2006-2007 Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies The people, programs, and events advancing scholarship in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies YEAR END ACTIVITIES AND 2006 GIFT REPORT June 2006 through May 2007 Whoever fails to increase knowledge, decreases knowledge —The Ethics of the Fathers LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR 1 Letter from the Director August 2007 Dear Friends: “Human history becomes more and more on either side of the Polish-Soviet border a race between education and catastrophe,” lays bare multi-levels of ethnic conflict. H.G. Wells wrote in 1920. As Nazi Dottie Stone’s work on Jewish refugees Germany stomped across Europe in 1941, in South Africa foregrounds the issue of Wells reminded readers of his prediction. race — how white are Jews? — and the “Is there anything to add? Nothing except: ever-changing politics of race. The sub- . ‘I told you so. You damned fools.’” jects these students probe — immigration, And he added: “(The italics are mine.)” gender and violence, tools of genocide, ethnic conflict, race — elucidate the past, The aim of the Strassler Center is to shape and illuminate patterns, possibilities, and human history by increasing the odds of options for the future. And these are but a education over catastrophe. And our doc- few of the topics our students tackle. toral students lead the way. “Your book should be required reading for social Every facet of our mandate — research, workers who deal with immigration,” teaching, and public service — increases Jonathan Sarna, Braun Professor of Ameri- the odds of education over catastrophe. Debórah Dwork can Jewish History and Director of the Our public lecture series shone bright Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Rose Professor of Holocaust with thoughtful perspectives on compelling History Program at Brandeis University, wrote to problems. Contrary to New York Times Director, Strassler Center Beth Cohen about Case Closed. Based on columnist David Brooks’s worry that “peo- for Holocaust and Genocide her dissertation, Case Closed investigates ple are quick to decide that longstanding Studies the lives of Holocaust survivors upon their problems are intractable and not really arrival in America. Identifying the chal- worth taking on,” stood Elizabeth English lenges they faced and the help they on the subject of Hurricane Katrina, received, Cohen trains our eye on the Edward Kissi on the parameters of geno- dilemmas of immigrants in America today. cide, and Joanna Michlic on the memory of the Holocaust in Poland today. Each student’s work provides a lens on the world in which we live — and the world we “The great aim of education is not seek to create. Through Sarah Cushman’s knowledge but action,” British social analysis of women perpetrators at Ausch- philosopher Herbert Spencer asserted. witz-Birkenau we understand the rise of We at the Center would correct him: The Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, accused of crimes great aim of education is knowledge and against humanity during the Rwandan action. (This time, the italics are mine.) genocide. Tiberiu Galis’s study of transi- tional justice casts light on the social We look to you for support, as we move dynamics of post-totalitarian regimes. Jeff forward together. Koerber’s comparative study of two towns STRASSLER FAMILY CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES 2 VISITING PROFESSOR PROFILE Dr. Robert Melson: Cathy Cohen Lasry Distinguished Professor Robert Melson has been a longtime gen- Setting his students the task of examining erous friend to the Center, sharing his three cases—the Holocaust, the Armenian “Churchill saw the war knowledge, expertise, and enthusiasm Genocide, and Rwanda—Melson aimed coming, and no one with graduate and undergraduate students to develop their understanding of each believed him...I’m interest- and with audiences who have traveled to case and uncover possible explanations ed in how Churchill was so perceptive. And how Clark to hear his public lectures. A distin- for these atrocities by exploring similari- was it that others who guished Holocaust and genocide scholar ties and differences. were equally smart and and author, Melson first visited the Center perceptive didn’t recognize in 2001 to participate in the international “Many students at first think that each what he recognized?” symposium on “Genocide in the 20th case is completely different, but they get —Robert Melson, Century.” In spring 2003, he spent a week excited by seeing the similarities and Cathy Cohen Lasry as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, guest getting closer to the underlying reasons Distinguished Professor lecturing in undergraduate courses, meet- why these things occur,” he says. ing with graduate students and delivering a public lecture. In spring 2004, he served In addition to teaching, Melson continued as the Robert Weil Distinguished Visiting his research into prediction and prevention Professor. of the Holocaust. He is particularly inter- ested in the role of Winston Churchill dur- The Center community proudly welcomed ing World War II. Melson back to Clark in fall 2006, as he is now the Cathy Cohen Lasry Distinguished “Churchill saw the war coming, and no Professor, once again teaching and mentor- one believed him,” Melson explains. “I’m ing the next generation of genocide studies interested in how Churchill was so percep- scholars. tive. And how was it that others who were equally smart and perceptive didn’t recog- A founding member and president of the nize what he recognized?” Robert Melson International Association of Genocide Scholars, Melson’s major area of teaching Melson’s point: “If the second World War and research has been ethnic conflict and could have been prevented, there would genocide, to which he brings his perspec- have been no Holocaust.” tive as a child survivor of the Holocaust. In his most recent book, False Papers: Melson takes special pleasure in exploring Deception and Survival in the Holocaust these questions at the Center, where he (2000), Melson explores his family’s history finds a community of top-notch scholars and how they survived the Holocaust in and bright, dedicated graduate students “The faculty and graduate Poland by using false identification papers. who share his intellectual passion. students are focused on the His path-breaking book Revolution and same problem I am—the Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian “The faculty and graduate students are Holocaust and genocide.” Genocide and the Holocaust (1992) earned focused on the same problem I am—the the international PIOOM Award in Human Holocaust and genocide,” he says. “The —Robert Melson, Cathy Cohen Lasry Rights for 1993. graduate students are young people Distinguished Professor beginning their career on this issue. Melson teaches a joint undergraduate That makes the Center unique.” and graduate seminar, “Holocaust and ■ Judith Jaeger Genocide in Comparative Perspective.” STRASSLER FAMILY CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES EVENTS 3 Film: Fateless Audiences flocked to Clark’s Jefferson raderie. He is taken under the protection Academic Center for screenings of the of an older prisoner, who gives him prac- award-winning film adaptation of Imre tical advice to preserve his dignity and Kertesz’s novel “Fateless” on 12, 14, 16, safety. The viewer perceives the complexity and 17 September 2006. The Strassler of György’s survival, involving self- Center cosponsored the screenings with reliance, interdependence, detachment, the local film series Cinema 320. Kertesz, humor, reminiscence, persistence, and the 2002 Nobel Laureate in literature, first luck. published (1975) his novel about a teenage Jewish boy’s experience in German con- György falls ill and, on the brink of death, centration camps to a cool reception in is returned to Buchenwald. Most unusually, Communist Hungary. Its 1992 English he receives care in a hospital ward with language translation, Fateless (now titled Waffen SS bedding, a scene baffling in its Fatelessness), received wide critical shift of atmosphere. What is significant, acclaim. A Hungarian Jew who shares however, is not that György is placed in a many experiences with his fictional coun- hospital ward with SS bedding; it is that Molly Brennan ’09 and terpart, Kertesz wrote the screenplay for he remembers it that way. Arianna Schudrich ’09 this adaptation directed by Lajos Koltai. found the film “Fateless” After the liberation of Buchenwald, György to be a powerful portrayal of a young person’s The film opens in late spring, 1944 in returns to Budapest and meets former perspective. Budapest with 14-year-old György Köves neighbors—Jews who escaped deportation wearing a yellow star, a regulation that the and the camps. They tell him that his German occupation authorities imposed experience was terrible, and that he upon Hungary’s Jews that April. His father should put it behind him. But in his final is about to be sent to a forced labor camp. monologue György places more importance György prays with his grandfather, yet on experiencing “happiness in those displays a detachment that continues camps,” since this had more to do with his throughout the film, and perhaps in part remembrance of events and his survival, explains his survival. Caught by Hungar- than the terrors everyone imagines. ian policemen, György is forced upon a dark odyssey that takes him to Auschwitz, Sociology professor and Holocaust and Buchenwald, and the Buchenwald subcamp genocide studies program faculty member of Zeitz. Eric Gordy led the audience of Clark stu- dents and greater Worcester community György is one in a group of adults and members in a discussion of the film after children faced with “selection” at the second screening. Like many others Auschwitz: those pushed to one side live, in the audience that night, Molly Brennan Eric Gordy, Clark sociology professor and HGS faculty the others are marched to the gas cham- ’09 and Arianna Schudrich ’09 found member, led a discussion bers. The boy lives only because, prompted “Fateless” to be a powerful portrayal of about “Fateless” after its by others, he lies about his age.