Holocaust Awareness Week
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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.