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.

 

 

New Resources

Extremism: What you Need to Know in 2021 (1:05)
Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
Our nation has become increasingly polarized, resulting in a rise in extremist views and actions on both the left and the right. ADL, the Museum, and The New York Board of Rabbis present this timely and important discussion about both the challenge of extremism today and the opportunities to push back via civil society, government regulation, and reforms by social media companies.

Featured Panelists: Talia Lavin, journalist and author of Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy; Oren Segal, Vice President of ADL’s Center on Extremism; and Eric Ward, Executive Director of the Western States Center and Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Race Forward
View Program

 

Portraits of Survival, Volume 1: The Holocaust
In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation launched the first volume of their digital publication, Portraits of Survival, a collection of short vignettes that showcases and honors the lives of Holocaust survivors who later settled in South Africa. This powerful and inspiring collection of over 30 short vignettes highlights not only the diversity of experiences of genocide, but also many important lessons and insights into the consequences of discrimination, prejudice, and othering, as well as the power of activism and speaking up.
Read Online

 

Online Programming

Week of February 22

Tuesday, February 23, 2:15 pm CST
“From Segregation to Liberation: African American Soldiers and the Holocaust” / Kean University
In recognition of Black History Month, join us for a conversation about Dr. Leon Bass, an American liberator of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the history of segregated military units during World War II.
For more information, contact Dr. Adara Goldberg, Director, agoldber@kean.edu
To Register

 

Tuesday, February 23, 6:00 CST
“Working Through the Past: German Efforts to Face Their Nazi History” / US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dr. Susan Neiman, director of the Einstein Forum, addresses how the German government and its citizens reckoned with its Nazi past and the Holocaust. She chronicles the struggles Germany experienced as its population grappled with their own belief in German victimhood at the close of World War II, along with the realization that the Nazis had systematically victimized, persecuted, and murdered Jews, Sinti-Roma, Germans with disabilities, and Eastern Europeans. Examining the process of reconciliation and compensation over five decades, Dr. Neiman will discuss how cultural shifts, memorialization efforts, and educational changes brought the Holocaust to the forefront of national conversations in Germany.
For More Information & To Register

 

Wednesday, February 24, 12:00 CST
“The Artist as Holocaust Heroine: Friedl Dicker-Brandeis” / Wagner College Holocaust Center
Elena Makarova, an educator, historian, and exhibit curator living in Israel will discuss Friedl Dicker-Brandeis’ exceptional work as an artist and teacher and her impact on modern art therapy. FDB was killed in Auschwitz yet saved the art of her students, over 4,000 children’s drawings (see, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”).
A distinguished panel of artists and educators will offer comments following her talk, moderated by Prof. Lori R. Weintrob, Wagner College Holocaust Center.
For More Information & To Register

Wednesday, February 24, 3:30 pm CST
“So You Think You Know Anne Frank?” / Kean University
Participants will work with Holocaust theatre historian and educator, Dr. Samantha Mitschke, to look at four different stage adaptations of The Diary of Anne Frank. Attendees will examine contemporary approaches to the Diary that encourage students to think about Anne and her story in new ways.
For more information, contact Dr. Adara Goldberg, Director, agoldber@kean.edu
To Register

 

Wednesday, February 24, 7:00 pm CST
“The Politics of Memory: Holocaust Distortion in Poland” / Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum
Poland has long struggled to come to grips with its role in the Holocaust, as both victim and perpetrator. Its 2018 law banning statements that accuse the Polish state and nation of complicity in Nazi crimes was just one act of many in its history of obscuring the participation of Polish collaborators in the murder of Jews. Dr. Jan Grabowski, a distinguished Holocaust historian, has been an outspoken critic of Poland’s distortion of history, subsequently facing harassment and even death threats. Just this month, a Polish court ordered Grabowski and fellow historian Barbara Engelking to apologize for saying a Polish village mayor collaborated with the Nazis during World War II in their recent scholarly work, Night Without End. They are appealing the decision. Cases such as this one can have a devastating effect on Holocaust scholarship. Join us for a discussion of the politics of Holocaust memory in Poland and the consequences of burying the past.
For More Information & To Register

 

Thursday, February 25, 1:00 pm CST
Exhibition Launch, “Death Marches: Evidence and Memory”/ The Wiener Holocaust Library-London
The Library’s upcoming exhibition uncovers how forensic and other evidence about the death marches has been gathered since the end of the Holocaust. It chronicles how researchers and others attempted to recover the death march routes – and those who did not survive them. 

The launch event will include a gallery walk-through, short talks by the co-curators and other guest speakers.
For More Information & To Register

 

Sunday, February 28, 11:30 am CST
“Jewish Women, Jewish Identity and Jewish Response to the Holocaust” / Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY
There is a Jewish character to the response of Jewish women during the Holocaust. Although prewar Jewish community life was dominated by men, when men and women were separated by the Nazis during the Holocaust, many women took the initiative, taking risks to express their Jewish identity even when it was forbidden to do so. Even women who were not religiously observant responded within the context of Jewish history, culture and values. All knew that they were persecuted because they were Jews, and they responded as Jews to this persecution.
For More Information & To Register

 

Week of March 1

Monday, March 1, 6:30 pm CST
“Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis” / Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
Why did ordinary people choose to follow Hitler? It remainsone of the many haunting questions asked in the aftermath of the Holocaust. How is it that millions of people came to accept and support the tenets of aracistideology that drove Hitler’s quest for power in 1933, colored everything in the Third Reich, and eventually led to a genocide of unprecedented scale? It was a following that transformed him, however briefly,into one of themost powerful leaders in the world.

Robert Gellately’s Hitler’s True Believers posits that Hitler became a kind of representative figure for ideas, emotions, and aims that he shared with thousands, and eventually millions, of true believers who were of like mind. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with award–winning author Robert Gellately as we strive to understand the ideologies that propelled Hitler to power, those who became his true believers,and how Hitler’s strategies relate to today.
For More Information & To Register

 

Week of March 8

Sunday, March 7, 3:00 pm CST
“Bulgarian Miracle” / Sousa Mendes Foundation
In 1943, during the darkest times of human history, a handful of people in tiny Bulgaria stood up against Hitler… and succeeded. This is a true story about the remarkable rescue of 49,172 people — the entire Jewish population of Bulgaria. Plamen Petkov‘s documentary film “49,172” tells the story.

March 5-8, Watch the film on your own device. A link will be provided to those who register.
March 7, Tune into the program with a panel of guests.
For More Information, To Watch the Trailer, & To Register

 

Tuesday, March 9, 2:00 CST
“The Crime of Complicity: Law and the Bystander from the Holocaust to Today” / Holocaust Center for Humanity
In addressing the bystander from the perspective of a crime of omission, one of the most important questions is whether we are examining a legal or ethical dilemma.

 

Sunday, March 14, 1:00 pm CST
“Dear Fredy” / Sousa Mendes Foundation
“We Jews don’t have saints, but we do have tzaddikim, righteous people, people of tzedek, of justice. Perhaps the word could also be translated as ‘decency.’” –Survivor Zuzana Rosinkova, speaking about Fredy Hirsch.

Fredy Hirsch was a revered Jewish sportsman and youth leader who brightened the lives of children at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Born in Aachen, Germany, he was 19 years old when the Nuremberg Laws were imposed, and he fled to Prague. There he began activities as a sports teacher and youth counselor in the Maccabee Hashomer Hatzair Zionist youth movement, and soon became his students’ object of admiration. Together with members of the underground in Auschwitz, he planned a revolt that never came to pass. Using rare photographs, archival footage, the testimonies of survivors, and animation, “Dear Fredy” is a celebration of a heroic figure who died in the Holocaust fighting for the betterment of others.

March 12-15, Watch the film on your own device. A link will be provided to those who register.
March 14, Tune into the program with a panel of guests.
For More Information, To Watch the Trailer, & to Register

 

Week of March 15

Tuesday, March 16, 3:30 pm – 11:00pm CST
Symposium, “The Holocaust in Eastern Europe: Sources, Memory, Politics” / The Wiener Library-London
This symposium, in honor of Professor Antony Polonsky on the occasion of his 80th birthday, brings together established and junior scholars researching the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.
For More Information & To Register