The BHEC is happy to be able to share some of the wealth of online learning that is available from other Holocaust educational institutions during the current pandemic. This list will be updated on a weekly basis for as long as such programming remains available.
The BHEC does not know any other details about this programming. If you have any questions, please contact the hosting institution directly.
Ongoing Podcasts
On the Holocaust / Yad Vashem
“On the Holocaust” brings together historians and experts from Yad Vashem – the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, who present new perspectives on the Holocaust, exploring its untold stories and unknown heroes.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on google podcasts | Listen on Spotify
12 Years That Shook the World Podcast / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Explores stories of real people, the choices they made, and specific moments in Holocaust history from 1933-1945. This podcast is released in seasons, twice-yearly.
Listen on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Week of May 10
Thursday, May 13, 1:00-2:30 pm CST
The Struggle for Holocaust Justice in the Jewish Displaced Persons Community of Föhrenwald, 1945-1957 / JDC Archives
For many survivors, the struggle for Holocaust justice was a decades-long battle beginning in the earliest days of liberation. The majority of Jewish survivors attempting to start life anew remained for years in postwar Europe, and specifically in postwar Germany, in displaced persons (DP) camps. As survivors unable or unwilling to repatriate poured into the US occupation zone, Bavaria became home to a divers Jewish DP community that had survived the Holocaust under disparate circumstances. Using materials from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives and the JDC Archives, this lecture explores how Jewish DPs living just outside of Munich in Föhrenwald, the longest-running Jewish DP camp in postwar Europe, conceived of and acted upon justice for the harms they amd their loved ones suffered during the Holocaust.
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Thursday, May 13, 1:00 pm CST
American Political Leaders and Their Responses to the Holocaust / Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
Featuring Dr. Rebecca Erbelding, Arthur Berger, Dr. Blanche Wiesen Cook, and Adam Hochschild
As the Nazi regime perpetrated genocide in Europe, some political leaders in the United States responded with courage and others responded with indifference. The divergent approaches taken by individuals within the government, especially to the Jewish refugee crisis, are an important part of the story of Americans and the Holocaust. Join the Museum and The Olga Lengyel Institute (TOLI) for a program exploring these divergent approaches and the lessons they can offer us.
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Sunday, May 16, 8:00 pm CST
Laura’s Treasures: Stories Behind Hana’s Suitcase
“Hana’s Suitcase” is the story of a Czech-born Jewish girl, Hana Brady, who was killed at Auschwitz. In the year 2000, a suitcase with Hana’s name written on it was loaned to Kokoro – Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. Fueled by the curiosity of Japanese students, a year long research led us to Hana’s brother, George Brady, who was living in Toronto, Canada, and to the discovery of Hana’s story. The story has been made into a book, play, and a film. Hana’s Suitcase has been traveling to over 1,200 schools reaching approximately 200,000 students giving them an opportunity to learn about importance of mutual respect, compassion, and understanding. On the 90th anniversary of Hana Brady’s birth, we are inviting Lara Hana Brady, Hana’s niece, to share with us the incredible stories behind precious artifacts from the Brady Family archive while reflecting on the past 20 years she has spent together with her father George Brady, an Auschwitz survivor, to have dialogues with children all over the world. While prejudice, discrimination and racism become more and more a challenge we share everywhere, we would like to make this anniversary day an opportunity to ensure respect for the dignity and human rights of all people regardless of nationality, religion, or culture.
For More Information & To Register (scroll down for English)
Week of May 17
Thursday, May 20, 4:00 pm CST
Searching for Survivors: The Fate of the St. Louis Passengers / Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
A Teacher Professional Development Program with Scott Miller.
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Sunday, May 23, 12:00 pm CST
Rabbinic Responses to the Dilemmas of Hiding During the Holocaust / Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
What was the Jewish religious attitude towards the Holocaust, were the Jews expected to sacrifice their lives as in other times, such as during the Inquisition? Was it permissible for a Jew to save his life by blurring his Jewish soul and assuming a Christian identity? Was it permissible to obtain a Baptismal certificate or other false papers, or to wear a cross etc., in order to pose as a non- Jew? Was it permissible to go to Church and to act as a Christian? Was there a difference between a grown-up hiding by Christian institutions, and a young child who may not be reclaimed by his parents or by others after the war, therefore risking his Jewish soul for ever?
Scholar Moshe Tarshansky will present a variety of rabbinical rulings dealing with these questions and others, reflecting the unique difficult dilemmas observant Jews were faced with, in their efforts to withstand the most tragic times.
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Sunday, May 23, 1:00 pm CST
Mendelssohn, The Nazis, and Me / Sousa Mendes Foundation
Felix Mendelssohn was a child prodigy pianist and composer who was famous from a young age. Born into an illustrious Berlin Jewish family (his grandfather was the theologian Moses Mendelssohn who began the assimilation of Jews into German society), Felix was baptized Lutheran, along with his siblings, at the age of seven, in part because at that time Jews in Germany did not have full civil rights. For the rest of his short life (he died at age 38), Mendelssohn strove to unite the two religions in his music, continuing what his grandfather had begun. He became one of Germany’s most beloved composers, and millions of brides have walked down the aisle to his “Wedding March.” One hundred years later the Nazis came to power, banned Mendelssohn’s music in Germany and re-classified his (mainly Lutheran) descendants as Jews, threatening their lives. One of these descendants, the filmmaker Sheila Hayman, decided to tell her family’s story on screen. Her wide-ranging and fascinating film is about the madness of labels and the unifying power of music.
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Week of May 24
Monday, May 24, 1:oo pm CST
Unpacking “The Archive Thief” / Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Jewish historian Zosa Szajkowski gathered up tens of thousands of documents from Nazi buildings in Berlin, and later, public archives and private synagogues in France, and moved them all, illicitly, to New York. Dr. Lisa Leff reconstructed Szajkowski’s story in all its ambiguity in her 2015 book “The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust.” Join Leff and Dr. Jonathan Brent, Executive Director and CEO of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, for a discussion about Szajkowski’s story, the documents he stole, and what it all means for those interested in preserving the past today.
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Tuesday, May 25, 1:00 pm CST
“X Troop” Book Talk / Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
In June 1942, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff devised an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees in the United Kingdom. Called “X Troop,” the unit included a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes from Germany and Austria. Many had lost their families and homes, and would stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. The top-secret unit is the subject of Dr. Leah Garrett’s new book “X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II,” scheduled for release on May 25, 2021. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. Join the Museum for a book launch program with Garrett. She’ll be in conversation with Kim Masters, veteran entertainment journalist, editor-at-large of The Hollywood Reporter, and host of KCRW’s The Business whose father Peter Masters was a member of the X Troop.
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