Skip to Gross Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies site navigationSkip to main content

E-News

2012 E-News | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |

Enduring Legacy of Social Worker and Holocaust Survivor Louis Lowy Revealed - March 5,2012
Dr. Lorrie Gardella

Dr. Lorrie Gardella

(MAHWAH, NJ) – On March 5th, Dr. Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella, Associate Dean, School of Graduate and Professional Studies and Professor of Social Work at St. Joseph College, Connecticut discussed her recent book The Life and Thought of Louis Lowy: Social Work through the Holocaust (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2011) at a joint program of the Social Work Club, Hillel and the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College. Her colleague and good friend, Ramapo Professor of Social Work Dr. Mitch Kahn, introduced her.

Louis Lowy (1920-1991), an international social worker and gerontologist, recorded an oral narrative that explored his activities during and after the Holocaust. It described the formative experiences of his career from caring for youth in the Terezin Ghetto/Concentration Camp and leading an escape from a death march to forming the self-government of the Deggendorf Displaced Persons Camp in the U.S. Zone of Germany after the war.

Drawing on Lowy’s oral narrative and accounts of other Holocaust survivors who witnessed his work, Gardella offered a rich portrait of Lowy’s legacy. In chronicling his life, she also illuminated the larger story about the meaning of the Holocaust in the development of the social work profession.

Dr. Mitch Kahn

Dr. Mitch Kahn

Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella received her undergraduate training at Smith College, and received both her Masters in Social Work and a law degree at the University of Connecticut. She has served in leadership positions in national social work organizations, including President, Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Directors; Board of Directors, Council on Social Work Education; and Chair, National Association of Social Workers Legal Defense Fund.

In her first book, A Dream and A Plan: A Woman’s Path to Leadership in Human Services (2004), Gardella follows the professional journeys of multicultural women leaders in order to encourage women to enter management positions.

Scholar and Performer Explores Romani Holocaust Remembrance - March 26, 2012

Dr. Petra Gelbart

Dr. Petra Gelbart

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Petra Gelbart, Czech-born Romani (Gypsy) scholar, musician and activist, who heads the Initiative for Romani Music at New York University, spoke and sang at Ramapo College of New Jersey on March 26, 2012 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Communications Arts Music Major and the Human Rights Club of Ramapo College. Dr. Marc Gidal, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Ramapo College, introduced Gelbart.

In her presentation, she played recordings of her family and their circle singing songs commemorating the Nazi persecution of the Romani population of Czechoslovakia. At the request of audience members, she sang a few additional songs that she learned from her grandmother and that have not yet been recorded.

Gelbart received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Harvard University with a dissertation entitled “Learning Race, Music and Nation in the Czech Republic.” Her publications include a forthcoming essay in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She heads the Initiative for Romani Music at New York University.

As a musician, Petra Gelbart is a founding member of Via Romen. Petra combines the Romany vocal production she learned from her family with elements drawn from more improvisational and popular genres. Ac­companying herself on the guitar and accordion, she has also performed as a soloist on many stages in the USA and abroad, including Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Boston College, and at Romany festivals in California and the Czech Republic.

Noted Art Historian Deconstructs Architecture of Auschwitz - March 30, 2012
Dr. Paul Jaskot

Dr. Paul Jaskot

(MAHWAH, NJ) -On March 30, 2012, under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and History Club, Dr. Paul Jaskot, Professor of the History of Art and Architectural History at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, discussed “The Architecture of Auschwitz.” He showed how the very architecture of Auschwitz underscored its simultaneous and interlocking roles as concentration camp (Auschwitz I), killing center (Auschwitz II-Birkenau), and a site for industrial production based on slave/forced labor (essentially located Auschwitz III-Buna/Monowitz, but also in sections of Auschwitz I and II).

As Jaskot pointed out, it was additionally the home for all the personnel who operated the site’s facilities. Included were not only the SS personnel in charge of the killing at Birkenau, exploiting, tormenting and guarding prisoners, but also their families and a bevy of civilian employees.

Auschwitz thus assumed the character of an ever-expanding and changing city that required its own architectural office that included, in addition to SS and civilian architects and other personnel, prisoners put to work as draftsmen. Through the failure of the SS to destroy the papers of the office ahead of the Red Army advance, scholars have been able to draw a detailed picture of the installation’s design and operation as a concentration camp, killing center, industrial complex and municipality.

Working with a team of experts from various disciplines has allowed Jaskot to construct an analytical framework that brings into sharper focus how Auschwitz embodied and intertwined Nazi Germany’s goals and priorities in pursuing racial genocide and imperial expansion with cultural policy and total war. In revealing that the site included landscaped everyday buildings such as a sauna and an SS family apartment complex, Jaskot and his colleagues have made it abundantly clear that the perpetrators at Auschwitz, while carrying out genocide and implementing slave labor, experienced a world that was radically different from their defenseless victims.

As a scholar, Paul B. Jaskot has focused on art and politics in the Nazi period as well as the postwar cultural impact of the Nazi past. He is the author of The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy” (Taylor and Francis, 2000) and The Nazi Perpetrator: Postwar German Art and the Politics of the Right (forthcoming 2012) as well as the co-editor (with Gavriel Rosenfeld) of Beyond Berlin: Twelve German Cities Confront the Nazi Past (University of Michigan Press, 2008).

Jaskot has published and spoken widely on these and related topics. In March 2011 he was the Miller Visiting Distinguished Professorship in Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont, Burlington and in fall 2011 he was a Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. In addition to his scholarly work, Jaskot is also the Director of the Holocaust Education Foundation Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization. From 2008-2010, he was President of the College Art Association, the nation’s largest professional group for artists and art historians.

Professor Paul Jaskot holds a doctorate and a Masters of Art in Art History from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Arts in history and English from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

Resistance Fighter in Vilna and Breaker of British Blockade of Palestine Featured at Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Commemoration - April 18, 2012

(MAHWAH, NJ) – The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College and Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom held a Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance) commemoration on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 in the Temple’s sanctuary on Ramapo Valley Road in Mahwah

The commemoration featured Mr. Benjamin Levin who was a member of a Jewish partisan brigade that joined the Red Army in liberating Vilna, the “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” from Nazi oppression. Once 500 strong, combat reduced the brigade to a handful of fighters. Mr. Levin’s older brother was one of the founders of the group.

Mr. Levin joined the Irgun with Menachem Begin and assisted in smuggling Jews and arms into Mandate Palestine. In that capacity, he was on the cargo vessel Altadena, when a confrontation ensued after Begin refused to halt his operation that separately supplied the Irgun. The provisional Israeli government under David Ben-Gurion ordered the ship taken by force. Shelling began when the ship was about a hundred yards off the coast of Tel Aviv. Setting aside the controversy over the affair, there were casualties on both sides, including a number of Auschwitz survivors on the ship. One of the last crew members to leave the ship was Benjamin Levin.

The evening also included a commemorative service conducted by Rabbi Joel Mosbacher with a program of chorale music performed by the adult choir of Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, under Cantor David Perper, and the Ramapo Chorale and CantaNOVA, under the direction of Lisa Lutter, Associate Professor of Choral Music at Ramapo College.

Prof. Lisa Lutter

Ramapo Associate Professor of Choral Music Lisa Lutter introducing members of CantaNova

Resistance veteran Benjamin Levin (R.) assisted by his son Chaim (L.)

Story of Rescue of Jewish Cultural Treasures Told - April 26, 2012
Dr. David Fishman

Dr. David Fishman

(MAHWAH, NJ) – David Fishman, Professor of History at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York and director of Project Judaica, Moscow, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey on April 26 about how a dedicated group of Jewish intellectuals Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania, including the noted Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever and the cultural activist Szmerke Kaczerginski, rescued rare books and manuscripts in their city during the Holocaust.

Constituting a unique chapter in spiritual resistance in the Holocaust. the Nazi fascination with Jewish culture and the desire to destroy it made the accomplishment possible in the first place. As Professor Fishman described, the Nazi leadership sent a special unit, known as the Einsatzstab des Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, or Rosenberg Squad, to hunt for treasures the Nazis hoped to use in a Frankfurt-based “Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question.” Vilna, long known as Jewish cultural center, was not only their primary target, but was also to serve as a collection point for treasures from throughout Lithuania.

Dr. Johannes Pohl, the Frankfurt Institute’s director, came to Vilna in January 1942, by which time his German colleagues had already murdered a third of the city’s Jewish population of 60,000. Requiring forced laborers to work on his project of selecting and gathering the books and manuscripts to be sent to Germany, he formed a group of Jewish intellectuals that became known as the Paper Brigade. It was the members of this group who hid many rare books and papers in the Jewish ghetto and in the homes of friendly non-Jews, concealing them under floorboards and in walls and burying them in secret underground bunkers. In the process, the Paper Brigade worked in close cooperation with the Vilna Ghetto’s Jewish resistance organization, to which some members already belonged.

After the war, survivors of the Paper Brigade smuggled many of the treasures out of Soviet Lithuania to the West. Together with the books and documents already brought to Frankfurt and saved by U.S. forces at the Offenbach Archival Depot, they eventually formed the nucleus of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research that, although originally based in Vilna, was re-constituted in New York during the war.

Dr. Fishman is the author of numerous books and articles on the history and culture of East European Jewry. His books include Russia’s First Modern Jews (New York University Press) and The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pittsburgh University Press). Dr. Fishman is the coeditor (with Burton Visotzky) of From Mesopotamia to Modernity: Ten Introductions to Jewish History and Literature (Westview Press, 1999), which also appeared in a revised Russian edition called Ot Abrama do sovremenosti (Russian State University Press, 2002).

A native New Yorker, David Fishman received his bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University and his master’s degree and doctorate from Harvard. He has taught at Brandeis University, BarIlan University, Russian State University in Moscow, and Yeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies.

Gumpert Teachers' Workshop Explores Transitional Justice in Aftermath of Genocide - May 17, 2012

(MAHWAH, NJ) – On May 17, 2012, the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education and with funding from the Gumpert Foundation and the New Jersey State Department sponsored a Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop, “Transitional and Transformative Justice in the Aftermath of Genocide.” Held at Ramapo College, it was attended by 64 educators from New Jersey and New York.

As noted in Center Director Michael Riff’s welcoming remarks, the workshop intended to interject a note of hope into studying the Holocaust and Genocide. Namely, according to Riff, societies from Germany and Yugoslavia to Peru and Rwanda have often already introduced judicial measures in tandem with restorative measures as part of their quest to come to terms with and transcend their tainted pasts.

Speaking on behalf of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, Executive Director Dr. Paul Winkler emphasized that teaching about Transitional Justice had the added benefit of opening up classroom discussion about individual responsibility, standing up against bullying and improving interpersonal behavior.

Dr. Rebecca Root

Dr. Rebecca Root

Ramapo Professor of Political Science and International Studies Dr. Rebecca Root delivered the keynote lecture to introduce the topic. Her masterful and highly acclaimed presentation, began by examining the subject conceptually before elaborating on the efforts in Peru to right the wrongs of the Fujimori regime (1990-2000) and the nearly two-decade long struggle against the Shining Path insurgency. She concluded by attempting to draw some lessons from the Peruvian experience:

  • Efforts at Transitional Justice function best when the offending regime is swept from power;
  • Prosecutions should accompany truth commissions;
  • In societies having experienced “wars on terrorism,” popular opinion may still tolerate human rights abuses in favor of reconciliation;
  • Transitional Justice is the start of a process that necessarily involves a decades-long quest for truth, justice, reconciliation, and reform.

Dr. Root elaborates further on these issues in her recently completed book, “Transitional Justice in Peru,” to be published in the fall by Palgrave Macmillan. Dr. Root has a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts. At Ramapo, she teaches Political Science and International Studies, with a special focus on human rights. She also serves as convener for the minor in Human Rights and Genocide Studies.

Equally well received was Sharon Van Blijdesteijn’s hands-on presentation on how to bring the subject matter of transitional and transformative justice into the classroom. A Social Studies Teacher at Milburn High School, she made it clear that one of her aims in teaching about genocide generally is to foster student involvement and engagement. In this context, she identified several reasons why teaching the aftermath of genocide is important:

  • To bear witness;
  • To prevent cycles of violence;
  • To reduce prejudice and send strong anti-bullying/antiviolence messages;
  • To foster character education in teaching the importance of an apology and taking responsibility for one’s actions.

Like Root, Van Blijdesteijn used a well-conceived PowerPoint presentation to lay out her learning strategy using the acronym DETER: “Defining key terms (Genocide/Justice), Essential questions, Teaching framework, Emotional connection, [and] Resources.” She concluded her remarks with a series of poignant quotes, including one by former German President Richard von Weizsaecker:Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present. Whoever refuses to remember the inhumanity is prone to new risks of infection.

Sharon van Blijdesteijn

Sharon van Blijdesteijn

Sharon Van Blijdesteijn has been at Millburn High School for eight years where she teaches World History, Global Issues, and Economics. For the last three years she has served as the chair of the Holocaust Remembrance Day Committee and has worked to transform the event into a broadly focused Genocide Awareness Program, including both survivor testimony and student-led discussion. Van Blijdesteijn holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree (with Distinction) in Political Economy from the London School of Economics where her graduate research focused on philo-Semitism in Eastern Europe during Post-Communist Transition.

Following a break for lunch, two survivors of the Rwandan Genocide reflected on the route their country has taken since the murderous events of 1994. Telesphore Kagaba, who was a teacher and interpreter at the time of the genocide and is now an Immigration & Refugee Services Case Manager at Catholic Charities in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, assessed the efficacy of the Gacaca traditional village courts in bringing perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide to justice. Given the enormity of the problem, with 761,000 potential cases waiting to be resolved, Kagaba ventured the view that the system, by engendering a significant measure of justice and reconciliation, has been a qualified success.

Eugenie Mukeshimana and Telesphore Kagaba

Eugenie Mukeshimana (L.) and Telesphore Kagaba

The second survivor to speak was Eugenie Mukeshimana who founded and now serves as Executive Director of the Genocide Survivors Support Network, a charitable organization based in South Orange, New Jersey, whose mission is to help genocide survivors rebuild their lives and use their voices to educate the world about the crime of genocide.

She spoke about how closure still remains elusive for many of the genocide’s victims. While acknowledging that the Gacaca courts have played a role in the process of recovery, she emphasized that Rwandan society has been irrevocably damaged. Many thousands of women were raped and children were left without families. Survivors and perpetrators have been forced to live in their villages and somehow co-exist with one another.

Moreover, even in the wake of punishment by Gacaca courts, victims still live in fear and find it difficult to continue as if nothing had ever happened. They often also continue to be afraid of their former tormenters. As a consequence, some survivors have felt it necessary to seek political asylum in the United States and Europe. Still, as Mukeshimana noted in closing, most victims have regarded their ability to re-build their lives in the face of great adversity as the best form of revenge.

Judging by evaluations completed by participants, the workshop was extremely well received. Not only were the presentations of high quality, but so too were the lively and well-informed discussions that followed them.

17th Gumpert Workshop

Some of the more than 60 educators attending the Center’s May 17th Gumpert Workshop

Dr. Paul Winkler

Dr. Paul Winkler

 

2011 E-News

Noted Historian Examines Connections Between Human Rights and Self-determination and Partitions - March 8, 2011
Prof. Eric Weitz

Prof. Eric Weitz

(MAHWAH, NJ) “Toward a Critical History of Human Rights: On the Problems of Self-Determination and Territorial Partitions” was the title of a talk delivered by Dr. Eric D. Weitz, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, at a program sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide and the History Club of Ramapo College on March 8.

Weitz explored how self-determination and partitions demonstrate the entwining of rights with what we would now label crimes against humanity, notably, the practice of forced deportations of targeted populations and the creation of huge refugee streams.

In order to achieve a more nuanced history of human rights in the contemporary world Weitz pursued the following avenues: 1) an intellectual and political history of the concept of self-determination, and 2) an examination of the post-1945, ethnically-based territorial partitions, namely, India/Pakistan, Jordan/Israel, Rwanda/Burundi. Underlying this approach, as Weitz emphasized, is the presumption that human rights is not a singular thing, but a series of phenomena and concepts replete with tensions and contradictions.

Weitz is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. Since 2001 he has also been serving as the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts. Currently, he is on sabbatical at the Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University and writing A World Divided: A New Global History from the French Revolution to the Present. The book, under contract to Princeton University Press, is a combined history of human rights and the segmentation of populations in the modern era. His previous books include A Century of Genocide (2003) and Creating German Communism, 1890-1990 (1996), and most recently, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (2007), all published by Princeton University Press.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Film on Martin Luther King Screened at Ramapo College - March 21, 2011

Student asking question at screening of “Legacy of a Dream”

On March 21, the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Communication Arts Major’s Cinematheque Series hosted a screening of the documentary “Legacy of a Dream,” which summarizes Dr. Martin Luther King’s public life and delineates his central role in the civil rights campaigns.

Richard Kaplan, director and producer of the film, introduced and led a discussion of the film after it was shown. As he explained, the film was produced for the Martin Luther King Foundation and had to be pieced together from bits and pieces of newsreel and television footage, and includes material from the period before the Civil rights leader was a national figure. Narrated by James Earl Jones, the film features Andrew Young and Coretta Scott King.

Richard Kaplan

Richard Kaplan

Kaplan has had a distinguished record as a documentary film and television writer, director, and producer, both in the United States and abroad. His work has won considerable acclaim and critical recognition, including two Academy Awards. He is also the recipient of an Emmy Award for “outstanding historical and cultural programming.”

In addition to his many documentaries, made in the course of a career that has spanned almost 60 years, Kaplan’s film work has encompassed the detailed planning and development of theatrical feature films. Last February, the Museum of Modern Art recognized Richard Kaplan’s contribution to documentary filmmaking by running a weeklong series of his work.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Swiss Bank Holocaust Restitution Process Illuminated - March 22, 2011
Jaimie Taff, Esq.

Jaimie Taff, Esq.

(MAHWAH, NJ) On March 22, Jaimie Taff, an attorney who works as the Director in the Office of Special Master Michael Bradfield, Holocaust Victims Litigation, spoke under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies about “Holocaust Restitution in the Context of Swiss Deposited Assets Litigation.”

She discussed the landmark case arising from a series of class action lawsuits filed during 1996-1997 in several United States federal courts, alleging that Swiss financial institutions collaborated with and aided the Nazi regime by knowingly retaining and concealing assets of Holocaust victims, and by accepting and laundering illegally obtained Nazi loot and the profits of slave labor

In outlining the litigation historically, she contended that the restitution process has produced a set of outcomes that on the whole has been beneficial to survivors and their heirs. Despite intransigence and heel dragging on the part of some of the institutions involved, political pressure and due diligence combined to enable settlements to be made to many rightful claimants. From the outset, Taff pointed out, one of the problems has been missing documentation on the part of claimants. Good will and patience were just sometimes unable to surmount the lack of adequate paperwork and unfortunate circumstances

Jaimie Taff received her undergraduate degree in History from the University of Maryland (College Park), and a Juris Doctorate from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. After working as a legislative analyst with the Congressional Research Service, Ms. Taff began working for the Holocaust Claims Resolution Process Office in 2002, first as an attorney at the Claims Resolution Tribunal in Zurich, Switzerland, and later in her current position as Director in the Office of Special Master Michael Bradfield, which was charged by the relevant court with administering settlement.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Author Returns to Speak About Discuss Recent Book on American Heiress Who Resisted Nazis - April 12, 2011
Sheila Isenberg

Sheila Isenberg

(MAHWAH, NJ) On April 12, under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the History Club acclaimed author Sheila Isenberg spoke about her recent book, Muriel’s War: An American Heiress in the Nazi Resistance, published by Palgrave-Macmillan last December.

The book tells the story of a courageous woman who left a life of privilege for a world of danger and international espionage. Born into a wealthy meatpacking dynasty in Chicago and educated at Wellesley, raven-haired beauty Muriel Gardiner renounced her family’s materialistic lifestyle and as a young woman left the United States. First studying at Oxford, then attending the University of Vienna medical school, Muriel befriended Anna Freud and studied the fledgling science of psychoanalysis just as the dark clouds of Hitler’s war were moving across Europe.

During this tumultuous time, she married twice, had a daughter and, in Vienna, fell in love with a leader of the Austrian underground.. When Germany finally annexed Austria in March of 1938, Muriel began to help Jews and anti-fascists escape, smuggling forged documents across borders and risking her own life. Although she eventually returned to New York, Muriel Gardiner continued to use her wealth and vast network of connections to rescue many still trapped in Nazi-dominated Europe.

Here, for the first time, this electrifying woman who impressed everyone she met with her intelligence and powerful personality, receives her due. An American heiress turned resistance hero, Muriel went on to become an eminent psychoanalyst, and was a founder of the International Rescue Committee. Drawing from Gardiner’s unpublished writings and interviews with those who knew her best, Sheila Isenberg offers Muriel’s astonishing story of moral courage and humanistic zeal. With all its twists and turns, this inspiring account reveals a heroic woman who lives on as a legend of her time.

Sheila Isenberg last visited Ramapo College to present a talk, “The Intellectual as Hero: Varian Fry and his Feat of Rescue,” in conjunction with the showing of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibition, Varian Fry, Assignment: Rescue, 1940-1941 at Ramapo College.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Recent Documentary About Leon Blum, First Jewish Prime Minister of France Shown at Ramapo College - April 12, 2011

(left to Right) Mr. Eric Mayerand Dr. Jean Bodon

(Mahwah, NJ) On April 12, under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Communications Arts Major’s Cinematheque Series, Jean Bodon introduced a screening and led a discussion of his film “Léon Blum: For All Mankind.” Originally produced for broadcast on French television, the film examines the life of the former three-time Prime Minister of France. Blum was the architect of the Socialist Party’s Popular Front government that brought a coalition of Communists, liberals and socialists into power from 1936 to 1937. Deported to the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp in 1943 because of his Jewish origins and socialist politics, he narrowly missed execution prior to being liberated by American troops.

After his release and still more respected than loved, Blum headed France’s provisional government from 1946-1947 and negotiated a U.S. loan to France for post-war reconstruction. Best known by his countrymen for introducing labor reforms, including the 40-hour workweek, increased wages and two-week paid vacations for workers, Blum died in 1950.

Bodon, a native of France, teaches film in the Department of Communication Studies of University of Alabama, Birmingham. He teaches courses in television production, cinema and broadcasting. In 2000, he was honored with the President’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Dr. Bodon has worked as a feature film director and producer and as a director of documentaries and television commercials. His films have been screened at some of the world’s most prominent film presentation organizations including Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress and the Cinémathèque Française. Bodon’s works have been broadcast on HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, E!, TLC and other TV outlets around the world. He is also the author of a book on Charlie Chaplin prefaced by Francois Truffaut and numerous essays on film.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Local Rabbi and Historian Takes New Look at German Jewish Service in First World War - April 18, 2011
Rabbi Dr. David Fine

Rabbi Dr. David Fine

(MAHWAH, NJ) On April 18, David J. Fine, a congregational rabbi who is also an historian, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Hillel of Ramapo College.

Entitled “Integration Without Antisemitism: The Experience of Jewish Soldiers in the German Army in World War I,” Fine brought to light new research that casts doubt on the usual narrative of Jewish military service in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. Instead of encountering widespread hostility, evidence from personnel records and letters home indicate an overall situation of acceptance. Jewish soldiers received commissions, and were also promoted and decorated for valor in the field without fuss. In writing home, Jewish servicemen rarely voiced complaints about discrimination. Even the very initiative that prompted the most disquiet among German Jews at the time, the so-called “Jew Census” of 1915, initiated at the insistence of anti-Semites in the Reichstag, painted a picture of widespread service and distinction on the part of Jewish servicemen in the German military.

Fine is rabbi of Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. in Modern European history from the City University of New York in 2010. He was ordained as a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1999 and received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1994.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Holocaust Commemoration Features Speaker on Demise of Viennese Jewish Community - April 30, 2011
Dr. Ilana Offenberger

Dr. Ilana Offenberger

(MAHWAH, NJ) On Saturday, April 30, the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College and Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom held a Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance) commemoration in the congregation’s sanctuary that featured a talk by Dr. Ilana Offenberger on “Vienna 1942: The Deportation and Destruction of a Jewish Community.”

Dr. Offenberger’s presentation charted the process of how an end to emigration from the Reich, steadily increasing impoverishment, restriction, humiliation, and a ban on communication with family and loved ones abroad led to the community’s final mortal chapter. With great sensitivity, she paid special attention to the transformation of the Jewish Community (the Israelitische Kultus Gemeinde) from an institution that promoted the emigration and rescue of 136,000 Viennese Jews to an entity that the Nazi authorities forced to organize the deportation to the Third Reich’s ghettos and killing centers of more than 55,000 men, women and children.

In May 2010, Ilana Offenberger completed her Ph.D. in history on “The Nazification of Vienna and the Response of the Viennese Jews” at the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She earned a B.A. in German from Skidmore College. She has been a Crown Family Doctoral Research Fellow, a Strassler Family Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Fellow, and a Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany Graduate Studies Fellow. She was a fellow of the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies during the 2005-2006 academic year.

The evening also included a commemorative service conducted by Rabbi Joel Mosbacher with program of chorale music performed by the adult choir of Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, under Cantor David Perper.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Reading and Writing in Teaching About the Holocaust and Genocide Focus of Workshop for Teachers - May 17, 2011
Prof. Edward Shannon

Prof. Edward Shannon

(MAHWAH, NJ) – A group of more than 80 teachers participated in the Emil Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop held by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education on May 17 at Ramapo College. The workshop was designed to hone participants’ skills in using reading and writing to teach about the Holocaust and genocide.

(Left to Right) Dr. Jennifer Lembergand Erica Kaufman

Two experienced instructors of writing, Erica Kaufman and Dr. Jennifer Lemberg, modeled an intense array of exercises in which workshop participants engaged in discussing and presenting various types of writing assignments (focused writing, process writing, loop writing). To a large degree, it was a significant reversal of their usual role in the classroom. Judging from the discussion that accompanied each exercise, one would have to conclude that the results were beneficial, and participating teachers would now have new ways to engage their students.

During lunch, participants experienced an enlightening and entertaining PowerPoint presentation on “Comics and Graphic Novels in Teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide” by Dr. Edward Shannon, Professor of Literature at Ramapo College. He showed how the graphic novel developed from the coded imagery and text produced by outsider creators, most of whom were Jewish. Although some even began to address issues related to the Holocaust in the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale in 1986 that the destruction of the Jews in World War II was for the first time depicted through the fate of one victim (Spiegelman’s father Vladek) in comic-strip fashion. As Ed Shannon pointed out, in depicting Jews as mice, while Germans are represented as cats, while other groups are represented variously (Americans as dogs, Poles as pigs and French as frogs and the British as fish), Spiegelman played with his readers’ sense of irony and self-mockery.

Mr. Erwin Ganz

Mr. Erwin Ganz

The final presentation of the day was by a child survivor of Nazi rule in Germany, Mr. Erwin Ganz of Warren, New Jersey. With great eloquence, Mr. Ganz related how in 1933 at the age of three, he and his family were forced to relocate to Bernkastel Koos, Germany. Until April 1939, when the family emigrated and re-settled in Newark, his days were spent mainly traveling to a Jewish school some 35 miles way and suffering the taunts and attacks of non-Jewish children. Judging by the evaluations completed after the event, participants were deeply impressed by Mr. Ganz’s depiction of the life of a young Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Local Psychoanalyst Examined the Impact of Having Holocaust Survivors as Parents - September 22, 2011
Dr. Sylvia Flescher

Dr. Sylvia Flescher

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Dr. Sylvia Flescher, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst in private practice in Ridgewood, N.J. and a faculty member at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey September 22 at the invitation of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College.

Her talk, “Googling for Ghosts: A Meditation on Writer’s Block, Mourning and the Holocaust,” described her decades-long struggle with writer’s block and how her voice was overshadowed by her analyst father, a writer and Holocaust survivor. Themes of survivor guilt, incomplete mourning and the transmission of trauma to the second generation were discussed.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Queens College Historian Discussed Relationship of the Accusation of Ritual Murder Against Jews and Soviet Anti-semitism - October 6, 2011
Dr. Elissa Bemporad

Dr. Elissa Bemporad

(MAHWAH, NJ) – On October 6, 2011, Dr. Elissa Bemporad, the Jerry and William Ungar Assistant professor of History at Queens College of the City University of New York, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey in October under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and History Club of Ramapo College.

The title of her talk was “The Blood Libel and Soviet Anti-Semitism.”

The blood libel dates from medieval times and deals with the blatantly untrue and defamatory accusation that the Jewish religion calls for the periodic ritual consumption of the blood of Christians. The accusation is intimately intertwined with the history of anti-Semitism.

Although we are well informed about the reappearance of the blood libel canard since the fall of Communism, we know little about how it manifested itself in Soviet times.
At least until the late 1930s, anti-Semitism was actively combated, although World War II, the Nazi occupation, the last years of Stalinism, and support for the Arab side in the Middle East conflict eventually led to its resurrection.

Bemporad, who spoke at the College in February 2010 on “Nazi Germany and Anti-Semitic Poland Through the Eyes of Soviet Jews,” holds a Masters of Arts in Slavic studies from the Faculty of Humanities at Bologna University, a Masters of Arts in Modern Jewish Studies from the Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and a Ph.D. from the Department of History at Stanford University. Her book Becoming “Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in a Jewish Metropolis, Minsk 1917-1939, will soon be published by Indiana University.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Legacy of Italian-jewish Writer and Survivor Primo Levi Iluminated - October 26, 2011

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian & Italian American Studies at Hofstra University Stanislao Pugliese spoke on October 26 under the auspices of the Italian Club and the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College.

Pugliese discussed “Answering Auschwitz: Primo Levi’s Science and Humanism after the Fall,” which alludes to the debate that surfaced immediately after his1987 death as a result falling down a stairwell as to whether Levi’s demise was the result of an accident or a suicide. His death as a possible suicide, which Pugliese called into question, marked a reinterpretation of his legacy as a writer and survivor.

Stan Pugliese, a specialist on the Italian anti-Fascist resistance and Italian Jews, explored Levi’s legacy in terms of his writings as charting a course to help understand what actually occurred on a human level in the Holocaust. In Promo Levi’s telling of the tragedy that befell the Jews of Europe, according to Pugliese, we see revealed the second “fall” of humankind in which barbarity became commonplace and ordinary to the point that even liberators of concentration camps felt collective shame.

Pugliese graduated from Hofstra University (B.A. 1987) and the City College of New York (M.A. 1990), and earned his Ph.D. from the City University of New York in 1995, after which he joined the Faculty of Hofstra University. He has been Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian & Italian American Studies since 2009.

Pugliese has spoken at Ramapo College on several occasions, the last time about his book, “Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone,” which was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2009.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Kenneth Jacobson, Deputy National Director of the Anti-defamation League, Speaks at Havemeyer Dinner - November 1, 2011
Kenneth Jacobson

Kenneth Jacobson

Dr. Peter P. Mercer

Dr. Peter P. Mercer

(Left to Right) Center Advisory Board members Phyllis Roberts, Ernest Hass, and Myrna Hass.

(Left to Right) Advisory Board member John Gunzler, Marianne Gunzler and Ruth Susnick, Esq.

(MAHWAH, NJ) On November 1, 2011, Kenneth Jacobson, Deputy National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spoke at a dinner hosted by President Peter P. Mercer and Dr. Jackie Ehlert-Mercer at Havemeyer House and attended by Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Advisory Board members, activists, and Ramapo College Alumni Association and Foundation Board members. Mr. Jacobson commented on the place of Holocaust commemoration in American life and recent developments in the Middle East.

With respect to the recent developments in Middle East, he ventured the opinion that change in societies like Egypt does not occur in a linear fashion and, for that reason, it would be unrealistic to expect a sudden transformation towards pro-Western democracy. In his view, for Israel in particular this means uncertainty and increased vigilance. This is borne out, in Jacobson’s view, by the increasing influence and tendency in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood to fill the power vacuum following the ouster from power of President Hosni Mubarak. Also of increasing concern, in Jacobson’s view, is the growing enmity shown by Turkey towards Israel.

Speaking a few days prior to the ADL’s publication of its annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, Jacobson indicated that it would reveal a similar picture as in recent years. The persistence of manifestations of anti-Jewish attitudes notwithstanding, he felt that the work of the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations has borne fruit over the years, especially in the United States and in other Western democracies where displays of anti-Jewish bigotry are increasingly deemed as unacceptable. In that sense, according to Jacobson, the situation today is radically different from the years before the Holocaust. Unlike then, bolstered by the existence of the State of Israel and a largely sympathetic U.S. population, the Jewish community is better able to defend itself.,

Following his remarks, dinner attendees asked a number of questions dealing specifically with the consequences of the “Arab Spring” and the likelihood of Iran becoming a nuclear power. On both fronts, in Jacobson’s view, vigilance is the key. While relations with Egypt would likely change in the wake of elections, he believed democratization also held the hope of governments in the region emerging that might prove to be more amenable to peacefully co-existing with Israel. Regarding Iran, Jacobson believed the future is unclear, but that Israel is prepared for any eventuality.

Prior to assuming his present position, Ken Jacobson served as ADL’s Director of International Affairs. In that position he monitored and analyzed events affecting Jews in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America, and oversaw the ADL Jerusalem Office, which assesses issues surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict. He also developed and coordinated the League’s presence in Vienna and Moscow.

Kenneth Jacobson is the author of numerous publications, including The Protocols: Myth and History; The Middle East: Questions and Answers; The Middle East “Post” Lebanon, and U.S. Aid to the Middle East: A Look Back, A Look Ahead. His articles have appeared in such prestigious publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Newsday.

A graduate of Yeshiva University, where he earned the degree of Bachelor of Arts in history and Hebrew literature, he also holds a Masters of Arts in American history from Columbia University.

ADL’s National Director, Abraham H. Foxman, who was originally scheduled to speak at the dinner, but had to cancel, will come to speak at an event organized by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at some point later in the year.

return to top Return to Top Icon

November Gumpert Workshop Pilots New Online Holocaust Testimony Resourse - November 1, 2011
Colleen Tambuscio

Colleen Tambuscio

(Mahwah) – “Online Testimonies in the Classroom”was the title of a Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop held at Ramapo College on November 1, 2011 and sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education and University of Southern California (USC)’s Shoah Foundation Institute.

Encompassing more than 1,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses, the USC’s Shoah Foundation Institute’s visual archive is a treasure trove for teachers to help deepen students’ understanding of Nazi Germany’s war against the Jews. To tap this amazing resource for classroom use the Institute has been working on an online application, iWitness, that will empower students to participate in their own learning by providing them with the tools to think critically, investigate, develop, analyze, and collaborate with others.

(Left to Right) Colleen Tambuscio & Sandy Rubenstein

Our workshop was a hands-on opportunity for thirty teachers to pilot the use of the application before it became generally available. Colleen Tambuscio of New Milford High School, who is also a member of the Center’s Advisory Board, conducted the morning session, held in one of Ramapo College’s computer classrooms, in which she guided workshop participants through iWitness’ rich array of multimedia resources and tools. She showed how in addition to enabling educators to support and use new multimedia applications in their classrooms to achieve curricular goals and standards in a variety of disciplines and grade levels, iWitness would provide an opportunity to enhance students’ digital, visual, and media literacy skills and encourage them to develop their own video projects and relate the survivor and witness stories to their own personal experiences and to make connections to contemporary events.

Sandy Rubenstein

Sandy Rubenstein

In the afternoon, Sandy Rubenstein, who teaches at the Horace Mann School in New York City and is also the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, showed workshop participants how she was able to use the a three-hour visual and oral testimony of his recollections of the war years that her father completed under the auspices of the Shoah Foundation to tell his story as a means of relating the history of the Holocaust. In her classroom presentations, which she has called Marked with a Stone, she shares excerpts from his book and intersperses video clips of her father speaking directly about his experiences. According to Rubenstein, in listening to the presentation of her father’s story, students are riveted and full of questions. In her view, Marked with a Stone, which providing students with a first-hand account of the Holocaust, also encourages students to reflect on their own moral responsibilities to stand up against hate, bigotry, and genocide today. In addition, Sandy Rubenstein also shared the project, Incorporating Testimony into the Teaching of Holocaust Literature: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, that she developed under the auspices of the USC Shoah Foundation and has modeled with her 4th-grade students at the Horace Mann School.

Judging by the evaluations that participants completed after the workshop, they found the time that they spent learning about the iWitness application very worthwhile.

return to top Return to Top Icon

How Human Rights Became a Motivating Force on the World Stage Explored - November 3, 2011
Professor Samuel Moyn

Professor Samuel Moyn

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Samuel Moyn, Professor of History at Columbia University, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey on Thursday, November 3 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the History Club, and the Human Rights and Genocide Studies Minor of Ramapo College. Prior to the talk The Ramapo College Foundation sponsored a lunch with Professor Moyn for members of the Alumni Association and Friends of Ramapo College.

Moyn discussed his recent book, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, which traces the genesis of the ideal of human rights and how it has become a motivating force on the world stage.

The presentation delved into the ideal’s troubled present as well as its uncertain future, especially in light of the ongoing events associated with the “Arab Spring.” While tracing the development of the ideal back to the ancient Greeks and through the Renaissance to the American and French Revolutions, he depicted how Human Rights actually became a motivating force on the world stage from the late seventies, supplanting revolutionary communism and nationalism, and becoming a viable alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence.

A lively discussion followed the talk in which students and faculty commented on the importance of grass roots movements in Latin America, the role of President Jimmy Carter and the changing nature of the Cold War as factors influencing the development of a consensus around Human Rights.

Sam Moyn holds an A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis (1994), a Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley (2000), and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (2001). His studies include modern European intellectual history, political and legal thought, mathematical and critical theory and Jewish studies.
In addition to numerous essays and reviews, Samuel Moyn is the author of several previous books, including: A Holocaust Controversy: The Treblinka Affair in Postwar France (Brandeis, 2005) and Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas Between Revelation and Ethics (Cornell, 2007).

(Left to Right) Dr. Michael A. Riff, Director of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies & Dr. Samuel Moyn, Professor of History at Columbia University

return to top Return to Top Icon

Film Linking Guatemala's Turbulent Past with Those Who Are Active Players in Its Present Screened at Ramapo College - November 7, 2011

(Left to Right) Director Pamela Yates & Producer Paco de Onís

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Director Pamela Yates and Producer Paco de Onís screened and led a discussion of their film Granito: How to Nail a Dictator at Ramapo College of New Jersey on November 7. The program was sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide and the Communications Major’s Cinematheque Series. It received Plantinum funding from the Division of Student Affairs. More than 150 students, faculty and community members attended the screening.

This film is part political thriller and part memoir. It transports viewers back in time through a haunting tale of genocide in Guatemala and returns to the present with a cast of characters joined by the quest to bring a dictator to justice. One of those characters was Yates herself who as a young filmmaker was able to document the dictatorship’s murderous campaigns in areas inhabited by the country’s native peoples.

Not surprisingly, several questions from the largely student audience centered on Yates’ own role in the film, especially in putting herself at great risk in filming both the sequences with the indigenous redoubt and the military going into the jungle to destroy them. In a matter of fact way, Yates pointed out that she was very young at the time and she just had to compartmentalize her fear. Questions also arose about U.S. involvement in the counter-insurgency that, Yates pointed out, was confirmed on film by the general commanding the Guatemalan Army raids on the native encampments.

A co-founder of Skylight Pictures, the documentary production company based in New York City that made Granito, Pamela Yates grew up in Western Pennsylvania and studied film at New York University. Granito, as all of Yates’ films, has garnered critical acclaim and was an official selection included in the Premiere Documentary Section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Four of her films were nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and one film won the award in 1984.

Her film, State of Fear: The Truth about Terrorism, a film about Peru’s 20-year “war on terror” based on the findings of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, won the 2006 Overseas Press Club Award for “Best Reporting in Any Medium on Latin America. Her film, The Reckoning, released in 2009, is about the work of the International Criminal Court. Yates also received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on Granito.

De Onís grew up in several Latin American countries. Prior to Granito, his most recent production was The Reckoning and he previously produced State of Fear. He has also produced documentaries for PBS (On Our Own Terms with Bill Moyers), National Geographic (Secrets from the Grave), New York Times Television (Police Force, Paramedics), and MSNBC (Edgewise with John Hockenberry).

return to top Return to Top Icon

Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's Relationship with German-jewish Luminaries and Pioneering Work on Education and the Environment Discussed at Ramapo College of New Jersey - November 7 & 10, 2011

(MAHWAH, NJ) – In conjunction with the Asia Society’s exhibition, Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest and to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth, the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies sponsored two talks on the Indian Nobel Laureate’s unique contributions and engagement with world culture.

The first lecture at Ramapo College was given on November 7 by Dr. Paul Mendes-Flohr, Professor of Modern Jewish Thought in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought in the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He discussed “A Transnational Fascination: the Indian Nobel Prize Winning Writer Rabindranath Tagore in Discourse with Albert Einstein and Martin Buber.”

Dr. Paul Mendes-Flohr

Dr. Paul Mendes-Flohr

As Professor Mendes-Flohr explained, Tagore first made the acquaintance of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber during his 1921 visit to Germany. Immediately, it became apparent to both men that they had much in common, especially in their humanistic approaches to education and national identity. For his part, all of his adult life Buber had an abiding interest in oriental philosophy and religion. Thus, it was not surprising that, according to Mendes-Flohr, Buber “found Tagore a kindred soul.” As indicated above, inclusivity and co-existence characterized their attitudes towards national identity. However, it was in their predilection for student-centered and experientially oriented education that there was a true meeting of the minds.

More problematic, according to Mendes-Flohr, was Tagore’s relationship with the German-Jewish physicist and fellow Nobel laureate Albert Einstein, whom he first met on a 1926 visit to Germany. In 1930 and 1931, during three subsequent meetings at Einstein’s summer home outside Berlin, their relationship intensified. Although the two men shared a sense of being part of an international community of philosophers and scholars and had a common belief in a universal human ideal, as Mendes-Flohr explained, they were polar opposites in some respects. Tagore believed that the natural world could only be seen in terms of our “mental constructions,” while Einstein held the view that there is an independent “order to nature” that physics can determine. Yet the considerably younger Einstein deeply admired Tagore and wrote a moving and heartfelt contribution for Tagore’s 70th birthday volume, The Golden Book of Tagore. Conversely, Tagore wrote admiringly about Einstein. They both also shared in common a love of music.

Dr. Kathleen O'Connell

Dr. Kathleen O’Connell

A similar chord on Tagore’s emphasis on practical experience and the respect for the student was struck by Dr. Kathleen O’Connell of the University of Toronto in her lecture of November 10, 2011. Entitled “Rabindranath Tagore; the Poet as Educator and Environmentalist,” her talk stressed how Tagore in everything he did embodied an integrated conception of human culture that encompassed the physical world as well as the interior life of the individual.

As O’Connell explained, Tagore was by no means just a theorist on education. At Santiniketan, he established a school that eventually blossomed into a university and a community that was deeply rooted in pleasurable learning individualized to the personality of the child and revolved organically around nature. Classes were held in the open air under the trees (which he had planted) to provide for a spontaneous appreciation of the fluidity of the plant and animal kingdoms, and seasonal changes. In her richly illustrated presentation, O’Connell also pointed to Tagore’s pioneering efforts in global cultural exchange, mixed sex education, and establishing a religiously diverse student body. Also groundbreaking, according to O’Connell, were the measures he introduced to create a more livable and sustainable environment in West Bengal. These included the planting of trees and the introduction of sound plowing methods. Professor O’Connell hopes that Tagore’s timeless educational philosophy and environmental practices will become more widely known and appreciated as the world celebrates the 150th anniversary of his birth.

The presentations of Professors Mendes-Flohr and O’Connell were made possible with the assistance of the Asia Society, New York.

On view at the Asia Society Museum in Manhattan through December 31, 2011, the Asia Society’s exhibition, Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest showed more than 60 works on paper, drawn from three collections in India, many of which have never been seen in the United States. This exhibition provided U.S. audiences with a unique opportunity to appreciate Tagore’s substantial artistic legacy.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Child Survivor of Nazi Persecution Speaks at Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) Commemoration - November 9, 2011

(MAHWAH, NJ) – The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College and Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom held a Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) commemoration on Wednesday, November 9 at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, Mahwah, NJ.

The commemoration featured a talk by Erwin Ganz of Warren, New Jersey who experienced mounting oppression and anti-Semitism as a young schoolboy in the small town of Bernkastel Koos, Germany where his family was forced to relocate from his native Frankfurt am Main soon after Adolf Hitler came to power.

Upon coming to the United States in April of 1939 at age nine, Ganz and his family settled in Newark, New Jersey, where he later graduated from Weequahic High School. While employed full time with the Ronson Corporation, Ganz received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Seton Hall University. His career at Ronson, where he eventually became a director, spanned six decades.

The evening also included a commemorative service conducted by Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, and a program featuring chorale music performed by the adult choir of Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom under Cantor David Perper.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Films Lifting Veil on Armenian and Congolese Women Who Were Abused and Forced into Bondage During Genocide Screened at Ramapo College - November 14 & December 9, 2011
Screening of Grandma's Tattoos

Screening of Grandma’s Tattoos

(MAHWAH, NJ) – On November 14 and December 9, respectively, the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the Human Rights and Genocide Studies Minor of Ramapo College screened two films, Women in War Zones and Grandma’s Tattoos, that delve into sexual abuse and bondage of women in genocide.

Women in War Zones tells the story of two young women, Helene and Bijoux, who are being treated for the attacks they suffered at the hands of the notorious Interahamwe militia, who after having helped perpetrate the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 preyed on the refugees fleeing into neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They are among the thousands of women who have been raped and mutilated in the DRC , even after the peace agreement signed in 2003. Helene and Bijoux are seen being treated at Panzi Hospital, a special facility that is nestled in the hills along the Rwandan and is the last hope for many of Congo’s victims of sexual violence. The two women become sisters during their time of treatment at Panzi hospital, and they support each other in their fight and struggle to maintain hope and a sense of dignity as they come to grips with their violent and tragic past. Marie Targonski-O’Brien, Assistant Manager of Women in War Zones, introduced the film and took questions, after the screening.

The film project has spawned a movement that seeks to implement programing in war zones across the globe, primarily in communities where there are clear and legitimate injustices occurring against women and children. As of now, it has concentrated its efforts around the Panzi community, serving women in the South Kivu province. It all started with Scott Blanding, his best friend Brad LaBriola and his sister Melanie Blanding travelling to Congo in the summer of 2006 to do a film about the rape-crisis plaguing Congo.

Suzanne Khardalian

Suzanne Khardalian

Grandma’s Tattoos is a personal film about what happened to many Armenian women during the genocide. It is a ghost story-with the ghosts of the tattooed women haunting us-and a mystery film, where many taboos are broken. As no one wants to tell the real and whole story, and in order to bring the pieces of the puzzle together, the director, Suzanne Khardalian, makes us move between different times and space, from today’s Sweden to her childhood home in Beirut. The viewer is taken on a journey into the secrets of the family.

Eventually, Khardalian’s mother reveals the secret behind Grandma Khanoum’s blue marks. “Grandma was abducted and kept in slavery for many years somewhere in Turkey. She was also forcibly marked-tattooed-as property, the same way you mark cattle. Grandma Khanoum’s fate was not an aberration. On the contrary, tens of thousands of Armenian children and teenagers were raped and abducted and kept in slavery. Although after World War I, U.S. and European missionary and aid groups rescued over 90,000 of these victimized Armenian young girls and children, the film makes clear that the ordeal for these survivors of genocide did not end there.

Suzanne Khardalian is an independent filmmaker and writer. She studied journalism in Beirut and Paris and worked as a journalist in Paris until 1985, when she started to work on films. She also holds a master’s degree in international law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and contributes articles to different journals. She has directed more than 20 films that have been shown both in Europe and the U.S. They include Back to Ararat (1988), Unsafe Ground (1993), Her Armenian Prince (1997), From Opium to Chrysanthemums (2000), Where Lies My Victory (2002), I Hate Dogs (2005), and Young Freud in Gaza (2009).

return to top Return to Top Icon

2010 E-News

Young Scholar Offers New Perspective on Soviet Jewry in 1930s - February 8, 2010

YOUNG SCHOLAR OFFERS NEW PERSPECRTIVE ON SOVIET JEWRY IN 1930s

(MAHWAH, NJ) – On February 8, 2010 the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the History Club of Ramapo College hosted a talk by Professor Elissa Bemporad of Queens College of the City University of New York on “Nazi Germany and Anti-Semitic Poland.” She explored the extent to which the knowledge of what was happening to Jews in those two countries shaped Soviet Jewish identity in the late 1930s.

Namely, at the same time as the Jews of Russia and the other territories comprising the Soviet Union for the first time in their history were legally emancipated and living under a regime that made serious efforts to combat anti-Semitism, their co-religionists in Poland and Germany were being denied or stripped of their rights. Using the Belarusian capital of Minsk as her prime example, she pointed to the active participation of Jews in the city’s cultural life.

This did not mean, as Bemporad made clear, that Jews of Minsk, or anywhere else in the Soviet Union were free to practice their religion: [like the members of other religious communities] they were not. Moreover, in the economic realm, the abolition of free enterprise eliminated the terrain of the independent Jewish artisan, shopkeeper and trader. On the other hand, until the Stalinization and purges of the 1930s, a vibrant Yiddish school system existed and Yiddish was even one of Minsk’s official languages.

To bolster her argument Bemporad read excerpts of articles and poems from the Yiddish-language Oktiaber. They made it evident that Jews were knowledgeable and concerned about the plight of their fellow Jews in both nearby Poland and Germany. These heartfelt and well-informed texts also gave proof to Bemporad’s contention that even in the face of political and religious oppression Soviet Jews were able to carve out a space in which a vibrant discourse among Jews about crucial existential issues was still possible. In effect, Professor Bemporad was able to dispel the frequent stereotype that the Jews of the Soviet Union were living under a state of siege. Political and religious oppression notwithstanding, the Jews of the Soviet Union were not living in Poland or Nazi Germany, where the active persecution of Jews had become government policy.

Elissa Bemporad is Assistant Professor of History at Queens College of the City University of New York. She holds an M.A. in Slavic studies from the Faculty of Humanities at Bologna University, an M.A. in Modern Jewish Studies from the Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and a PhD from the Department of History at Stanford University. Before coming to Queens College, Dr. Bemporad taught at Stanford University, Hunter College, and The New School. Her book “Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in a Jewish Metropolis, Minsk 1917-1939,” is forthcoming.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Author Discussed the Barnert Family of Paterson and Religious Freedom - February 23, 2010

AUTHOR DISCUSSED THE BARNERT FAMILY OF PATERSON AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Cipora O. Schwartz, author and local historian, spoke on February 23, 2010 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the History Club of Ramapo College about “The Barnert Family of Paterson and Religious Freedom in America.”

Her book, “An American Jewish Odyssey: American Religious Freedom and the Nathan Barnert Temple,” (Ktav Publishing) which took the long-time congregant eight years to write, was published in honor of the temple’s 160th anniversary in 2007. The Nathan Barnert Temple, which adheres to the Reform direction Judaism, is the oldest Jewish congregation in New Jersey, founded as Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Paterson in 1847.

The congregation was dedicated as the Nathan Barnert Memorial Temple on Sept. 17, 1894. Barnert had served as Paterson’s mayor for two terms. He also built and donated the Barnert Memorial Hospital on Broadway and the Daughters of Miriam Home for the Aged. During his mayoral terms, he donated his monthly salary to charitable and needy organizations of all faiths. According to Schwartz, “His sense of philanthropy and the civic duty he demonstrated really laid the foundation for what this community is all about.”

More generally, according to Schwartz, religious freedom and equal rights enabled the Jews of Paterson and the rest of the United States not only to worship as they pleased, but also to realize the American dream. At the same time, she acknowledged, not all Americans were so fortunate. To this day, racism and other forms of discrimination continue to limit or deny access to the kind of success Nathan Barnert and other American Jews were able to achieve.

She closed her talk by relating how to this day the community founded by Barnert and his contemporaries, even as they re-located to the affluent surroundings of Franklin Lakes, continues to fight for social justice and equal rights for all. Key to this tradition has been the unique leadership of Rabbis Max Raisin and Martin Freedman, both of whom were courageous fighters against bigotry and for civil rights.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Schomburg Scholar, Ambassador George Staples, Visits Ramapo College of New Jersey - March 11 and 12, 2010

SCHOMBURG SCHOLAR, AMBASSADOR GEORGE STAPLES, VISITS RAMAPO COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Ambassador George Staples, a Schomburg Scholar, presented a lecture and spoke to classes at Ramapo College March 11 and 12, 2010. The theme of his lecture, as well as talks to classes, was “Genocide and Civil War in Africa.”

While seeing continuing problems with tribalism, corruption, donor fatigue, rogue militias and HIV/Aids, there are also hopeful signs on the horizon for sub-Saharan Africa. The internet, cell phones and satellite as well as cable TV have brought previously underserved populations in remote corners of the continent into the information age and made them aware that their lives could be organized differently than under their often authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Ambassador Staples pointed out that South African entrepreneurs and corporations are playing a key part in this process, not just as investors, but also as role models.

We are, according to Staples, also seeing positive developments in the realm of education. African families continue to make great sacrifices to send their children to school. Among their number are an increasing proportion of girls, whose future from an early age was previously seen in the fields and the markets as opposed to the classroom.

To the surprise of some listeners, Ambassador Staples did not always have kind words to say about the activities of Non Government Organizations (NGOs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Under the guise of relief operations in conflict situations, including during the Rwandan Genocide, they have, in his view, provided safe havens for perpetrators. Unfortunately, he has often seen development projects under NGO aegis as fostering a culture of dependency and mutual self-interest.

As to the U.S. role in Africa, Ambassador Staples favored a more activist approach in the future. From his perspective, it was imperative that the U.S. act in concert with international and regional bodies to put “boots on the ground” in the event of crisis. We have to understand, in his view, that even if American forces are not directly involved, without transportation and logistical involvement from U.S. and other NATO forces deployments are not viable. From what he has seen, moreover, shying away from “national building” is not an option. In this connection, he was firm in his belief that our peace and security come at a cost.

Ambassador George M. Staples was a career member of the Foreign Service for 25 years and was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of the Bureau of Human Resources at the U.S. Department of State. He was also the Political Advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) at NATO in Belgium. From 1998 through 2001 he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Rwanda, followed by his service from 2001 through 2004 as U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Ambassador Staples has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Bahrain and Zimbabwe, Senior Watch Officer in the State Department’s Operation Center, and as Senior Turkey Desk Officer in the Bureau of European Affairs during the first Gulf War. His other assignments include: The Bahamas, Uruguay, and El Salvador. He also served as a National Security Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to joining the State Department, Ambassador Staples served as a military officer in the U.S. Air Force, and as a manager in private industry. Ambassador Staples speaks French, Spanish and Turkish.

Ambassador Staples, who holds the rank of Career Minister, was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1947. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California and an M.A. in Business from Central Michigan University. Ambassador Staples is an adjunct professor for diplomacy and development at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Founded in 1983, the Academy “?¦explore[s] ways in which persons who had served in positions of major responsibility could cooperate to promote the highest standards in the practice of American diplomacy.”

Throughout his time at Ramapo, Ambassador Staples found enthusiastic discussion partners. In particular, he praised the students encountered during his classroom visits, whose questions and comments he characterized as incisive and well informed.

Ambassador Staples’ visit was supported by a grant from the Schomburg Visiting Scholars Program. It took place under the auspices of the Africana Studies program, the Diversity Action Committee, and the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Start of Armenian Genocide in Zeytun Examined - April 7, 2010

START OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN ZEYTUN EXAMINED

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Aram Arkun, an accomplished scholar and writer, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey April 2010 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian National Committee of New Jersey. The title of his lecture, attended by approximately 150 students and community members, was “Zeytun and the Start of the Armenian Genocide.”

Because of its lofty location, as well as the independent nature of its residents, the predominantly Armenian town of Zeytun in Cilicia, was often called the “Eagles’
Nest.” Although the lecture focused on this remarkably independent hill town, Arkun placed Zeytun’s history in the context of the unfolding enmity between the Turks and Armenians. In particular, he examined the events leading up to the first deportations of what became the Armenian Genocide in 1915, why there was no major rebellion, and the significance of these early deportations. The talk was accompanied by an extensive array of photographs and maps.

Aram Arkun is a historian specializing in modern Armenian history. For many years he was assistant director and then co-director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church (Eastern), he has also taught courses in a number of universities such as New York University and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

He edited the quarterly magazine ARARAT from the end of 2003 until 2008, periodically worked as a translator, and has held leadership positions in a number of other organizations, including the Armenian Center at Columbia University, the Anthropology Museum of the People of NewYork, and several awards committees of the Armenian Students Association. He has degrees from Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). His most recent article is titled “Zeytun and the Commencement of the Armenian Genocide.” It will be published by Oxford University Press in a volume edited by Ron Suny and Muge Gocek. At present, Aram is writing and working as a consultant.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Unique Holocaust Commemoration in New York - April 11, 2010

UNIQUE HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION FEATURES RAMAPO CANTANOVA CHORALE SINGING TEREZIN CANTATA IN PRESENCE OF CZECH PRIME MINISTER

(NEW YORK, NY) – On April 11, the Czech Permanent Mission to the United Nations and the Consulate General in New York, in cooperation with the Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the Ramapo College, held a unique Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Commemoration at the Bohemian National Hall, the home of the Czech culture in Manhattan. The evening centered around a performance by the CantaNOVA Chorale of the Ramapo College, under the direction of Professor Lisa Lutter, of Robert Convery’s “Terezi­n Cantata.” The New York-based composer’s moving work, which was accompanied by a small string and piano ensemble, is a musical rendering of nine poems by Jewish children incarcerated at the Terezin Ghetto and Concentration Camp and subsequently murdered by the Nazis.

Attended by over 300 members of the diplomatic corps (including 27 U.N. ambassadors) and local Czech and Jewish community, the commemoration’s featured speaker was Dr. Jan Fischer, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, who was visiting New York on his way to Washington, D.C., where he participated at the Nuclear Security Summit organized by President Obama. In his remarks, Prime Minister Fischer reiterated his country’s commitment to commemorating and learning from the Holocaust. As the son of a Jewish father who survived the horrors of Terezin and Auschwitz, he stressed, this was a matter about which he felt strongly.

The Prime Minister used this opportunity to greet and recognize the survivors of the Terezín Concentration Camp living in the area of New York and New Jersey. They were presented with the Karel Kramář Medal, which the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic has the power to bestow individuals for proven merits in restoration of human rights, freedom and democracy. It is named after the first Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia after it achieved independence.

Also speaking at the event was Ramapo College President Dr. Peter P. Mercer who presented Prime Minister Fischer with a certificate of commemoration and recognition from the College. The program was the brainchild of Mr. Eric Mayer of Wayne, New Jersey. A survivor of the Holocaust from Worms, Germany, who as a young teenager was a member of the Resistance in southern France, two years ago shared his experiences at a Holocaust commemoration held under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Beth Haverim Shir Shalom of Mahwah. Also participating in the program were the singers of CantaNova Chorale under Professor Lisa Lutter. Mr. Mayer was so enthused that he was determined to bring their work to the attention of a wider audience.

The end result was the memorable program described above. And Mr. Mayer would be the first to admit that it would not have been possible without the engagement and determination of Dr. Martin Palous, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the United Nations, Dr. Petr Válek, his Legal Adviser of the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the UN, and Ms. Eliška Žigová, Consul General of the Czech Republic in New York.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Real Story Behind Film, Defiance, Told by Son of Real-life Protagonist - April 20, 2010

REAL STORY BEHIND FILM, DEFIANCE, TOLD BY SON OF REAL-LIFE PROTAGONIST

(MAHWAH, NJ) – The real story behind the 2009 film Defiance, depicting the Bielski partisan group’s feat of Holocaust resistance and rescue, was the topic of a program jointly sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Valley Chabad and the Chabad of North West Bergen County held at Ramapo College on April 20, 2010. Sitting in amazement, the audience of more than 250 community members and students heard the story from Zvi, the son of one of the real-life protagonists Zus Bielski, who was played by Liev Schreiber in the film. Playing Zus’ older brother Tuvia, the leader of the group, in the movie was the British actor Daniel Craig.

Rabbi Dov Drizen of Valley Chabad, located in Woodcliff Lake introduced Bielski. No sooner did Zvi Bielski begin his talk than he invited his cousin Roz Kaufman of Wyckoff, whose parents survived the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, to come to the front of the room. In a few moving sentences she related how the Bielskis continued to live their lives as one big extended family in post-war Brooklyn apart from brother Asael, who unfortunately was killed in 1945 while serving in the Red Army.

For Tuvia, Zus and Asael Bielski the decision to establish a resistance group came after a German killing unit entered the Nowogrodek ghetto in December 1941and murdered their parents and two brothers. The net result was that in the nearby forests the Bielski brothers saved more than 1,200 Jews (including women, children and the elderly).

In Zvi Bielski’s presentation it quickly became evident that his father and uncles (Tuvia, Zus and Asael) were “tough guys,” outdoorsmen of a sort, who were determined not only to seek retribution from their Nazi tormenters, but also, and ultimately much more importantly, to save as many Jews from the Nazi death machine as possible. As Zvi explained several times, they were merciless in shielding the people under their protection. More than once, they were forced to kill entire families of Polish and Belorussian collaborators. The times were horrific and the Bielskis rose to the occasion.

That did not mean, Zvi explained, that the brothers were not compassionate or did not deal just as harshly with their own. He related, for example, the story of how, as the group fled deeper into the forest, his father saved a mother and her daughter who one of his subordinates deemed unfit to keep up with the group. For his behavior and to serve as an example, Zvi further elaborated, his father shot the subordinate on the spot. Years later, during a chance encounter on one of Tel Aviv’s main streets, the woman and her daughter had the opportunity to thank Zus Bielski personally for what he did.

Especially when recounting how his father was a hard man for a son seeking approval to impress, Zvi Bielski shared some humorous moments with the audience. One occurred when he showed his father a video of him skydiving in Florida. After failing to elicit a comment from him, he said, ‘Pop, did you see that ?¦!’ Zus Bielski’s response was: “So? You had a parachute, didn’t you?”

As entertaining as Zvi Bielski’s account was audience members left the program, that also included clips from Defiance and interviews with his mother and cousins, with a sense that the Bielski brothers and their associates had truly accomplished a singular feat. It is an accomplishment that in retrospect seems all the more incredible, if one bears in mind that the Bielski brothers were from a simple family of farmers who were also millers in a small town where Jews traditionally had more enemies than friends and where the Nazis easily found willing collaborators.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Gumpert Workshop: Rescue and Resistance in Genocide - May 17, 2010

SPRING GUMPERT WORKSHOP EXPLORES RESCUE AND RESISTANCE IN GENOCIDE

(MAHWAH, NJ) – “Rescue and Resistance in Genocide”was the title of a Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop held at Ramapo College on May 17, 2010 and sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education. As with all our workshops, support was also received from the Gumpert Foundation.

Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, the former Director of the Righteous Among the Nations program at Yad Vashem, Israel was the keynote speaker. Now living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Dr. Paldiel in his talk, “Rescue and Resistance in the Holocaust: What Lessons Can Be Learned,” focused on what he and colleagues at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance authority, learned about nature and motivation of Holocaust rescuers. Given that especially in Poland the Nazi authorities immediately executed anybody hiding or abetting Jews, persons who did so were extraordinary individuals. As Paldiel explained, they were even sometimes even people like Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, one of the founders of the Polish resistance group Zegota established to save Jews, who described herself as a nationalist and an anti-Semite. In her mind, Paldiel made clear, there was no inconsistency in her behavior, since as a Christian she believed every human being has the right to live and “?¦be loved by his fellow men.” Kossak-Szczucka, according to Paldiel, like so many other rescuers in a sense “stepped out.” She had had enough and became a new person.

Next on the agenda was Frances Flannery who offered workshop participants strategies and tips from her many years of experience teaching about rescue and resistance in her Social Studies classes at South Plainfield High School. Familiarity with student thinking, she told participants, has led her to believe that a discussion of bystander behavior can be a very effective entry point for a discussion of rescue in genocide. It gets students reflecting very quickly on what motivates an individual, despite the risks, to come to the aid of a fellow human being. In similar fashion to Paldiel, she pointed out that it is crucial for students to understand that people can go against type and do the right thing. It can trigger students, she emphasized, to modify their behavior even on a daily basis.

An expert on Holocaust and genocide studies, Fran Flannery attended the Belfer Conference at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and completed the Master Teacher Institute for Holocaust Educators at Rutgers University. She also participated in the 2006 New Jersey Holocaust Commission study tour to Holocaust sites in Europe.

Concluding the workshop was Charles Roman of Teaneck, New Jersey who as a teenager fled with his mother fled to France in 1939. You could have heard a pin drop as Mr. Roman told of his odyssey through France and Italy until he and his mother were able to make their way to Rome on June 4, 1944, when it was liberated by American troops. Namely, as Mr. Roman recounted, in those five years he was cared for by nuns in a hospital, for two years placed in a Jewish-run children’s home in mother were instructed to return to Austria, but they ignored the authorities and made their way to Paris, whereupon Mr. Romans’s mother then placed him in the care of the OSE. From November 1939 through May 1941, as Mr. Roman explained, he lived at the Chabannes children’s home in the Departement Creuse, hid under an assumed identity in a fascist work camp until he was about to be unmasked, when he fled to join his mother in the Italian-occupied mountain village of St Martin Vesubie in Alpes-Maritime. It was from there that Mr. Roman and his mother began their trek across the mountains into Italy, where they found refuge in Valle Stura, where local villagers lent considerable assistance to the 40-50 Jewish refugees who were hiding in the area.

Mr. Roman illustrated his story with photographs that he and his mother took to document their flight. Also shown was a preliminary copy of A Pause in the Holocaust, a film by Andre Waksman, that tells the tale of how St Martin Vesubie became a refuge for assorted group of 2,500 Jews from Nice, and how they were forced to flee in when the Nazis occupied the area following the surrender of the Italians in June 1943.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Exhibition from U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Accompanying Programs Bring Alive Story of Local Hero and Rescuer - September 1 - October 8, 2010

EXHIBITION FROM U.S. HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMS BRING ALIVE STORY OF LOCAL HERO AND RESCUER

(MAHWAH, NJ) – A traveling exhibitionfrom the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Varian Fry, Assignment: Rescue, 1940-1941,” was on display at Ramapo College from September 1 through October 8 in the Pascal Gallery, Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts.

The exhibition is sponsored by Ramapo College’s Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the Berrie Center Art Galleries and the Committee to Honor Varian Fry (Ridgewood). The exhibition and all events associated with it were free and open to the public. Bringing “Assignment Rescue” to Ramapo was made possible thanks to a generous donation from Lauren Gross, Vice Chair of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Advisory Board.

“Varian Fry, Assignment: Rescue, 1940-1941″through text and photographs related the story of an unlikely hero from Ridgewood, New Jersey who became the first American, and one of only three, to be designated “Righteous Among the Nations,” an award from Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, that honors non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

Fry was instrumental in rescuing some 2,000 persons from Nazi oppression. Although Fry’s original assignment on behalf of the Emergency Rescue Committee (now the International Rescue Committee) was to bring a group of 200 refugee artists and intellectuals out of Nazi-controlled Europe, he unilaterally widened his mission upon his arrival in Marseilles when he recognized how many more people needed his help. As a result, he was responsible for saving not only the likes of Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, and Hannah Arendt, but also a large number of ordinary Jews who were in immediate danger of Nazi persecution.

Fry ignored repeated entreaties from the American government to return to the United States. In September 1941, the Vichy French government finally ousted him for “protecting Jews and anti-Nazis.” Although most of the recognition Fry received was posthumous, shortly before his premature death in 1967 he was inducted into France’s Legion of Honor.

Born in New York City on October 15, 1907, Fry was raised as the only child of Arthur and Lillian Mackey Fry in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His father worked on Wall Street; his mother had been a public school teacher. His parents sent him to the Hotchkiss School, though he was not happy there and completed his secondary education at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. He attended Harvard University, from which he graduated during the depths of the Great Depression.

Attended by more than 70 guests, a reception for “Varian Fry, Assignment: Rescue, 1940-1941″was held on the evening of September 15. The principal speaker was Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, former director of Yad Vashem’s Department of the Righteous, who elaborated on Fry’s humanitarian mission, especially how bucked authority and consistently displayed courage and intelligence in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Preceding Paldiel was Catherine Taub, chair of the Committee to Honor Varian Fry (Ridgewood), who spoke about her organization’s efforts to recognize Fry’s achievements in his own country. She introduced the audience to Ms. Jeanette Berman of Saddle River, who as a young girl and with her family was saved by Fry.

Several additional programs were scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition. On September 27, Rosemary Sullivan, professor of English at University of Toronto and Fellow, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, gave a talk with title, “Lives on the Line: Varian Fry and the Artists He Saved at the Villa Air-Bel” and on October 4, 7:15 p.m.-Sheila Isenberg, author and professor of English at Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, spoke on “The Intellectual as Hero: Varian Fry and his Feat of Rescue.”

Like Paldiel, both speakers emphasized Fry defiant and upstanding nature. They also stressed how the time spent in France carrying out his difficult mission of rescue was probably the most meaningful part of his life. A brilliant organizer and a talented writer who had a wide understanding of the arts and international affairs who was also by nature outspoken, he was never subsequently able to put his ample gifts to good use.

return to top Return to Top Icon

New Book on Aftermath of Armenian Genocide Discussed - October 7, 2010

NEW BOOK ON AFTERMATH OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DISCUSSED

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Michael Bobelian, an acclaimed author, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey on October 7 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian National Committee of New Jersey.

Bobelian spoke about his recent book, “Children of Armenia: a Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justice.” Recently published by Simon and Schuster, it chronicles the aftermath of the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide, explaining how and why the Armenian Genocide disappeared from memory and uncovering, for the first time, the Armenian response to this tragic crime. In particular, it untangles the ongoing struggle between historic truth and geopolitical “pragmatism” of successive U.S. administrations.

As Bobelian pointed out, from the outset the sympathies of the American people were with the victims, and there was no doubt about who was responsible. The U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and other American diplomats as well as missionaries reported extensively on what they saw and heard on the ground. The unfolding tragedy of what was befalling the Armenians of Ottoman Turkey. Thanks to the reports of the New York Times and other newspapers, the American people were fully informed. Public support was mobilized and a massive fundraising effort was undertaken that spawned an extensive relief effort in the countries to which Armenian survivors were driven or fled. A paradigm of inaction in the face of Turkish intransigence was established that has lasted to the present day.

Yet, when the war was over, as Bobelian demonstrated, the U.S. and her allies failed to hold the perpetrators to account. The increasingly important role newly created Republic of Turkey as the gateway to the Middle East took precedence over the pursuit of justice. Realpolitik triumphed and philanthropic efforts assuaged popular guilt.

For the Armenian survivors of the Genocide, Bobelian emphasized, restarting their shattered lives was the order of the day. Lobbying the American or other governments to pressure the Turkish authorities to acknowledge the Genocide, punish the perpetrators or agree to pay reparations was not really on their agenda. They wanted to establish families, re-build their livelihoods, and revive communal life. They swallowed the pain of losing family and friends as well as property. Not even their children heard the horrors they experienced.

Michael Bobelian, a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, is a lawyer, journalist, and grandson of Genocide survivors. His work has appeared in Forbes.com, American Lawyer, and Legal Affairs magazine and featured on NPR’s Leonard Lopate show. In addition to having been a visiting professor at the American University of Armenia (2005), Michael Bobelian has held positions at the New York Law Journal (2003-2005) and the New York-based law firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP (1998-2002). He resides in New York City with his wife and daughter.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Noted Author, Attorney and Holocaust Survivor Louis Begley Gives Second Annual William K. Gumpert Lecture on Human Rights and Genocide - October 14, 2010

NOTED AUTHOR, ATTORNEY AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR LOUIS BEGLEY GIVES SECOND ANNUAL WILIAM K. GUMPERT LECTURE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENOCIDE

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Louis Begley, the author of Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (Yale University Press, 2009), delivered the second annual William K. Gumpert Memorial Lecture on Human Rights and Genocide at Ramapo College of New Jersey on October 14. The topic of Begley’s talk was “In Defense of Human Rights: Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters.”

The event is sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and supported by a grant [made to the Ramapo College Foundation for the Center’s benefit] in memory of California attorney and longtime Center benefactor William K. Gumpert, who passed away in the fall of 2007. It is supported by the Gumpert Foundation, established under a bequest before his passing, which fosters a series of initiatives in Genocide and Human Rights Education at Ramapo College.

In his talk, Begley reflected on how an ostensibly democratic constitutional state with an exemplary legal system could be imperiled when self-preservation and bigotry triumphed over the rule of law and humanity. At the center of his talk was an analytical description of how in fin-de-siècle France the wrongful conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason and the battle for his exoneration was infused with anti-Semitism. It tearing the country apart, Begley maintained, it was a struggle in which the fundamental democratic values of due process, equal justice for all, and the rule of law were. In that way, he posited, the situation bears a resemblance to the post-9/11 environment in our country in which democratic values and tolerance are sacrificed in favor of irrational concerns for security and bigotry.

A novelist and former senior partner at the New York law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, Louis Begley is a survivor of the Holocaust who was born in Poland in 1933 and came to the US in 1946. He attended Harvard University and after a stint in the US Army, Harvard Law School, where he graduated with honors in 1959, after which he joined Debevoise & Plimpton.

In addition to “Why the Dreyfus Affair Matter,” Begley has written seven novels beginning with the publication of his first, Wartime Lies, in 1991 and then The Man who was Late, As Max Saw It, About Schmidt, Mister’s Exit, Schmidt Delivered and Shipwreck. His novels have won numerous awards, have been finalists in the National Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle, and have been translated into fifteen languages. About Schmidt was the basis for movie starring Jack Nicholson. Louis Begley lives in Manhattan with his wife, the French writer and biographer Anka Muhlstein.

return to top Return to Top Icon

AIS Alum and Acting President of Save Darfur Coalition, Mark Lotwis, Sounds Note of Optimism About Preventing Genocide - October 28, 2010

AIS ALUM AND ACTING PRESIDENT OF SAVE DARFUR COALITION, MARK LOTWIS, SOUNDS NOTE OF OPTIMISM ABOUT PREVENTING GENOCIDE

(MAHWAH, NJ) During a whirlwind visit to Ramapo on October 28, AIS alum and then Acting President of the Save Darfur Coalition, Mark Lotwis, spoke to several audiences about the possibility of stemming further violence and human rights violations in the troubled African nation of Sudan. The idea to bring Mark to campus came from one of his mentors at Ramapo, Professor of Political Science and International Studies, Cliff Peterson.

The primary purpose for Mark’s visit was a dinner hosted by President Peter P. Mercer and Dr. Jackie Ehlert-Mercer at Havemeyer House and attended by Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Advisory Board members, activists, and Ramapo College Alumni Association and Foundation Board members. Mark explained how the Save Darfur Coalition has become influential in shaping not only U.S. policy on preventing genocide, but also, in a more subtle and indirect way, inducing restraint on the part of Sudanese government.

Drawing on what he experienced during his recent fact-finding trip to Sudan, Mark explained in explained how current anxiety hinges on whether the Bashir government in Khartoum will allow referenda in South Sudan and neighboring Anyei, to go ahead as planned in January, let alone accept an outcome in favor of secession. Furthermore, as Mark stressed, it is not just the outbreak of violence in southern Sudan that threatens the peace. Also in Darfur, the government, either directly through its military or indirectly through the notorious Janjaweed militia, could easily resume attacks on civilians.

The talk, which Mark illustrated with video and photos that he took at the U.N.-sponsored camps in Darfur for Internally Displaced persons and at meetings with Darfuri leaders, was followed by a lively Q&A session. In response to several questions about the Obama Administration’s efforts to maintain peace and curbing Human Rights abuses in Sudan, Mark recounted the gist of a meeting between President Obama and advocacy groups in New York during the U.N. General Assembly. He emphasized how he and other attendees came away with the impression that the President was both well informed about developments in the region and determined that his Administration would do everything within the power to prevent any renewed outbreak of violence. In this regard, Mark pointed out, it was crucial for the Administration to appoint a high-level envoy dedicated exclusively to Darfur. In his estimation, it would constitute a signal to Sudan and its supporters in the international community that the United States was fully committed to protecting the people of Darfur from further attacks and seeing the various disputes in the region resolved peacefully one and for all.

Mark conveyed essentially the same message earlier, when he spoke to Dr. Michael Riff’s “Paradigms of Genocide” class. As in his later appearance, questions arose not only about what the Obama Administration could do, but what ordinary Americans, including students, could do to help prevent genocide. Mark was, thereby, provided with the perfect opportunity to announce that as of November 1, 2010 The Save Darfur Coalition and the student-founded Genocide Intervention Network would be merged into one single organization that will harness the power of its constituencies to influence the American government as well as international organizations and corporations to utilize their diplomatic and financial influence to help eradicate the scourge of genocide and large-scale atrocities. As part of that merger, Mark has, in the meantime, resumed his previous post as Senior Director of Campaign Advocacy.

More effectively harnessing student activism in preventing genocide was the topic of a subsequent meeting that Mark had with several AIS students wanting to revive the campus Save Darfur Club. He put them in touch with student leaders from several campuses on how to proceed further. One of the alternatives would be for the Ramapo students to form a core chapter of STAND (Students Taking Action Now Darfur)- the student-led division of the Genocide Intervention Network, that, to quote from its mission statement, “envisions a world in which the international community protects civilians from genocidal violence and elected officials are held accountable for their action, or inaction, in the face of genocide.” All indications point to a STAND core chapter being formed by the spring semester.

Mark’s visit to Ramapo also bore fruit in another respect. At the invitation of Dean Hassan Nejad, Mark is becoming a member of the AIS Alumni Advisory Board. As a consequence, AIS students and faculty can look forward to seeing more of him in the future.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Film About Cambodian Killing Fields Screened at Ramapo College of New Jersey - November 8, 2010

FILM ABOUT CAMBODIAN KILLING FIELDS SCREENED AT RAMAPO COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY

(MAHWAH, NJ) – Rob Lemkin, director and co-producer of the film “Enemies of the People,” winner of the World Documentary Special Jury Price at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, screened and led a discussion of the film at Ramapo College of New Jersey on November 8. In the meantime, “Enemies of the People” has joined 10 other films on the short list for an Academy Award in the full-length feature category.

The film centers on Sambath, a journalist whose family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, who spends a decade making friends with the people who perpetrated the Killing Fields. He obtains groundbreaking accounts from the notorious Brother Number Two and grassroots killers and gains a new and terrifying perspective on the genocide. He is also the documentary’s co-producer.

From the foot soldier perpetrators to Pol Pot’s right-hand man, the notorious Brother Number Two, Sambath records shocking testimony never before seen or heard. Having neglected his own family for years, Sambath’s work comes at a price. But his is a personal mission. He lost his parents and his siblings in the Killing Fields. Amidst his journey to discover why his family died, we come to understand for the first time the real story of Cambodia’s tragedy. Moreover, as Lemkin pointed out during Q&A, In slowly discovering the truth of what happened in Killing Fields may serve justice and the people of Cambodia better than courtroom trials of elderly perpetrators whose chief defensive strategy is silence.

Rob Lemkin is the founder and director of Old Street Films. He has produced and directed over 50 documentaries for BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Sky, The History Channel (US) and Arts & Entertainment. He has won numerous awards in Britain and abroad, and his work has appeared in major documentary strands for C4, BBC and ITV. He has made several films about the history and politics of Asia including “The Real Dr Evil” (BBC/Arts & Entertainment 2003), “Who Really Killed Aung San?” (BBC2 1997), “Malaya: The Undeclared War” (BBC2 1998), and “China: Handle with Care (C4 2001) Bearers of the Sword” (C4 2002).

return to top Return to Top Icon

Panel At Ramapo College on Apology, Justice and Reparations in Confronting the Armenian Genocide - November 11, 2010

PANEL AT RAMAPO COLLEGE ON APOLOGY, JUSTICE AND REPARATIONS IN CONFRONTING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

(MAHWAH, NJ) – A panel discussion took place at Ramapo College of New Jersey on November 11 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian National Committee of New Jersey to consider issues related to apology, justice, and reparations with regard to the Armenian Genocide.

Titled “From Democracy to Justice: Turks, Kurds, and Armenians in the 21st Century,” the panel assessed recent efforts by Armenian, Turkish, and other scholars to make the Armenian Genocide an issue of justice.

More and more Turkish journalists and scholars have come to view the recognition of the deportation and massacres of Armenians as an important step towards the democratization of Turkey and a litmus test of their country’s freedom of speech. On the other hand, for the victims and descendants of the Genocide, the concept of democracy factors less importantly than Turkey finally admitting to the Genocide and making amends through reparations.

The four speakers who comprised the panel have all spoken in Turkey about issues related to apology, justice, and reparations:

Bilgin Ayata is completing her Ph.D. at the department of political science at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Her research interests include the politics of displace- ment, trans-nationalism, social movements, and migration. Her dissertation examines the displacement of Kurds in Turkey and Europe. She currently lives in Berlin, from where she participated on the panel via Skype.

Ayda Erbal is writing her dissertation in the department of politics at New York University. She teaches two advanced undergraduate classes, “International Politics of the Middle East” and “Democracy and Dictatorship,” as adjunct professor of politics. Her work focuses on the politics of changing historiographies in Turkey and Israel. She is interested in democratic theory, democratic deliberation, the politics of “post-nationalist” historiographies in transitional settings, and the politics of apology.

Levin Marashlian is a professor of History at Glendale Community College in California, teaching Armenian history and Diaspora current affairs, as well as Middle Eastern, Russian, and U.S. history and politics. He has also taught courses at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), California State University Northridge (CSUN), and Los Angeles Valley Community College.

He was invited to Ankara in 1990 to participate in the government-sponsored 11th Congress of Turkish History; paper, “Economic and Moral Influences on US Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, 1919-1923,” covered the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath and was published in Ankara by the Turkish Historical Society Press in 1994; also published in Turkish as a book: “Ermeni Sorunu ve Turk-Amerikan Iliskileri,” 1919-1923 (Istanbul: Belge Uluslararasi Yayincilik, 2000.)

Henry C. Theriault is Chair of Philosophy Department at Worcester State College, where he has taught since 1998. Since 2007, he has served as co-editor-in-chief of Genocide Studies and Prevention. His publications include “Genocide, Denial, and Domination: Armenian-Turkish Relations From Conflict Resolution to Just Transformation,” National University of Rwanda Centre for Conflict Management Journal, (April 2009; Politics and Demography: Armenians, Turks and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge, 1991), “Finishing the Genocide: Cleansing Turkey of Armenian Survivors, 1920-1923,” in Richard Hovannisian, ed., Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (Detroit, 1998).

A good deal of the discussion centered on the recent apology campaign launched by some Turkish intellectuals. Ayata and Erbal, in particular, stressed that while the intentions of the activists were laudable and headed in the right direction, the ambivalent wording of their utterances, especially the use of the term ‘Great Catastrophe’ instead of ‘genocide’ made apology sound less than genuine. To bolster her point, Erbal used a video clip from last season’s finale episode HBO Series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. It depicts Larry David failing to clear the way for the broadcast of a Seinfeld reunion show by offering an insincere apology to a network executive. She reiterated the point several times that an insincere apology in such cases is the same and maybe worse than no apology at all.

For his part, Henry Theriault maintained that reparations and justice would ultimately have to be part of the reconciliation process between Armenians and Turks. Not too different from the post-Holocaust restitution, it would compensate the Armenian community for the wealth taken, which in many cases can be traced to the basis of the wealth of Turkish families and business today. It would also include, Theriault explained, restitution for the territories “cleansed” of Armenians and “Turkified” in the wake of genocide. In addition to bolstering the future viability of the Republic of Armenia today as well as Armenian society and culture in the future, Theriault expressed the view that reparations represent the visible and meaningful means for perpetrator groups or their progeny to make amends to victim groups. In his view, apologies without compensation rang hollow.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Fundraiser Dinner Precedes Shanghai Quartet Performance of Early Works of Felix Mendelssohn - December 4, 2010

FUNDRAISER DINNER PRECEDES SHANGHAI QUARTET PERFORMANCE OF EARLY WORKS OF FELIX MENDELSSOHN

(MAHWAH, NJ) In 1936, the Nazis banned performances of work by the composer Felix Mendelssohn because of his Jewish background. Although his manuscripts and other papers were sent abroad for safekeeping, Mendelssohn’s earlier and lesser-known compositions disappeared from the international concert repertoire.

It was in this context that the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies held a pre-concert dinner is association with recital by Shanghai Quartet at the Angelica and Russ Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts on December 4. Namely, the performance included several works of the German-Jewish composer that are being re-introduced to audiences around the world under the auspices of the of the Mendelssohn Project. The program included Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in a minor, Op.13 (composed in 1827, at the age of 17) and his Three Fugues (newly discovered, composed at the age of 11-12).

Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, the Shanghai Quartet has worked with the world’s most distinguished artists and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America and Asia. The Quartet has built an extensive discography that now totals over 25 recordings on multiple labels. It has appeared in a diverse and interesting array of media projects, ranging from a cameo appearance in the Woody Allen film “Melinda and Melinda” playing Bartok’s String Quartet No. 4 (and the film’s soundtrack recording) to PBS’s Great Performances series for television.The Shanghai Quartet serves as Ensemble-in-Residence at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The Quartet holds the esteemed title of visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory in China.

The proceeds of the dinner will go to support the programs of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Lauren Gross and Seth and Dorrie Cohen generously underwrote the dinner. Among the attendees were Ramapo College President Dr. Peter P. Mercer and Dr. Jackie Ehlert-Mercer.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Remarkable New Film on Armenian Genocide by Noted German Director Screened to Great Acclaim - December 8, 2010

REMARKABLE NEW FILM ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BY NOTED GERMAN DIRECTOR SCREENED TO GREAT ACCLAIM

(MAHWAH, NJ) – The award-winning director Eric Friedler screened the English version of “Aghet: A Genocide,” a highly creative and polished documentary on Armenian Genocide, at Ramapo College of New Jersey on December 8 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian National Committee of New Jersey. At the conclusion of the film, the 200 plus people in the audience gave Friedler a standing ovation.

Originally aired on German public television (NDR) last April, Friedler and his cast bring to life the original texts of German and U.S. diplomatic dispatches and eyewitness accounts that documented the annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923. Interspersed among these mesmerizing readings, that derive their power from impeccable performances of the actors and the texts’ uncanny power, were never-before-seen footage of the Genocide and its political aftermath. Aghet (which means in Armenian, catastrophe) also depicts the Turkish government’s international campaign of genocide denial that continues unabated to this day.

As remarkable is Friedler’s candor about the involvement of his own country, Germany, in abetting Turkey’s assault on the Armenians. There is the chilling pronouncement of German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg: “Our only goal was to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, regardless of whether or not Armenians perished.” He also shows how it was the German Government that whisked the Turkish ruling triumvirate into exile and beyond the jurisdiction of post-war justice. Taking Germany’s connection with the Genocide into the Nazi era, the film for the first time ever includes footage of the ceremonial 1943 reburial in Turkey of the remains of Talaat Pasha, who was assassinated in Berlin in 1921. On the other hand, in bringing to life the dispatches of horrified German diplomats and army officers, Friedler shows that the encounter of his fellow countrymen with the Genocide was by no means one-sided.

The screening was followed by a Q&A session that lasted for about an hour. In addition to heaping praise on Friedler, among other topics audience members asked him about the reception of his film among Turks. While there an official wall of silence about Aghet in Turkey, he is hopeful that the underground distribution of the film will eventually help to break government intransigence and encourage open discussion among the population at large. Friedler has been heartened, he indicated, that the film has already been seen by many of the millions of Turks who live Germany and other European countries.

Eric Friedler lives in Hamburg, where he is a Commissioning Editor for Norddeutscher Rundfund (North German Radio). His film credits include “Shattering Silence,” the 2007 award-winning exposé about of the role of Germany’s richest family, the Quandts, in the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In 2000, he made “Sklaven der Gaskammer – Das Jüdische Sonderkommando in Auschwitz,” which tells the story of the Jewish male prisoners at the infamous killing center whose job was to dispose of corpses from the gas chambers or crematoria.

return to top Return to Top Icon

2009 E-News

Using Primary Sources on the Holocaust and Genocide Theme of Gumpert Workshop - May 21, 2009

USING PRIMARY SOURCES ON THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE WAS THEME OF GUMPERT WORKSHOP

Dr. Dennis Papazian, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

(Mahwah) – “Utilizing Primary Sources about the Holocaust and Genocide in the Classroom”was the title of a Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop held at Ramapo College on MAY 21, 2009 and sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education.

Born of a fall meeting of the northern group of New Jersey’s Holocaust organizations, the all-day workshop was conceived to assist middle and high school teachers to apply the best practices in using the wide array of available primary sources to help students grasp some of the enormity of the Holocaust and similar tragedies, such as the Armenian, Cambodian, Rwandan and Darfur genocides. In making validated historical enquiry an integral part of the classroom experience, students will acquire a more in-depth and nuanced knowledge about the forces and processes that brought about these catastrophes in the first place. The overall goal is for students to obtain an understanding of the critical issues of discrimination, citizenship, activism and human rights, so as to prevent similar events from occurring in the future.

Welcoming workshop participants on behalf of Ramapo College was Dr. Hassan Nejad, dean of its School of Humanities and Global Studies. In his view, the loss of life in the Twentieth Century through genocide and the litany of human rights abuses places a heavy and special burden on the shoulders of educators. They must impart this tragic history in such a way as to have a hope of building a better tomorrow. Dr. Paul Winker, executive director of the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, further reiterated this theme in explaining the genesis of the workshop and highlighting its objectives.

The lead presentation was by Dr. Michael A. Riff, director of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, who outlined the objectives, issues and opportunities presented by making the examination of primary source materials an integral part of the classroom experience. This has been made chiefly possible, Riff emphasized, through the availability of archival material of various types on the Internet. One of the clear advantages of having documentary evidence easily available is being able to counter efforts of deniers. Their claims cannot withstand the burden of presenting incontrovertible proof to students that tragedies like the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust actually did occur.

Dr. Hassan Nejad, dean of AIS in welcoming participants drew attention to role of Human Rights and Genocide education in helping to overcome the failings of the last century.

While not discounting the importance of documentary and photographic evidence in telling the story of the Holocaust, Barbara Wind, who spoke next and is Director of the Holocaust Council of MetroWest, made a strong case for “Eyewitnesses as Primary Sources.” Based on her program’s model of “Survivors Speak,” trained experts, or moderators, are paired with survivors to enable them to tell their stories to students in as accurate and coherent a manner as possible. Eyewitnesses, who may also include liberators and bystanders, are instructed on the need to be concise, use appropriate terminology and avoid graphic details, sarcastic humor, and leave the general historical narrative to the professionals.

Not only the abundance of documentary and photographic evidence on various Internet sites, but also the publication of several new collections of archival sources is making it impossible to continue denying the Armenian Genocide. That was the main message that Dr. Dennis Papazian, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a member of the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, delivered in his talk “An Abundance of Proof: Archival Evidence and the Armenian Genocide.” Most recently, for example, the accounts of German diplomatic and military officials stationed in the Ottoman Empire have become more accessible and are being translated into English. By the same token, as Papazian showed, some Turkish historians have courageously published the records of the financial authorities and other bodies that lay to rest the official contention that Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were not forcibly stripped of their property and expelled from their ancestral homes. And, as he pointed out, there are also the voluminous reports of U.S. officials stationed in Turkey, most of them in book form, which confirm the Genocide. The most important is Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story by Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey.

“Utilizing Primary Sources about the Holocaust and Genocide in the Classroom”

Two more presentations followed lunch, which was provided thanks to a generous grant from the Gumpert Foundation that also supports the Center’s other activities. The first was by Toby Kansagor, supervisor of Social Studies and director of REACH (the acronym of the districts talents and gifted program: Reach, Explore Academic and Creative Heights) program in the Hillsborough School District. Entitled “Is a picture worth 1,000 words?” her emphasis was on the importance of reading images relating to the Holocaust and other genocides as texts that have to be analyzed and deconstructed to be optimally useful for students. In addition to photographs, Kansagor used posters and excerpts from children’s books and games to point the way forward for teachers in the classroom.
The final presenter was Florette Lynn, a retired school librarian in the Hawthorne School District, whose talk, “Smashing the Stereotypes: The Role of the Yizkor Book” illuminated the possibilities of bringing the experience of Eastern European Jews before and during the Holocaust into the classroom.

Judging by participants’ written evaluations and later feedback, attendees found attending the workshop a valuable experience that they were eager to share with colleagues back in their home districts.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Early Concentration Camps Revealed by Researcher - Mar. 10, 2009

EARLY NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS REVEALED BY RESEARCHER

MAHWAH – At a talk on March 10, 2009 sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Ramapo College’s History Club, Dr. Joseph Robert White, a research assistant at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, discussed the early development of Nazi concentration camps. The Third Reich, he emphasized, did not invent the concentration camp. Rather, it subverted the legal mechanism of protective custody to rapidly turn a string of detention facilities into a system designed to suppress political and other forms of dissent.

Namely, as a measure allowed under German law, prior to 1933 selective political persecution through mass arrests was permitted. White explained how the Nazis transformed protective custody or, in German, Schutzhaft, into unlimited detention and more, including torture and state-sanctioned murder. White emphasized that from the outset, moreover, Jewish prisoners were exposed to especially harsh and brutal treatment.

White has contributed ninety articles to the forthcoming, seven-volume “United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos.” Volume I of the encyclopedia, which concerns Nazi concentration camps, will be published by Indiana University Press later this year.

A specialist on the history of Nazi concentration camps, he also works with related projects, including the recently opened International Tracing Service and the donated photographic album of Auschwitz SS officers.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Secret Archive of Warsaw Ghetto - Mar. 25, 2009

SECRET ARCHIVE OF WARSAW GHETTO WAS THE TOPIC OF TALK AT RAMAPO COLLEGE

MAHWAH – “Underground History: The Clandestine Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, 1939-1943” was the topic of a talk by Dr. Robert Shapiro, an associate professor of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. Held on March 25, 2009, it was co-sponsored by Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Ramapo College’s History Club.

Shapiro related how the archive was retrieved after World War II from metal boxes and milk cans buried beneath the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. Clandestinely compiled between 1940 and 1942 under the leadership of historian Emanuel Ringelblum, the Oyneg Shabes–Ringelblum Archive creates a documentary record of the wartime fate of the daily lives, struggles and sufferings of the Jews of Poland. Conscious of the momentous events unfolding and conscious of their mortality, Ringelblum and his associates dedicated themselves to leaving behind a record of the tragedy that had befallen them and their people.

Born in Germany to Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors, Shapiro was raised and educated in New Jersey and Maryland. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and completed his doctorate in Jewish History at Columbia University while holding fellowships at the Max Weinreich Center of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and

the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His books include “Holocaust Chronicles,” “Why Didn’t the Press Shout” and “Lodz Ghetto: A History.”

With Tadeusz Epstein, he recently completed editing The Warsaw Ghetto Oyneg Shabes–Ringelblum Archive, of which he also one of the translators. Indiana University Press will publish the work in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Author/Editor Gourevitch presents 1st Annual Gumpert Lecture - Apr. 1, 2009

AUTHOR AND EDITOR PHILIP GOUREVITCH PRESENTED FIRST ANNUAL WILLIAM K. GUMPERT LECTURE:
“HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENOCIDE: THE PAST CENTURY’S LESSONS FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE”

Philip Gourevitch (r.), Editor of the Paris Review, with Dr. Michael A. Riff, Director of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, on Human Rights Abuse in Iraq and Confronting Genocide.

MAHWAH – Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families” and, most recently, Standard Operating Procedure, a collaboration with the filmmaker Errol Morris, delivered the first annual William K. Gumpert Memorial Lecture on April 1, 2009. Earlier in the day, he make with a group of students and faculty for a Q&A session that saw a lively exchange of views on variety of subjects ranging from confronting genocide to coming to terms with torture and other human rights abuse by U.S. personnel in the context of combating terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Written after the Rwanda genocide, in We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, Gourevitch reflects on the meaning of the tragedy through retelling survivors’ stories. In Standard Operating Procedure, he draws from interviews with the U.S. troops, depicted in the documentary of the same name, involved with prisoner abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Gourevitch, whose topic was Human Rights and Genocide: The Past Century’s Lessons for Better and for Worse, considered what the world, particularly the United States, has learned since the Holocaust about confronting genocide. Regrettably, he has come to the conclusion that, even with the best will in the world, intervening to prevent the kind of killing that took place in Rwanda, or is currently occurring in Darfur, is usually just not feasible. There are deep underlying political or other reasons why one group seeks to annihilate or displace another group.

To believe that the United States, even in concert with the United Nations and its allies, has the will or means to put a stop to such heinous acts from taking place once they are under way is at best wishful thinking. Governments only act in such matters, according to Gourevitch, when their vital interests are at stake. The veto power of the five permanent members of the Security Council, he pointed out further, almost always stymies immediate action when a genocidal is actually occurring.

Named editor of The Paris Review in 2005, Gourevitch also is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He received the 1998 National Book Critics Circle award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the 1999 Guardian First Book Award and the George K. Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.

The lecture was the first given in memory of William K. Gumpert, a California attorney and longtime Center benefactor who passed away in 2007. It was supported by a grant by the Gumpert Foundation, established under a bequest before his passing, to foster a series of initiatives in genocide and human rights education.

The event will be sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and was held in conjunction with the Ramapo Lecture Series: “Diversity Perspectives in 21st Century” and the School of Humanities and Global Studies Colloquium series.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Survival of Nazi Onslaught in Ukrainian Cave/Yom Hashoah Commemoration - Apr. 20, 2009

SURVIVAL OF NAZI ONSLAUGHT in UKRAINIAN cave by Jewish families RELATED AT YOM HASHOAH (HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY) COMMEMORATION

MAHWAH – A joint Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance) commemoration between Beth Haverim Shir Shalom and the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College was held Monday, April 20, 2009 at the temple.

Christos Nicola, a caving expert and writer, told the story of how three Ukrainian Jewish families survived the Holocaust by hiding in a cave near their village for 344 days. Nicola, along with Peter L. Taylor, is the author of The Secret of the Priest’s Grotto. A Holocaust Survival Story. He came across the cave by coincidence, began exploring it and found signs of human habitation.

Using the Internet, he located several of the survivors, now living in Canada and the United States. From them he learned how a Ukrainian peasant helped 38 people, including toddlers and a 75-year-old grandmother, found refuge from the Nazis in the cavern’s four underground rooms. One of the survivors of that extraordinary experience and son of a Beth Haverim Shir Shalom congregant, Mr. Sol Wexler, was present at the program.

The evening also included a program of chorale music performed by the choir of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, under Cantor David Perper, and the Ramapo Chorale and CantaNOVA, under the direction of Lisa Lutter, assistant professor of music at the College.

Sol Wexler, a survivor who found refuge from the Holocaust in one of the Ukrainian caves discussed by Christos Nicola. Mr. Wexler speaking with Evelyn McGilloway, a member of the congregation’s adult choir and the daughter of a survivor from Czechoslovakia.

Caving expert Christos Nicola signing the The Priest’s Grotto. A Holocaust Survival Story .

return to top Return to Top Icon

Highly Acclaimed film about Post Genocide justice in Rwanda Screened - October 5, 2009

HIGHLY ACCLAIMED FILM ABOUT POST GENOCIDE JUSTICE IN RWANDA SCREENED

MAHWAH – On October 5th, Ann Aghion screened and led a discussion of her film “My Neighbor, My Killer” at Ramapo College of New Jersey Monday. The presentation was sponsored by Ramapo College’s Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Communication Arts Major with the support of the Office of Student Affairs Platinum Series.

Screened out of competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, “My Neighbor My Killer” charts the impact of the government’s open air Gacaca Tribunals in Rwanda as part of the attempt by survivors and perpetrators alike to reconcile after the genocide that tore apart the country through an open process of admission and foregiveness. Announced in 2001, and ending this year, the government put the Gacaca Tribunals in place with citizen-judges meant to try their neighbors and rebuild the nation.

“My Neighbor My Killer” has been critically acclaimed and was the winner of the 2009 Human Rights Watch Nestor Almendros Prize for courage in filmmaking. It has also been nominated for a Gotham Award in the documentary category. “My Neighbor My Killer” is the fourth and last in Ms. Aghion’s series of films about the genocide in Rwanda, one of which won an Emmy.

A graduate of Barnard College, Anne Aghion lives in New York and Paris.

Her other films include “Ice People,” a study of geologists working in Antarctica that she made in 2006, and her first film, “The Earth Moved Under Him,” that examines the lives of Nicaragua’s urban poor.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Historian Sources Countering Denial of Armenian Genocide and Armenian/Turkish Protocols - October 14, 2009

HISTORIAN DISCUSSED SOURCES COUNTERING DENIAL OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND ARMENIAN-TURKISH PROTOCOLS

MAHWAH –
Dr. Dennis Papazian, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Michigan (Dearborn) and a member of the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey Wednesday, October 14 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

In his talk, “An Abundance of Proof: Archival Evidence and the Armenian Genocide,” Dr. Papazian discussed how the increasing availability of primary sources from archives around the world has made it virtually impossible to deny the 1915-1916 genocide perpetrated against the Armenian population of Ottoman Turkey.

He pointed to the incontrovertible evidence of the genocide not only in the voluminous reports of U.S. officials stationed in Turkey, much of which has appeared in book form, but also in the accounts of German and Austrian diplomatic and military officials stationed in the Ottoman Empire that has more recently been translated into English. Additionally, Dr. Papazian showed how some Turkish historians have played a key role in the process by researching and publishing the records of the financial authorities and other bodies that lay to rest the official contention that Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were not forcibly stripped of their property and expelled from their ancestral homes.

Changing tack, Professor Papazian also briefed the audience on the recent protocols signed in Switzerland that will guide the establishment and development of relations between Turkey and Armenia. Citing the presence of the U.S. and Russian foreign secretaries and their last minute prodding to bring the parties to the table, he emphasized that Armenia was not exactly a willing partner to the agreement. Especially irksome, he pointed out, was the establishment under the agreement of a joint Turkish-Armenian commission to review the events of 1915-23 and which represented yet another ploy to question the historical truth of the Armenian Genocide.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Moving Film About Jews In Peruvian Amazon - November 9, 2009

MOVING FILM ABOUT JEWS IN PERUVIAN AMAZON SCREENED AT RAMAPO COLLEGE

MAHWAH – Lorry Salcedo-Mitrani, filmmaker and photographer, screened and led a discussion of his film “The Fire Within” at Ramapo College of New Jersey on November 9. The talk was sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Ramapo College’s Latin American Studies Convening Group, the Communication Arts Major, with the support of the Office of Student Affairs Platinum Series.

A moving documentary that is a reflection of the survival of spirit, belief, and heritage, “The Fire Within” is the story of the unique Jewish community of Iquitos, Peru. In the late 19th century, among the adventurers who came to the Amazonian rainforest following the great rubber boom, were Jewish men from Morocco. Some of these men settled in the isolated town of Iquitos. There, they married indigenous women, raised families, and maintained names such as Cohen, Pinto, and Khan. Their original Jewish traditions became mixed with indigenous Amazonian life creating a culture of their own.

Following the “discovery” of the Iquitos Jewish community, interested and well-meaning rabbis and scholars have become instrumental in their “return” to a more normative Jewish tradition. In the face of the reluctance the Jewish community in the capital city of Lima to recognize them as their own, a group of Iquitos Jews has undergone a process of conversion, and many have immigrated to Israel. Others have remained in or returned to Iquitos in the hope of helping the community flourish and grow.

Lorry Salcedo-Mitrani was born on the north coast of Peru. He is trained both as a photographer (at the International Center of Photography in New York) and as a filmmaker (at Newsreel, New York University and Armando Robles Academy in Peru).

Salcedo-Mitrani has exhibited his work in 15 solo exhibits and 11 group shows, received several awards and fellowships for his work, and been the subject of two books.

Among the institutions that have his photographs in their collections are Yale University, the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Stanford University and the Museum of African-American Life and Culture.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Kristallnacht Talk on Jewish Literary Response to Persecution - November 10, 2009

KRISTALLNACHT TALK JEWISH LITERARY RESPONSE TO PERSECUTION

MAHWAH – This year’s joint Kristallnacht commemoration of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, held in the congregation’s sanctuary on November 10, featured a talk by Dr. Leah Wolfson of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. An Applied Research Scholar at the Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, she spoke on “Writing for Our Lives: A Jewish Response to the Holocaust.”

Her presentation stressed not only the variety and extent of the literary expression but their moving nature, often having been written by men, women and children often facing starvation, disease and imminent death. The writings ranged from the lyrical poetry of Nobel Prize winner Nelly Sachs composed in Swedish exile to the miniature volume of furtive romantic verse written by an unknown teenage boy in a soon-to-be eliminated East European ghetto. Many of the texts highlighted by Wolfson, of which she often also showed photographs, poignantly document critical moments in the Holocaust from the voyage of the ill-fated voyage of the passenger vessel St. Louis to the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto. For reasons that should not be too difficult to understand through the presentation her audience, composed of members of the congregation, Ramapo College students and community members, sat spellbound throughout the prsentation.

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher and Cantor David Perper conducted a meaningful and moving Service of Remembrance that integrated Dr. Wolfson’s talk perfectly. The Center will again join Beth Haverim Shir Shalom for the observance of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) that in 2010 falls on April 11.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Peter Balakian Discusses New Book - November 12, 2009

BEST SELLING, AWARD WINNING AUTHOR DISCUSSES NEW BOOK ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AT RAMAPO COLLEGE

MAHWAH – Peter Balakian, an award-winning author and Bergen County native, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey on November 12 Under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian National committee of New Jersey.

His third appearance at Ramapo, Balakian discussed his new book, “Armenian Golgotha.” Recently published by Alfred A. Knopf, it is the translation, on which Balakian collaborated with Aris Sevag, of his great great-uncle Rev. Grigoris Balakian’s first-person account of the Armenian Genocide, including his arrest and subsequent trek to avoid death at the hands of the Turkish authorities and their allies.

A uniquely insightful and compelling first person account of the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians, it is far from being simply a chronicle of oppression. Rather it, as Peter Balakian took pains to point out, a multidimensional rendering and reflection on a world that no longer exists. Finally available in English, it will enrich the study and remembrance of the Armenian Genocide for decades to come.

Cognizant of his and the other arrestees’ limited prospects for survival when they were shipped into the interior of the country, Balakian became a leader among his peers. His knowledge of languages, especially German, and penchant for diplomacy enabled him to gain unusual access to Ottoman and German officials and soldiers. Most importantly, perhaps, he was on several occasions able to intervene on behalf of his fellow refugees Balakian used his position to save the refugees from certain death by pleading with their captors or facilitating bribes. In some of these instances and generally to elude his Turkish oppressors, he put his talent to assume disguises from that of an Ottoman soldier to a German engineer to survive by, for example, finding work on the Berlin-Baghdad Railway and at various vineyards.

A native of Bergen County, Peter Balakian earned his bachelor’s from Bucknell University, a master’s from New York University, and a doctorate from Brown University in American Civilization.

He probably best known for his memoir “Black Dog of Fate,” the winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir, and “The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response,” that won the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize. Both books were also New York Times and national best sellers.

However, Peter Balakian is also prolific poet, scholar and educator. The most recent of his five books of poems was “June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000, and he authored “Theodore Roethke’s Far Fields,” published by LSU Press in 1989.

He is also co-founder and co-editor with the poet Bruce Smith of the poetry magazine Graham House Review, which was published from 1976-1996, and is the co-translator (with Nevart Yaghlian) of the book of poems “Bloody News From My Friend” by the Armenian poet Siamanto.

In his academic career, Balakian has been at Colgate University since 1980 where he is currently Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English, and director of creative writing. He was also the first director of Colgate’s Center For Ethics and World Societies.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Film Revealed Human Dimension of Argentina's 'Dirty War'- November 12, 2009

FILM REVEALED HUMAN DIMENSION OF ARGENTINA’S “DIRTY WAR”

MAHWAH – Discussing Juan Mandelbaum’s the film “Our Disappeared” on November 12 at Ramapo College of New Jersey was Gustavo Moretto, the composer of its music. The screening was sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Ramapo College’s Latin American Studies Convening Group, and the Communication Arts Major, with the support of the Office of Student Affairs Platinum Series.

Through the use of rare archival footage the film tells the story of the thousands who were kidnapped, tortured and then were “disappeared” by the Argentine military dictatorship during the 1976-1983 “dirty war.” Director Mandelbaum shares dramatic stories told by parents, siblings, friends and children of the “disappeared”, grieves the tragic losses and demonstrates the generational damage inflicted when brutal regimes attack the fabric of a country.

Pianist and composer Gustavo Moretto, who lives in Leonia, New Jersey, is considered one of the most relevant Argentine musicians of the past 30 years. A native of Buenos Aires, he began his music career as a trumpet player, composer and pianist for Alma y Vida, one of that country’s most famous bands. He later left the band to form Alas (together with Alex Zuker and Carlos Riganti) where he was the composer and keyboard player. Gustavo toured extensively through Argentina and Chile and recorded six LP’s (for RCA and EMI).

A young musician at the time, Moretto left Argentina in 1979 for the United States to pursue formal training in composition. He holds a bachelor’s from the New England Conservatory and a doctorate in Music Composition from Columbia University. He is currently a professor in charge of the instrumental program at LaGuardia Community College in New York City.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Michael Nevins Discusses Eminent Physician Art and Medicine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto/Concentration Camp - December 3, 2009

EMINENT PHYSICIAN DISCUSSES ART AND MEDICINE IN THERESIENSTADT

GHETTO/CONCENTRATION CAMP

MAHWAH – Dr. Michael Nevins, a respected physician and historian of medicine, spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey on December 3 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies as well as the Ramapo College History and Pre-med Clubs.

As Dr. Nevins described, Terezin (or Theriesenstadt), located 40 miles northwest of Prague in today’s Czech Republic, was originally a military installation dating back to 1780, but transformed under the Nazis first into an overflow Gestapo prison and then later to an assemblage camp where Jews were concentrated for varying periods until they were deported to the death camps of the East. The Nazi SS also used it a “model camp,” both to hone the administration of their “kingdom of death” and to show to international visitors how supposedly well the Jews were being treated.

Nonetheless, as Dr. Nevins pointed out, between November 1941 and May 1945 of nearly 160,000 people sent there, some 36,000 died of illness or starvation; the rest, about 88,000, were deported to extermination or work camps with only a few thousand of these surviving the ordeal. When the Russians liberated Terezin in May 1945, there were only about 30,000 survivors, more dead than alive. Within weeks many more died of a typhus epidemic. Of more than 12,000 children who passed through Terezin, only 325 survived.

In showing their sketches and watercolors, Dr. Nevins showed how some of the imprisoned physicians and artists strove to record the truly harsh environment of the camp. He made it clear that their artwork and efforts to heal the sick served not to preserve a bit of their experience for posterity, but as importantly also constituted a form of resistance to the daily regimen of humiliation and inhumanity inflicted by their Nazi tormentors.

Dr. Michael Nevins, was raised in New York City and practiced internal medicine/cardiology for four decades in northern New Jersey. He has written several books about aspects of medical history, especially Jewish medical history, most recently “Jewish Medicine: What it is and Why it Matters” and “A Tale of Two “Villages”: Vineland and Skillman, NJ.”

return to top Return to Top Icon

2008 E-News

Jews in the Culture and Society of Weimar Germany - Feb. 21, 2008

JEWS IN THE CULTURE AND SOCIETY OF WEIMAR SUBJECT OF TALK BY RESPECTED HISTORIAN

(Mahwah) – Eric D. Weitz, author of Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (Princeton, 2007), spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey on Thursday, February 21, 2008 at Ramapo College under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the History Club.

In his talk, “Jews, Culture and Mass Society in Weimar Germany,” Weitz explored the period’s revolutionary cultural creativity in relation to the emergence of Jews as proponents and practitioners of modernity. In the view of Dr. Weitz, this dynamic took place in an environment that saw manifold economic and political challenges as well as the emergence of Berlin, the German capital, as a center of avant-garde art, sexual emancipation, mass culture and modernist architecture. He also probed how anti-Semitism figured prominently in uniting members of the traditional elites with the Nazi-led radical Right to bring down the Weimar Republic. Ultimately, however, Weitz contended that the demise of the fragile republic and its Jewish population was not a foregone conclusion.

Eric D. Weitz is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of A Century of Genocide and Creating German Communism, 1890-1990, both published by Princeton University Press.

return to top Return to Top Icon

German Women and Jewish Refugees in Allied-occupied Berlin - Mar. 4, 2008

GERMAN WOMEN AND JEWISH REFUGEES IN ALLIED-OCCUPIED BERLIN TOPIC OF TALK AT RAMAPO COLLEGE

(Mahwah) – Atina Grossmann, author of Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (Princeton, 2007), spoke at Ramapo College of New Jersey Tuesday, March 4, 2008.

Professor Grossmann described Berlin in the days following Germany’s surrender–the mass rape of German women by the Red Army, the liberated slave laborers and homecoming soldiers, returning political exiles, Jews emerging from hiding and ethnic German refugees fleeing the East. She chronicled the hunger, disease and homelessness, the fraternization with Allied occupiers, and the complexities of navigating a world where the commonplace mingled with the horrific.

Grossmann untangled the stories of Jewish survivors inside and outside the displaced-persons camps of the American Zone of Occupation as they built families and reconstructed identities while awaiting emigration to Palestine or the United States. She also examined how Jews and Germans sought to restore normalcy–in work, in their relationships, and in their daily encounters.

Atina Grossmann is professor of history at Cooper Union. She is the author of Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950 (Oxford, 1995) and the coeditor, with Omer Bartov and Mary Nolan,
of Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century (New Press, 2002).

The talk was sponsored by Ramapo College’s Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Women’s Studies Program with the support of the Office of Student Affairs Platinum Series. It took place in conjunction with Ramapo College’s celebration of Women’s Herstory Month.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Making Films About the Trials of Adolf Eichmann and Saddam Hussein - Mar. 31, 2008

MAKING FILMS ABOUT THE TRIALS OF ADOLF EICHMANN AND SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS SUBJECT OF TALK

(Mahwah) – Daniel B. Polin, president of Great Projects Film Company, Inc., presented “Witnessing for Posterity: The Trials of Adolf Eichmann and Saddam Hussein” on March 31, 2008 at Ramapo College. At that time in post-production, segments of the film the project on the Iraqi dictator were screened in public for the first time. In the interim, the film has been broadcast on Public Broadcasting outlets around the country.

Polin related his experiences making documentaries about bringing to justice two of human history’s most infamous tormenters: Adolf Eichmann as the key official responsible for implementing the attempted destruction of the Jews of Europe in World War II, and Saddam Hussein for tyrannizing and murdering his fellow countrymen as the ruler of Iraq. First broadcast in 1997 and based on actual trial footage and recollections of prosecutors, witnesses and other key participants, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann provides an insightful and haunting window into the nature of agency in the exercise of tyranny.

Showing parts of both films in the same program made it abundantly clear that whereas the Israeli authorities conducted the Eichmann trial in a manner that scrupulously maintained the principles of justice and decorum, the Iraqi government was unable to keep the chaos and animosities of the post-Saddam Iraq out of the courtroom. Right down to his brutal execution, the camera captured the tainted and dysfunctional nature of the Hussein procedural, all the more so because it also revealed the ineffectual role of U.S. advisers in trying to introduce a modicum of justice into the situation.

Daniel B. Polin, who founded the Great Projects Company in 1988, has been producing documentary films for two decades, primarily for public television. He was executive producer of “Great Projects: The Building of America,” a four-part PBS series about the role of public works and engineering in society. He also has been executive producer of Media Matters, an ongoing magazine series for PBS that examines the news media. He was producer of “Resistance,” a documentary about armed Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis; it premiered on PBS in April 2002.

Among the other films Polin has produced are two documentaries about rebuilding the World Trade Center site, “A Year at Ground Zero” and “Return to Ground Zero” (both for PBS); “Crucible of Empire: The Spanish American War” (PBS); and “George Marshall and the American Century” (PBS), for which he won an Emmy.

Polin lives in Manhattan with his wife and two of his children. He has been a junior high school teacher and chairman of the board of his children’s daycare center, Basic Trust. He received his B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and sits on its Writing Seminars Alumni Committee.

The talk was sponsored by Ramapo College’s Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the History Club and the Communication Arts major, with support from the Office of Student Affairs Platinum Series.

return to top Return to Top Icon

April Teacher's Workshop focused on Native Americans - Apr. 15, 2008

APRIL TEACHERS’ WORKSHOP AT RAMAPO COLLEGE FOCUSSED ON NATIVE AMERICANS

Professor Carter Jones Meyer

(Mahwah) – Among the many noteworthy programs that Ramapo College’s Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has held in recent years, last spring’s Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop, “Native Americans in New Jersey – Subjugation, Exploitation, Marginalization and Survival”stands out for its unique subject matter and its success.

Held at Ramapo College’s Trustees Pavilion on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, the workshop was conceived in light of the report concerning issues confronting the state’s three indigenous Native American tribes recently presented to Governor Jon S. Corzine by the New Jersey Committee on Native American Community Affairs. Attended by more than seventy participants from all over the northern tier of New Jersey, the workshop provided middle and high school educators with the ability to teach about the history and culture of Native American peoples of the United States, particularly those in New Jersey.

The overall goals were to enable New Jersey students to gain knowledge about the forces and processes that shaped the history and culture of the Native American peoples in their midst, and to obtain an understanding of the critical issues of discrimination, civil rights, citizenship, activism and environmental justice.

Professor Maria Lawrence.

Professor Maria Lawrence.

Joel Barrett, Ramapo College '06.

Joel Barrett, Ramapo College ’06.

The speakers and their topics were: Autumn Wind Scott, artist and member of the N.J. Commission on American Indian Affairs, “Civil Rights, Education and Environmental Justice in the Spotlight: the Report of the New Jersey Committee on Native American Community Affairs;” Dr. Carter Jones Meyer, professor of History at Ramapo College, “The Appropriation of Native American Culture;” Dr. Maria Lawrence, professor of Elementary Education at Rhode Island College, “The Native American Experience in New Jersey Compared: At Home and Abroad;” and Joel Barrett, a teacher at Old Turnpike School in Califon, New Jersey and an alumnus of Ramapo College, “Bringing the Story of Native Americans into the Classroom.”

Also taking part in the workshop was Dr. Paul Winkler, executive director of the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, who provided an overview of the State Mandate on Holocaust Education and how it related specifically to the situation of Native Americans in New Jersey.

As evidenced by participants’ evaluations and follow-up with presenters, the workshop was a gratifying success and will continue to play a role in bringing high-quality learning about the history and present-day situation of Native Americans in New Jersey.

Autumn Wind Scott, artist and co-chair of the New Jersey State Commission on American Indian Affairs.

Dr. Paul Winkler, executive director of the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Israel Coping with Terrorism - Apr. 28, 2008

ISRAEL COPING WITH TERRORISM DISCUSSED BY LOCAL AUTHOR

(Mahwah) – “Coping with Terror: Learning from the Experience of Israel” was the title of the April 28, 2008 talk by Dr. Leonard A. Cole, author and expert on the intersection of public health and terrorism issues. Ramapo College’s Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Hillel, a student organization, sponsored his presentation.

The author of Terror: How Israel Has Coped and What America Can Learn (Indiana, 2007), Cole described how different segments of Israeli society have coped with terrorism—survivors of attacks, families of victims, emergency responders, doctors and nurses, and the general population. He delved into the impact of terrorist incidents on the survivors and their families and differences between the Israeli and American approaches to mandating preparedness for, and the management of, a disaster. He also discussed exchange programs between Israeli and American emergency response counterparts, including an initiative to establish an International Center for Terror Medicine (ICTM), so that “terror medicine” can also inform U.S. efforts in this area.

Cole is an adjunct professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He is an expert on bioterrorism and terror medicine and author of seven books, most recently The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story.

return to top Return to Top Icon

'Darfur in the African Press' - Oct. 8, 2008

“DARFUR IN THE AFRICAN PRESS” TOPIC OF TALK BY FORDHAM SCHOLAR

Professor Carina Ray.

MAHWAH – Speaking at Ramapo College on October 8, 2008, Dr. Carina Ray, assistant professor at Fordham University analyzed the portrayal of the strife in Darfur in the African press and what the coverage reveals about African understandings, opinions and concerns in relation to Darfur. The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies co-sponsored the presentations with Ramapo College’s History and Save Darfur Clubs.

Dr. Ray based her discussion on a wide reading of African newspapers on the subject and her experiences at a February 2008 conference she helped organize in Ethiopia about Darfur. The conference resulted in a book, Darfur: And the Crisis of Governance in Sudan, that she co-edited with Salah Hassan. Ray also discussed the level of engagement among Sudanese citizens in addressing not only the war in Darfur, but also the larger interlocking political crises that have plagued Sudan since independence.

A specialist in Modern African History, Ray’s other research interests include the racial and sexual politics of colonial rule, the comparative histories of race mixture in Africa and the African Diaspora, the African Diaspora and reverse migration and the relationship between race, ethnicity and political power in post-independence Africa.

She is currently writing a book titled, Policing Sexual Boundaries: The Politics of Race in Colonial Ghana. She is also the author of “Lest We Forget” a monthly column in New African magazine, which reflects on Africa’s past, present and future.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Rough-cut of Film on Encounters Between Young Israeli and Palestinian Women - Oct. 27, 2008

EARLY ROUGH-CUT OF FILM ON ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN YOUNG PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI WOMEN PROVIDED WINDOW INTO THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

Lisa Gossels

Lisa Gossels

(Mahwah) – Lisa Gossels, president of Good Egg Productions, Inc., screened part of an early rough-cut of her film “Imagining Peace” at Ramapo College of New Jersey Monday, October 27, 2008. Over 200 students and community members attended the event.

>Gossels’ full-length documentary film takes us into the world of a group of Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls who participated in a women’s leadership program called Building Bridges for Peace in 2002. The film follows the lives of six of the participants four years after the program ended as, according to Gossels, “the young women cross the threshold from adolescence to adulthood… What makes this film unique is that it is really about what happens to the six participants after the program ends.”

Lisa Gossels is the producer, co-director and co-editor of the Emmy award-winning documentary film, “The Children of Chabannes” (1999). Made with Dean Wetherell, it was invited to 50 film festivals and won 10 awards. A veteran of the New York film industry, Ms. Gossels is a graduate of Brown University and of New York University’s Film Certificate Program.

In addition to the Center, the History Club and Communication Arts Major co-sponsored the program with the support of the Office of Student Affairs Platinum Series.

return to top Return to Top Icon

Jews who Found Refuge in Dominican Republic during Holocaust - Nov. 6, 2008

JEWS WHO FOUND REFUGE IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC DURING THE HOLOCAUST TOPIC OF PRESENTATION AT RAMAPO COLLEGE

MAHWAH – The experiences of European Jewish refugees who settled in Sosúa, the Dominican Republic between 1940 and 1945 was be the topic of a November 6, 2008 presentation by Dr. Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University.

The author of Dominican Haven: The Jewish Refugee Settlement in Sosúa, 1940 – 1945, Kaplan related the settlers’ expectations, adjustments, successes and, ultimately, why most left the Dominican Republic. Her talk on this rare success during the Holocaust and highlighted factors that contributed to the migration to the country: the Dominican government that welcomed the refugees when other governments closed their doors, the American government that agreed to the refugees’ haven in the Dominican Republic and then changed its mind, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee that supported and administered the settlement and the Dominican workers who helped build Sosúa.

Kaplan is the author of The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1904­ – 1938 and National Jewish Book Award winners The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany and Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany. She has also served on the advisory committees of the Museum of Jewish Heritage for its permanent exhibit as well as “Sosúa: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic.”

return to top Return to Top Icon

Kristallnacht Commemoration at Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom - Nov. 7, 2008

STORY OF SURVIVOR FROM LVOV AND MUSICAL PROGRAM MADE KRISTALLNACHT COMMEMORATION AT TEMPLE BETH HAVERIM SHIR SHALOM AUNIQUELY MOVING EXPERIENCE

Cantor David Perper of Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom leading a joint rehearsal of his congregation’s adult choir and the Ramapo Chorale before the annual Kristallnacht commemoration. As in previous years, the Center and the Temple held the joint program in Beth Haverim’s beautiful and acoustically resonant sanctuary, one mile from Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey.

MAHWAH – Holocaust survivor Susan Gold of Englewood spoke at a Kristallnacht commemoration at Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom of Mahwah in November. The evening was co-sponsored by the Temple and the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Friday, November 7, 2008.

A native of the Polish city of Lvov, now Lviv in the Ukraine, Gold lived underground with her parents from 1943 to 1945. During the commemoration, she spoke about her experience as a Jewish child in hiding during the Holocaust, including the unique cultural milieu that constituted the Lvov of her childhood. Before World War I Lvov was a university town and outpost of German culture with a strong Jewish presence. Under independent Poland, it became a contested space in which Jews found themselves caught in the middle of increasing ethnic conflict between the local Polish and Ukrainian populations. Gold, who came to the United States in 1947, is the author of The Eyes Are All the Same, an account of her experiences in hiding and her return to life in post-war America.

The Ramapo Chorale and CantaNOVA, under the direction of Lisa Lutter, assistant professor of music at the college, joined the choir of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, under the direction of Cantor David Perper. Together, they performed a memorable musical program that was simultaneously solemn and uplifting.

Members of the Ramapo Chorale rehearsing for the Center’s annual joint Kristallnacht commemoration with Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom.

The evening commemorated November 9, 1938, 70 years ago, when Jews throughout Germany and the newly acquired territories of Austria and former Czechoslovakia were attacked in the street, in their homes and at their places of work and worship. At least 96 Jews were killed and hundreds more injured. More than 1,000 synagogues were burned and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. In addition, 30,000 Jewish males were arrested and, for the first time in the history of the Third Reich, Jews were sent en masse to concentration camps. This coordinated attack has come to be known as Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass

return to top Return to Top Icon

Gumpert Workshop: Film in Teaching About the Holocaust - Nov. 12, 2008

NOVEMBER GUMPERT WORKSHOP FOCUSED ON FILM IN TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE

(Mahwah) – “Optimizing the Use of Film in Teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide” was the title of a Gumpert Teachers’ Workshop held at Ramapo College on November 12, 2008 and sponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in cooperation with the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education.

The all-day workshop was conceived to assist middle and high school teachers to apply the best practices in using the wide array of available dramatic and documentary films to help students grasp some of the enormity of tragedies like the Holocaust as well as the Armenian, Cambodian, Rwandan and Darfur genocides. The goal was to enable New Jersey students to gain knowledge about the forces and processes that brought about these catastrophes to have the hope of preventing similar events in the future. It is intended for students to obtain an understanding of the critical issues of discrimination, citizenship, activism and human rights.

Professor Joan Stein-Schimke.

Professor Joan Stein-Schimke.

The keynote speaker was Joan Stein-Schimke, filmmaker and assistant professor of communications at Adelphi University, who addressed “Screening the Unimaginable: Film in Conveying the Experience of the Holocaust and Genocide.” Stein-Schimke was the director- writer of the acclaimed Oscar-nominated short “One Day Crossing” (1999). Often used by teachers in the classroom, in the 25-minute film movingly tells the story of a young Jewish mother and her family caught in the confusion and moral choices of the last days of the Holocaust in Budapest.

First hand testimony of those horrible last days of the Holocaust in Hungary came from John Gunzler, who as a boy spent that fateful time in different hiding places in and around Budapest hoping for the moment of liberation. Now semi-retired from the business world, Mr. Gunzler spends a good deal of time now serving on various non-profit boards, including the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. As a result of his workshop presentation, Mr. Gunzler has had a number of requests from different types of schools to relate to students his story of survival.

Holocaust survivor and Center Advisory Board Member John Gunzler.

Also taking part in the workshop were Colleen Tambuscio of New Milford High School, who reviewed with teachers ideas for using dramatic and documentary films in teaching about the Holocaust and genocide, and Helen Simpkins, retired Social Studies Supervisor of the Vernon School District, who discussed the use of film in relation to the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards. Dr. Paul Winkler, executive director of the New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, provided an overview of the State Mandate on Holocaust Education.