At the University of Michigan-Dearborn's College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters. A unique, widely accessible repository of Holocaust survivor oral histories with global impact that connects listenings with the voices of survivors which builds understanding and tolerance; provides a free, online curriculum for teachers looking to teach the Holocaust; and offers free, in-class presentations and workshops for middle and high school students.
A discussion with with Dr. Verena Buser, Associate Researcher Holocaust Studies Program/Western Galilee College Akko, Israel.
Dr. Buser will talk about the everyday life of Jewish children during the Holocaust, as well as other instances where atrocities were carried out against children. She will also discuss why it is important to analyze history through the eyes of children.
WHEN: Monday, January 29, 2024
12 pm EST.
This is a Zoom event and is free and open to the public.
Please join us on Monday, November 6 at 1 pm, when Voice/Vision Archive Dr. Jamie Wraight will be in conversation with award winning journalist Jonathan Freedman as he discuses his book, The Escape Artist. A Jewish Book Club award winner, the book tells the story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who escaped from Auschwitz and his efforts to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear.
A Jewish Book Club award winner, the book tells the story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who escaped from Auschwitz and his efforts to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear.
This event is free and will be held virtually via YouTube and live streamed in the Janice Charach Gallery.
In collaboration with the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and Women in Leadership and Learning (WILL), we will be hosting a virtual performance and chat with the creators of The Amazing Life of Margo Heuman, a play about the first, and possibly the last, lesbian Holocaust survivor to bear testimony. We are very grateful to have Director/ co-author Dr. Erika Hughes and co-author Dr. Anna Hájková join us to share more about this incredible story.
This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required.
Sponsored by the Voice/Vision Archive, The Frank and Mary Padzieski Endowed Professorship in Polish/Polish American/Eastern European Studies and our community partner, The Holocaust Memorial Center-Zekelman Family Campus.
As we celebrate the Festival of Lights beginning Thursday, December 10th through the 18th, please remember that even though we are not able to be together in person, that we will always remain connected. Your Voice/Vision Holocaust Archive family wishes to share this blessing with you and your loved ones.
December 2020, The Ravitz Foundation has granted the Voice/Vision Holocaust Archive support to create an online, asynchronous version of History 387: Aspects of the Holocaust. This online course offers students attending the University of Michigan-Dearborn facts on major events, people, causes, ideas and processes that led to the Holocaust. It also takes into account a wider historical context that emphasizes their connections to nationalism, totalitarianism, racism and industrialized killing as well as religious and pseudo-scientific Antisemitism. Some of the course materials will be made available to the wider public via the Voice/Vision website and could serve as a resource for anyone interested in learning more.
Voice/Vision had the honor of hosting Dr. Michael Berenbaum on October 14, 2018 where he presented “Holocaust Denial, Vulgarization and and Falsification.” We recently found out about a documentary that Dr. Berenbaum has taken part in and wanted to share. Dr. Berenbaum … himself —historian and professor of Jewish studies is one of the historians and curators of various Holocaust memorials provide the historical background as “#AnneFrank” visits a rail car museum exhibit, or the Czech Pinkas Synagogue, where the names of all the Czech Jews murdered in the Shoah are written on the walls.
The film’s purpose is not merely to tell the story of Anne Frank, as many have before, or to visualize her environment and the facts of her life, but rather to look at Anne’s generation of teenagers and open up specifically for young people the difficult questions of how such blind evil could occur, before asking how each of us will respond. This is a mirror for us all.
Through Anne’s diary, survivors’ recollections and historical footage, we can feel as though we are there with Anne.
The narrator declares that the glimpse into Anne’s household is like watching ourselves and imagining how we and our families would react in the same situation. Would we not become irritable, wildly rebellious and drawn into fantasies as an escape from our ‘prison’? Would we pretend, ignore mistreatment, or conform ourselves in order to keep safe and comfortable? Could we still be ‘me’ at all?
Of course, looking in a mirror is not always pleasant, but it is important. If we see bad signs, we can do something to stop them from worsening.
Also, in this ‘mirror’ we feel uncomfortable as we see the footage of embarrassed villagers who’ve been living alongside the German concentration camps without opposing them (for if they had, their lives would surely have been cut short). As a consequence for turning a blind eye to gross evils, the locals are forced by Allied soldiers to enter the concentration camps, view the extreme destruction and personally handle the bodies, granting them proper burial.
“The moral lesson: it’s very much about those little moments… choices.”