(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)April 30, 2011

(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.

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