the author of National Missile Defence and the Politics of US Identity – A Poststructural Critique (2008) and co-editor of Securing Outer Space (2009). Bormann's current research explores the interplay of trauma, memory and ethics in international relations. These themes are explored in her forthcoming book Ethics of Teaching at Sites of Trauma and Violence – Student Encounters with the Holocaust (Palgrave, 2017), which draws from her experience leading Northeastern’s Holocaust Dialogue of Civilizations program.
About the Bill Giessen Film Series
The film series is named for the late Dr. Bill Giessen, long-time Professor of Chemistry, who was instrumental in establishing Holocaust Awareness programming at Northeastern University. THE 25t h ANNUAL ROBERT SALOMON MORTON LECTURE
Thursday, January 26 ⁄⁄ 6 p.m. ⁄⁄ Raytheon Amphitheater ⁄⁄ 120 Forsyth Street
East West Street: A Personal Account of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
Philippe Sands is an international lawyer, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, and a key member of the staff in the Centre for Law and the Environment. His teaching areas include public international law, the settlement of international disputes (including arbitration) and environmental and natural resources law.
Sands is a regular commentator on the BBC and CNN and writes frequently for leading newspapers. He is frequently invited to lecture around the world, and in recent years has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto (2005), the University of Melbourne (2005), and the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne) (2006, 2007). He has previously held academic positions at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Kings College London, and University of Cambridge; he was a Global Professor of Law at New York University from 1995 to 2003. He was co-founder of FIELD (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development). He is a member of the Advisory Boards of The European Journal of International Law and Review of European Community and International Environmental Law (Blackwell Press). In 2007 he served as a judge for the Guardian First Book Prize award.
As a practicing barrister, Sands has extensive experience litigating cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, and the European Court of Justice. He frequently advises governments, international organizations, NGOs, and the private sector on aspects of international law.
Sands' recent book East-West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (2016), was the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction. THE 25t h ANNUAL ROBERT SALOMON MORTON LECTURE
About the Robert Salomon Morton Memorial Lecture
Born in 1906 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Robert Salomon Morton was educated in the School of the Orthodox Synagogue, Kahal Adath Jeshurun. He was not only a witness to but also the personal target of Nazi persecution in the years leading up to World War II. A particularly harrowing experience in 1934 convinced him that he had no choice but to apply for immigration to the United States – a process that took three years, but finally resulted in his coming to Boston. For many years, he and his wife Sophie, were caretakers of and caterers for the Hillel Foundation at Harvard University.
It was during his time at Hillel that a chance meeting at a barbershop brought Morton together with Bill Giessen, then a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Giessen had grown up and was educated in Germany during and following the Nazi period. The long-time friendship and ongoing conversation that resulted from this meeting helped to foster a sense of discovery between the two men. Both Morton and Giessen have since passed away. The annual Morton Memorial Lecture serves as a memorial to them both and their inspiring friendship.
The Robert Salomon Morton Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the Gustel Cormann Giessen Memorial Fund and the Robert S. Morton Lecture Fund at Northeastern.
The lectureship was created by Northeastern professor Bill Giessen. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
2016-17 Holocaust Awareness Week Committee Members Dov Waxman (chair), Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Israel Studies; Co-Director, Middle East Center; Stotsky Professor in Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies
Max Abrahms, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
Martin Blatt, Professor of the Practice and Director of the Public History Program, Department of History
Natalie Bormann, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Political Science
Phil Brown, University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences; Director of Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
Alison Nicole Campbell, Gideon Klein Scholar, College of Social Sciences and Humanities '17
Nadav David, D’Amore-McKim School of Business '17
Alexander Levering Kern, Executive Director, Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service
Laurel Leff, Associate Professor, School of Journalism; Associate Director, Jewish Studies Program
Lori Lefkovitz, Ruderman Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of English; Director, Northeastern Humanities Center; Director, Jewish Studies Program
Debra Mandel, Director, Digital Media Commons Studios, University Libraries
James Ross, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Jewish Studies Program
Jenny Sartori, Associate Director, Jewish Studies Program; Associate Director, Humanities Center
Rose Zoltek-Jick, Associate Director, Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, School of Law
For more information about the work of the Holocaust Awareness Committee, please visit us at northeastern.edu/hac. About the College of Social Sciences and Humanities The College of Social Sciences and Humanities combines Northeastern’s signature focus on experiential education with rigorous study of society, culture, and politics. Founded in 2010, the college is a leader in the experiential liberal arts, an organizational philosophy and an educational model that guides its research, teaching, and public engagement with both local and global communities. The College of Social Sciences and Humanities offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs across its 17 academic units, which include the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. northeastern.edu/cssh
About the Northeastern Humanities Center We believe that critical and reflective study of culture develops acumen and enhances sensibilities. Founded in 2008, the Northeastern Humanities Center supports faculty and student research in the humanities and social sciences; facilitates collaboration across disciplines; and presents humanistic and social scientific research to the wider university community and general public. Through our fellowship program, working groups, discussion forums, symposia, seminars, informal dialogues, conferences, and joint projects, the Humanities Center fosters a wide-ranging interdisciplinary exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of respect for diverse perspectives and expertise. An integral part of Northeastern University’s signature experiential liberal arts program, the Humanities Center offers various opportunities for engagement with art, literature, philosophy, history, and social and political formations, thereby strengthening the foundation from which to respond meaningfully to one another and the needs of our world. northeastern.edu/humanities
Special Thanks: Leslie Casey, Communications and Digital Strategy Manager, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Ignacio Chaparro, Administrative Coordinator, Northeastern Humanities Center
The events of Holocaust Awareness Week are made possible by the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, the Humanities Center, the School of Law, and the Robert S. Morton Lecture Fund at Northeastern University. northeastern.edu/hac