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Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies
chgs@umn.edu
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Breaking News on the Web
Guatemala's top court throws out the conviction of former military leader Efrain Rios Montt
(Continue Reading)Main architect of Argentina's "Dirty War" dies
Argentina ex-military leader Jorge Rafael Videla dies
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5-17-2013Op/Ed on Guatemalan genocide conviction
Victory in Guatemala? Not Yet
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By VICTORIA SANFORD
5-13-2013Efraín Ríos Montt convicted of genocide
Former Guatemalan dictator convicted of genocide and jailed for 80 years
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05-10-2013World Jewish Congress calls for a ban of public Holocaust Denial
WJC approves resolution calling for ban of public Holocaust denial
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5-7-2013Debating the depiction of a country's historic past
Bulgarian request for street name in D.C. stirs Holocaust debate
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5-7-2013Trial of former Guatemalan dictator at a standstill
Guatemalan court begins to untangle genocide trial standstill
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4-24-2013Former Auschwitz guard identified
Former Auschwitz Nazi guard Hans Lipschis found in Germany
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4-24-2013Poland faces up to a complicated past in a new film
In the Polish Aftermath
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4-17-2013Is how Arabs view the Holocaust changing?
(Continue Reading)Yom HaShoah in Israel begins with event marking 70 years Warsaw ghetto uprising
Israel's Holocaust memorial day begins with event marking 70 years to Warsaw ghetto uprising
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4-7-2013Defendant in Khmer Rouge Trial dies-escaping judgment for war crimes
(Continue Reading)Spanish artist Felix de la Concha offers new way for Twin Cities survivors to share their stories
Portraits and stories from the Shoah
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3-13-2013More Ghettos and Camps Found
(Continue Reading)first Dutch citizen to be convicted in relation to 1994 mass murder of Tutsis by Hutu in Rwanda
Rwandan-born Dutch woman jailed for inciting genocide
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3-1-2013Controversial new Holocaust education initiative
(Continue Reading)Controversial new Holocaust education initiative
(Continue Reading)New book paints a damning portrait of Polish citizens who betrayed and murdered their Jewish neighbors without German orders
Betray thy neighbor: Holocaust historian claims Poles picked up where Nazis left off
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2-15-2013Norwegian court convicts Rwandan for role in 1994 Genocide
Norway: Rwandan Convicted for His Role in 1994 Genocide
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2-14-2013Ex-Dictator ordered to stand trial for crimes of genocide
Ex-Dictator Is Ordered to Trial in Guatemalan War Crimes Case
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1-29-2013Documentary on the Killing Fields and Khmer Rouge Available for Viewing
Enemies of the People
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Snagfilms
1-28-2013Minnesotans Commemorate U.N. International Holocaust Memorial Day
Commemorating U.N. International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Minnesota
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1-25-2013United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses various topics deaing with Anti-Semitism to Syria at Holocaust memorial event.
At Holocaust memorial event, Ban highlights need for courage to do what is right
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1-12-2013Anniversary of the Dakota 38
Little War on the Prairie
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12-11-2012War Crimes are taking place in an obscure conflict in Sudan's southern region
George Clooney, genocide scholars try to highlight 'war crimes' in Sudan rebel war
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12-6-2012Royal Library in Denmark agrees to let Turkey co-arrange an alternative exhibition about the Armenian Genocide
Turkey Pushes Genocide Denial
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12-5-2012Vladka Meed, A Leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising dies at 90.
Vladka Meed, Warsaw Uprising Leader, Dies at 90
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November 22, 2012Op/Ed The Next Genocide: Most likely in Syria.
The World's Next Genocide
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November 15, 2012Right-wing extremist attitudes are on the rise in parts of Germany, particularly in the east, according to a study
Far-Right Attitudes Increase in Germany
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November 12, 2012German police believe that Neo-Nazis vandalized plaques that memorialized victims of the Nazis.
Memorial artwork in German town vandalized on Kristallnacht anniversary
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November 11, 2012
For more on this memorial visit the CHGS web page.Holocaust Memorial for Roma to open in Berlin
Merkel to open Berlin Holocaust memorial for Roma
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October 22, 2012Scholar Annette Insdorf reviews "The Flat" and other new Holocaust films
The Holocaust Haunts The Flat and Israeli Documentaries
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October 19, 2012France inaugurates new Holocaust Memorial
(Continue Reading)How a Nation has Wrestled with the Burden of one of History's Immense Horrors
(Continue Reading)Calling people "Holocaust-obsessed" is the new holocaust denial
A New Slur
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Calling people "Holocaust-obsessed" is the new holocaust denial.Turkey tries to Prevent Armenian Genocide Monument in U.S.
Turkey tries to make obstacles for the settlement of Armenian Genocide monument in Pasadena
(Continue Reading)Photos Donated Anonymously to Documentation Center of Cambodia
(Continue Reading)Holocaust Survivors case against Hungarian Banks Dismissed
(Continue Reading)Situation in Sudan's Nuba Mountains worsens
(Continue Reading)Yad Vashem vandalized by ant-Zionist graffiti
Israel's Holocaust memorial vandalized with anti-Zionist graffiti
(Continue Reading)President Obama speech at Holocaust Museum
Obama, at Holocaust Museum, said 'seeds of hate' must not be allowed to take root in people
(Continue Reading)Trouble in Sudan
(Continue Reading)Latest from the Khmer Rouge Trial
(Continue Reading)Namibia genocide-victims remains to be returned
(Continue Reading)Armenian genocide survivor testimony archived at Shoah Foundation
Shoah Foundation to archive testimonies from Armenian Genocide survivors
(Continue Reading)Update on French genocide law
(Continue Reading)Op-Ed on France and the Armenian genocide law by Rene Lemarchand
(Continue Reading)Nicholas Kristof on Sudan
(Continue Reading)Op-Ed on the use of the word genocide by David Scheffer
(Continue Reading)Report released on Anti-Semitism in France
(Continue Reading)German study says Holocaust education might fuel anti-Semitism
(Continue Reading)North and South Sudan
(Continue Reading)Blog post on Holocaust, Israel and Iran
The Holocaust is a good reason, not a bad excuse, for attacking Iran
(Continue Reading)France's Armenian genocide law to be examined
(Continue Reading)Protests in Turkey on anniversary of Hrant Dink's death
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Taner Akcam on France's vote on the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide - Associate Professor Taner Akcam BBC (YouTube)
(Continue Reading)CHGS director responds to French historian on France's Memorial Laws
(Continue Reading)French pass Armenian genocide bill. Turkey recalls ambassador.
Turkey 'recalls French ambassador' over Armenian genocide bill
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Reclaiming Holocaust Property Deadline Extended
(Continue Reading)German government has agreed to remove the application deadline for application to the Ghetto Work Fund
(Continue Reading)Update on Khmer Rouge Leaders Trial
(Continue Reading)Shoah Foundation adding testimonies from other genocides
(Continue Reading)Court Ruling in Favor of Genocide scholar Dr. Taner Akçam
European Court of Human Rights Rules In Favor of Genocide Scholar Akçam
(Continue Reading)Scholarship announced by Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute
(Continue Reading)Ron Rosenbaum on Alvin Rosenfeld's The End of the Holocaust
Faustian Bargain
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The singular horror of the Holocaust is being lost in exchange for enshrining rare moments of inspiration and universal narratives of sufferingHolocaust Survivor Murray Brandys Passed Away at age 86
(Continue Reading)Update about potential Genocide in Nuba Mountains by Samuel Totten
Crimes Against Humanity and Potential Genocide in Nuba Mountains
(Continue Reading)NY Times Op-Ed piece by Kathryn Sikkink, Political Science U of MN
(Continue Reading)Cambodian painter and survivor Vann Nath passes away
(Continue Reading)New criticisms imply that Jews and Israel are manipulating the Holocaust for political advantage
Michigan professor to discuss 'latest thing' in anti-Semitism
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American Jewish World article featuring Dr. Gabriel Noah Brahm, Jr.
Brahm's lecture, "Holocaust Envy & "Enjoyment" of the Holocaust
The "latest Thing" in anti-Semitism will take place on campus. 9-15-2011.Two Opinions on Anti-Semitism and Academia
Can universities study anti-Semitism honestly?
Op/Ed by Walter Reich, former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumAn Academic War Zone
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Op/Ed by Jonathan Judaken, professor of history at the University of Memphis. Prof. Judaken will be a featured speaker in the Twin Cities in April 2012. Watch for more details soon.-
Turkish court sentences hardliner in slain Armenian journalist case.
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The assassin of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is sentenced. -
Genocide expert calls on Israel to put Armenian suffering before politics
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Israel Charny calls for Israel to recognize the Armenian genocide. From Haaertz. -
In Sudan, Say 'Never Again,' And Mean It
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A Genocide Scholar Looks at Jewish Obligation
Op/Ed by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in the Jewish Daily Forward News from Africa
Rwanda: Dutch Court Sentences Genocide Suspect to Life
Article about Joseph Mpambara's sentencing, All Africa.comSouth Sudan, the Newest Nation, Is Full of Hope and Problems
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Article about South Sudan's independence, New York TimesMass Graves, Remembrance in Eastern Europe
Holocaust symposium in Romania raises awareness on mass graves in Eastern Europe
(Continue Reading)Will there be Justice? The complexities of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
At Opening of Cambodia War Crimes Trial, Anger, Doubt and Suspicion Linger
Time Magazine article on the trial.The truth about the Khmer Rouge is too big for one court case
Opinion piece written by Cambodian journalist and genocide survivor, Thet Sambath filmmaker of Enemies of the People.Khmer Rouge Defendant Challenges Genocide Tribunal
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Defendants claim they have already been convicted and pardoned.-
Eva Schloss: Anne Frank's step-sister remembers the Holocaust
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Short video clip featuring Eva Schloss talking about her experiences during the Holocaust. -
Cambodia Teaches New Generation About Khmer Rouge Atrocities
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A video report produced by University of California, Berkeley's School of Journalism students Jake Schoneker and Mark Oltmanns on PBS News Hour. -
Eichmann on Trial
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Exhibition on the Eichmann trial now on display at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris. Review of Books
A New Approach to the Holocaust
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Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale and currently a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna reviews four new books on the Holocaust in the June issue of the New York Review of Books.Featured Gallery Walk artists present "We're In America Now"
"We're in America Now" A Visual Memoir
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Wednesday, June 22, 7:30pm
St. Paul JCC
Free and open to the communityHate in the Past Tense: Understanding the Origins of Armenian Genocide Denial
(Continue Reading)A FILM UNFINISHED now streaming on Netflix and available for loan from CHGS
(Continue Reading)The Thinking Person's Guide to the Holocaust
The Jewish Daily Forward compiled a list of valuable artwork and literature about the Holocaust as suggested by readers and several scholars as a way to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and provide an entry to the subject.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide Journals
We have had several inquiries about journals available in the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Below is a list of the journals that the CHGS subscribes to and are available in our resource library. All the journals offer articles on-line and are available by subscription. This list is also available on the CHGS Publications web page.
PRISM
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Yeshiva University, Azrieli Graduate School publishes PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators, with funding from the Rothman Foundation. Prism offers educators a practical, scholarly resource on teaching the Holocaust at the high school, college and graduate school levels.The Eichmann Trial 50 Years Later
On April 8, 2011 it was announced that two new YouTube Channels would be launched containing the film track of the Eichmann Trial held by the Israel State Archives to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the opening of the trial on April 11. The channels - one with the original soundtrack, enhanced for better sound, in Hebrew, German and Yiddish, and the other with simultaneous English translation - are the result of intense cooperation between Yad Vashem and the Israel State Archives, in collaboration with Google.
Read the press release Eichmann Trial Uploaded to YouTube: 4-8-2011.
To visit the YouTube channel in English click here and in Hebrew here.
Further Resources:
USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia: The Eichmann Trial
USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia: Adolf EichmannNew Publication:
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The Eichmann Trial by Deborah E. Lipstadt
NY Times Book Review: Why the Eichmann Trial Really Mattered: 4-10-20112011 Twin Cities Yom HaShoah Commemoration
Sunday, May 1, 2011
7:00 p.m.
Bet Shalom Congregation
13613 Orchard Rd., Minnetonka, MN 55305The commemoration will reflect the theme, Legacy: The Writing of Survivor Stories, which will illustrate the importance of Holocaust survivors sharing their stories with future generations.
For more information about the commemoration please visit the JCRC website.
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is commemorated every year on the Hebrew calendar on the 27th day of Nisan. To learn more about Yom HaShoah click here.
Days of Remembrance in the United States
(Continue Reading)Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day
Hokehankisd (Requiem Service) at 7:00 p.m.
Program begins approximately 7:15 p.m.
St. Sahag Armenian Church
203 N. Howell St., Saint PaulKeynote speaker
Bruno Chaouat, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide StudiesSponsored by the Armenian Cultural Organization of Minnesota.
(Continue Reading)Indiana U. parley tackles 'post-Holocaust anti-Semitism'
Bruno Chaouat, CHGS director, presented his paper "The Demonization of Israel in France: Literary and Ideological Perversions" as part of the conference.
Indiana U. parley tackles 'post-Holocaust anti-Semitism'
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
04/03/2011
The Jerusalem PostInternational conference led by anti-Semitism scholar Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld will also discuss questions about anti-Jewish hostility within Israel.
Rosenfeld told The Jerusalem Post ahead of the opening that, "We're living at a time of heightened anti-Semitism, but today's anti-Semitism is not well understood. Scholars have given a great deal of attention to earlier forms of Christian religious anti-Semitism and to Nazi-style racial anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust.
Read full article here.
(Continue Reading)Suit Over "Unreliable" Website Dismissed
This is an important victory for scholars and educators all over the United States. I want first to express my gratitude to General Counsel at the University of Minnesota, and in particular to Brent Benrud, for his outstanding work on this case. I applaud Judge Frank's decision, as it bears witness to the high esteem in which the judicial system in this country holds academic freedom. This outcome honors the principles of freedom of speech, and is a remarkable example of the law's protection of free inquiry into matters of public interest.
Bruno Chaouat, CHGS director
For more information on the law suit, please click here.
(Continue Reading)Court dismisses Turkish Coalition lawsuit filed against the University of Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/30/2011) --U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank today dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Turkish Coalition of America against the University of Minnesota. The lawsuit arose from materials posted on the university's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) website, including a list of websites CHGS considered "unreliable" for purposes of conducting scholarly research. The Turkish Coalition claimed the university violated its constitutional rights, and committed defamation, by including the Turkish Coalition website on the "unreliable" websites list.
(Continue Reading)Screening of No. 4 Street of Our Lady
Special screening of the award-winning documentary
No. 4 Street of Our Lady
Sabes Foundation Minneapolis Jewish Film FestivalTuesday, April 5
7:00 p.m.
Sabes Jewish Community Center
4330 Cedar Lake Road South
St. Louis Park, MNIntroduction and Question and Answer with Jodi Elowitz, Outreach Coordinator Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
No. 4 Street of Our Lady
If your neighbors were being hunted down and came to your door begging for help, would you risk your life to save theirs?No. 4 Street of Our Lady tells the remarkable, yet little-known, story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust, while cleverly passing herself off as a Nazi sympathizer.
Ticket Information or contact the box office at 952-381-3499.
(Continue Reading)"Turkish-Armenian Relations through the Sociological Lens"
Fatma Muge Gocek
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of MichiganThe Ninth Annual Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Lecture
Friday, April 1, 2011
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7:00 p.m.
Mississippi Room
Coffman Memorial UnionCHGS Reading Discussion Group Rescheduled
The third meeting of the Reading Discussion Group, initially scheduled for March 22nd, has been postponed until Thursday, April 14th. The discussion will be led by Dr. Keith David Watenpaugh, historian and Associate Professor of Modern Islam, Human Rights and Peace who teaches in the Religious Studies program at UC-Davis. Dr. Watenpaugh will also present a lecture, "Hate in the Past Tense: Understanding Armenian Genocide Denial's Origins as a Problem of Contemporary Reconciliation" on campus that evening.
We will be discussing chapters 10, 11 and 12 of Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. The excerpts are available on-line on the CHGS Reading Discussion blog.
The group will meet on Thursday, April 14th at 12pm, Room 201A in Wilson Library. Space is limited, and reservations are required. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to chgs@umn.edu with your name, email address and phone number (please put RDG in the subject line), or call 612-624-0256.
(Continue Reading)The Art of Zhen Shan Ren International Exhibition
March 28, 29 and 30, 2011
11:00a.m.-8:00p.m.
Great Hall, University of Minnesota Coffman Memorial UnionThe Art of Zhen, Shan, Ren (Truth, Compassion, Tolerance) International Exhibition is an extraordinarily moving, intimate and inspiring exhibition detailing both an inner spiritual life and an outer human rights tragedy. Realistic oil paintings and Chinese water-colors from mostly Chinese artists give a unique insight into the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, also called Falun
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Dafa.Swimming in the Daylight: Inna Meiman Human Rights Award winners announced
A human rights success story of a friendship between Lisa Paul, a University of Minnesota graduate in Russian Studies, and Inna Meiman, a Russian Jew who was forbidden by her government to access medical treatment abroad. Their story is told in the form of Paul's memoir as a young American living in the Soviet Union who fearlessly advocated to realize the rights of her friend.At the event on March 10, the Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies announced the winners of The Inna Meiman Human Rights Award recognizing students at the University of Minnesota who have made significant personal contributions in the promotion and protection of human rights. Nora Radtke and Morley Spencer became the first recipients of the award, which was presented to them by Lisa Paul.
For more on this story click here.
(Continue Reading)"Light From the Yellow Star: Art Faith Humanity"
8 p.m. Monday, March 14, Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.
"Remain Humane Even in Inhumane Circumstances." The University of St. Thomas Symphonic Wind Ensemble will present "Light From the Yellow Star: Art Faith Humanity," featuring the world premiere performance of a St. Thomas-commissioned work by Boris Pigovat. Also featured will be the St. Paul City Ballet. Dr. Robert Fisch will provide art and commentary.
General admission is $6; admission is free for St. Thomas students (with ID). This event is part of interfaith art pARTners, a Twin Cities festival.
For further information click here.
(Continue Reading)Reading Group "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" Discussion Notes from 2-15 Now available
The CHGS "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" Reading Discussion Group notes from the book "From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust" by Ester Webman and Meir Litvak are now available on the Reading Discussion Group blog.
The final meeting of the 2011 CHGS Reading Discussion Group will be on Tuesday, March 22. The group will meet at 12pm in room 710 in the Social Sciences Building. We will be discussing chapters 9, 11 and 12 from Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News Articles
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
A 21st-Century Statesman
Newsweek
2-20-2011In the age of Twitter-shortened attention spans, fame is an increasingly powerful weapon of diplomacy. How George Clooney is helping to bring change--and a hefty dose of hope--to Sudan.
As Greece seeks closer ties to Israel, anti-Semitism rears its ugly head
International Business Times
2-21-2011While the Greek government seeks to establish closer diplomatic ties with Israel (in the wake of a cooling of relations between Israel and Turkey), incidents of anti-Semitism are rising in Greece, inflamed by the deepening economic crisis.
Italy's first Holocaust museum to be built in Rome
By Lisa Palmieri-Billig
Jerusalem Post
02/22/2011Country was partner, not victim, of Nazis, but hasn't done soul-searching like Germany, says director.
Germany opens its first Reform synagogue since the Holocaust
By Reuters
2-21-2011
Haaretz.comThe synagogue in northern city of Hameln was built on foundations of predecessor destroyed by the Nazis during Kristallnacht.
(Continue Reading)Armenian genocide gave rise to modern humanitarian movement, UC Davis historian argues
CHGS is hosting Keith David Watenpaugh on April 14 as part of our "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" lectures, more information to be released soon.
UC Davis News
2-17-2011One of the 20th century's most infamous atrocities, the Armenian genocide, also should be remembered for fostering the modern humanitarian movement, a UC Davis historian argues in a paper recently published in the American Historical Review.
Establishing a defining characteristic of modern humanitarianism, people at the time "began to reject the idea that suffering was natural or normal and concluded that you could stop human suffering, that we had the intellectual tools, the social reforms, the science and medicine to do it," said Keith David Watenpaugh, an associate professor who teaches in the religious studies program. "It was just generating the international will to do so.
(Continue Reading)International Scholars, Historians and Others Petition in Support
In a gesture of solidarity with CHGS, noted scholars and luminaries, many associated with the Université Paris 7-Diderot, have been signing an online petition affirming the truth of the Armenian genocide. We thank our colleagues for their support. A final decision regarding the dismissal of the "Unreliable Websites" law suit is expected by early April
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News and Articles
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Muslim dignitaries pay their respects at Auschwitz
(AP) - 2-1-2011OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) -- In a bid to fight anti-Semitism and bridge cultural rifts, a large delegation of Muslim dignitaries visited Auschwitz on Tuesday to pay tribute to the millions of Jews and others who were systematically killed in the Holocaust.
Austrian Jews press charges over 'anti-Semitic' Turkish film on Gaza flotilla
Haaretz,com
2-1-2011
By DPAPoliticians and Jewish groups in Austria and Germany criticized action film 'Valley of the Wolves - Palestine' ahead of its release on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Read full articleKhmer Rouge suspects seek release ahead of trial
By Suy Se (AFP) - 1-31-2011PHNOM PENH -- Three top Khmer Rouge leaders made a rare joint appearance before Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Monday to seek release from custody while they await trial for genocide.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust Survivor Henry Oertelt, 90
Holocaust Survivor Henry Oertelt passed away yesterday, January 27 at the age of 90. He will be greatly missed.
"My message is what can happen if hate goes uncontrolled, you have to do everything in your power . . . to see that hatred will not exist anymore. If you absolutely have to hate - hate Hate!"
To learn more about Henry please visit his web page.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News
Monday, January 24, 2011
Killing Hrant Dink Twice
By ZAFER YÖRÜK
Rudaw in English
January 22, 2011"I don't know why the Turks can't admit it, express sorrow and go on. That's the worst. You do all these things to the victim and then you say it never happened. That is killing them twice."
Yad Vashem wishes to educate Iran about Holocaust with Farsi YouTube channel
By Associated press
Haaretz..com
January 23, 2011YouTube channel aims to educate Iranians about the Holocaust, as Iranian President Ahmadinejad reiterates his belief that the Holocaust is a myth.
Foreign Policy: In Ivory Coast, A 'Genocide' Problem
By ELIZABETH DICKINSON
NPR
January 24, 2011Across the board, the rhetoric on the Ivory Coast is escalating. The West African economic community, ECOWAS, says it is set to intervene militarily to unseat should-be-outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo.
Opinions expressed in articles posted do not necessarily reflect the view of CHGS but are essential to the ongoing conversation in regards to the study of the Holocaust and other genocides.
(Continue Reading)"Alternative Narratives or Denial?" Reading Discussion Group Talking Points now Available
The first meeting of the CHGS "Alternative narratives or Denial?" Reading Discussion Group was held on January 11th, 2011. The book discussed was Deborah Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth.
Talking points and questions that were generated through the discussion are now available on the Reading Discussion Group blog.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News
Friday, January 21, 2011
Jewish groups push to find Holocaust mass graves
The Washington Post
By Kirsten Grieshaber
The Associated Press
Friday, January 21, 2011; 10:00 AMBERLIN -- Jewish organizations launched a joint effort Friday to identify, protect and memorialize thousands of forgotten Holocaust mass graves across eastern Europe.
High court declines case on genocide lessons
Armenian groups applaud decision
The Boston Globe
By David Abel
Globe Staff / January 21, 2011The US Supreme Court declined yesterday to hear an appeal of a ruling that state public school guidelines can exclude materials disputing that the mass killing of Armenians in the early 20th century constituted genocide.
(Continue Reading)Middle East Studies Group Urges End to Suit Against U. of Minnesota
Inside Higher Ed
Quick Takes
January 19, 2011The Middle East Studies Association is urging the Turkish Coalition of America to withdraw a lawsuit against the University of Minnesota over materials, since removed from the university's genocide studies website, calling a website of the Turkish group an "unreliable" source for information about the Armenian genocide, which most scholars say happened, and which the Turkish group questions.
(Continue Reading)Conspiracy Theories, Anti-Semitism, and the Delegitimization of Israel
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
January 10, 2011 11:56 AM
The Huffington PostWe are living at a time when conspiracy theories are flourishing. Partly this is a product of the anxieties that suffuse civilization, about the economy, about terrorism, about global warming. Partly it is a product of the Internet, where conspiracies and rumors spread like wildfire and take on an aura of authenticity.
It is likewise not surprising that in this environment, conspiracy theories about Jews are surfacing and spreading in a way that we haven't witnessed for decades. Since at the very core of anti-Semitism as a phenomenon is a conspiracy theory writ large -- Jews are not what they seem to be but are a hidden, poisonous, powerful cabal -- when conspiracy theories are broadly popular they almost inevitably end up focusing on Jews.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust survivor Reidar Dittmann, 88
The St. Olaf professor, a well-traveled Norwegian, helped to develop study programs across the globe.
By AIMÉE BLANCHETTE, Star Tribune
January 4, 2011Every day, Reidar Dittmann would whip through a crossword puzzle to unwind. Then he'd complete Isaac Asimov's Super Quiz in the newspaper with his wife of nearly 60 years, Chrisma. The daily puzzles were about the only time Dittmann spared to sit still, but he had to keep his mind sharp just to keep pace with his legs.
"He was a larger-than-life dad in some ways -- always so busy, working on campus or traveling," Lisa Dittmann said of her father, a longtime professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield. "He had a steel-trap mind and could recite historical dates, royal empires ... even in the hospital and on morphine, he'd be lecturing us about the Danish kings."
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide Articles
The Peto thesis is, at best, an extended opinion piece
By Karen Mock, James Morton and Howard Tenenbaum
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Canadian Jewish NewsWe have carefully read Jennifer Peto's controversial master's thesis, The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education.
After considerable thought and discussion, we have concluded the thesis is a profoundly problematic and flawed document.
Film Critics David Denby and Roger Ebert take another look at
Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah""Shoah" and a new view of history.
"There is no proper response to this film."
by David Denby
January 10, 2011
The New Yorker
Full article
"Shoah"
By Roger Ebert
Full article (Continue Reading)Why should we care?
The Jerusalem Post
By Yehuda Bauer
December 28, 2010This country has right to deny entry, insist on departure of economic migrants but it cannot turn its back on those escaping genocide.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide Articles
The Holocaust's Uneasy Relationship With Literature
The Atlantic
By Menachem KaiserLiterature and the Holocaust have a complicated relationship. This isn't to say, of course, that the pairing isn't a fruitful one--the Holocaust has influenced, if not defined, nearly every Jewish writer since, from Saul Bellow to Jonathan Safran Foer, and many non-Jews besides, like W.G. Sebald and Jorge Semprun. Still, literature qua art--innately concerned with representation and appropriation--seemingly stands opposed to the immutability of the Holocaust and our oversized obligations to its memory.
The Beleaguered Cambodians
The New York Review of Books
By Margo PickenMore than thirty years after an estimated two million people died at the hands of Pol Pot's regime of Democratic Kampuchea, trials of senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those most responsible for the deaths are at last taking place in Cambodia. On July 26, the first to be tried, Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity--a sentence that he and the prosecution have since appealed. Duch directed Security Prison 21, also known as Tuol Sleng, where at least 14,000 prisoners, mostly Khmer Rouge cadres and officials, were tortured and killed.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News
Monday, December 27, 2010
Holocaust art endures at Israel's Yad Vashem museum
With a 10,000-piece Holocaust-era collection and growing, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem leads the effort to conserve and display works by persecuted artists.
Maintaining the memories of genocide
The late J. Michael Hagopian escaped the mass murder that claimed the lives of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. Through his 12 films, the atrocity will remain visible to all who are willing to see.
(Continue Reading)Time runs out on US Armenian genocide resolution
By DESMOND BUTLER
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The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 22, 2010; 7:46 PM
WASHINGTON -- U.S. lawmakers have avoided a diplomatic clash with important ally Turkey by deciding not to take up a resolution declaring the mass killings of Armenians early last century a genocide.WWII resistance fighter Rochelle Sutin, 86
By HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA, Star Tribune
December 20, 2010Rochelle Sutin, a Holocaust survivor whose fight against the Nazis during World War II became the stuff of legend, died in a St. Louis Park nursing home Sunday.
Sutin, 86, had recently had a stroke, said her daughter, Cecilia Dobrin."She was a hero," Dobrin said of her mother, whose life was captured in a book and a play and told numerous times through speeches and articles about her and her husband, Jack Sutin. "She lived her entire life with great courage. She will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her and loved her. But her spirit will live forever in our hearts and minds. "
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News
Monday, December 20, 2010
US lawmakers may vote on Armenian genocide measure
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House may vote next week on a measure that could damage U.S. relations with critical ally Turkey: a resolution declaring the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.
Will Focusing On Southern Sudan Prevent Genocide?
After the Holocaust, the world pledged "never again," but mass killings continued in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans and -- most recently -- Sudan's Darfur region.
U.S. officials see a new risk of blood-shed in next month's independence vote in Southern Sudan. This time, everyone from celebrities to U.S. diplomats is trying a new approach: Drawing attention to the risk of mass violence in hopes of preventing it.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News
News for Monday, December 13, 2010
Rwandan Genocide Finds Release In Photos
Ethnic strife can touch off unimaginable horrors. Rwanda is proof of that. A wave of genocidal murder there in 1994 left more than a million dead. Eight hundred thousand people were slaughtered in just 100 days.
Read full article
Appeals court reverses itself over Armenian suitA federal appeals court on Friday reversed itself and now says the heirs of Armenians killed in the Turkish Ottoman Empire can seek payment from companies that sold their relatives life insurance.
Read full articleA Boston University researcher stumbles upon a remarkable Holocaust artifact - and discovers that one of its creators lives just a few blocks away from him in Brookline.
(Continue Reading)An American Scandal
By Meïr Waintrater
December 8, 2010At this very moment, a university is having to defend itself against a lawsuit. The charge? Declaring that writings denying a genocide are not a basis for students' work. In other words, the university has come up against those who defend the perpetrators of genocide, who want to have their denialist discourse legitimized.
The university is American, headquartered in Minneapolis, the largest city in the State of Minnesota. The genocide in question is the genocide of the Armenians, which was perpetrated by the Ottoman government beginning in 1915. And the complaint was filed by the Turkish Coalition of America, an organization which claims that the genocide did not take place.
(Continue Reading)"Alternative Narratives or Denial" Reading Discussion Group
Denial of the Holocaust is woven into the very fabric of mass murder. Heinrich Himmler, in his infamous speech to his henchmen at Poznan on October 4, 1943, extolled their extermination of the Jews in these terms: "This is a page of glory in our history never mentioned and never to be mentioned." Secrecy and obfuscation were necessary components of the process, and latter-day denial may be seen as symbolically repeating the crime. The French Historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet has thus aptly called Holocaust deniers the assassins of memory.
In conjunction with our 2011 lecture series "Alternative Narratives or Denial," CHGS is facilitating a reading discussion group focused on seminal works on the topic of Holocaust and genocide denial.
(Continue Reading)Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Samantha Power
Watch Opening Keynote by Samantha Power at the International Symposium, Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities Shoah Memorial, Paris, Nov.15, 2010.
(Continue Reading)Abba Kovner in letter after Adolf Eichmann trial: A dam has burst of Holocaust survivors' emotions
In the letter, famed Partisan leader explains how the trial suddenly made it possible for survivors to open up about their experiences in the Holocaust.
Haaretz.com
December 2, 2010
By Eli AshkenaziA short while after testifying in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Abba Kovner had already realized the enormous impact of the trial and its implications on the way the Holocaust would be remembered in Israel.
In a letter sent to his close friend Yitzhak Avidav, in May 1961, a short while after offering his testimony at the trial, he told Avidav, who at the time was in Poland on a mission for Israel, that "something has happened that is one of the great mysteries of life and of history - which did not happen when the ashes were hot, happened now at a time when the souls are remembered."
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News Monday, November 22, 2010
Here are some articles of interest from this past weekend and today.
Lost Boys of Sudan Fill in the Blanks of Their Past
Former Khmer Rouge fighter haunted by his past
Holocaust-denying bishop hires neo-Nazi lawyer ahead of Germany trial
Pope Benedict: Nazi-era pope saved more Jews than anyone else
(Continue Reading)Free Screening of Ahead of Time: The Story of Ruth Gruber at St. Anthony Main Theater
Minnesota Film Arts and the Sabes Foundation Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival proudly present the premiere of the documentary, Ahead of Time, the directorial debut from award-winning cinematographer Bob Richman (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman) highlighting the exceptional life of Ruth Gruber.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust and Genocide News
Here are articles of interest from this weekend and today, Monday, November 15, 2010.
The Plot to Cheat Germany's Holocaust Survivors' Fund
French rail co. apologizes for collaborating with Nazis
Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven' in U.S., Report Says
(Continue Reading)Film Premiere Event: Enemies of the People
On Thursday, November 11, at 7:00p.m., Enemies of the People, an award winning documentary, will premiere at St. Anthony Main Theater, 115 SE Main Street, Minneapolis, MN 55414. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Director/Producer Rob Lemkin.
(Continue Reading)Clinton says K.Rouge court vital for peace in Cambodia
Yahoo News
by Lachlan CarmichaelMon Nov 1, 8:39 am ETPHNOM PENH (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday hailed the work of a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal as "painful but necessary", despite Cambodian opposition to pursuing more regime leaders.
Clinton praised the nation for confronting its dark past after an emotional visit to Phnom Penh's genocide museum, where she saw photos of gaunt-faced prisoners, dozens of skulls of victims and paintings of people being tortured.
The court "is bringing some of the people who caused so much suffering to justice... The work of the tribunal is painful but it is necessary to ensure a lasting peace," Clinton told young Cambodians at a town hall-style meeting.
(Continue Reading)Rwanda: Former Businessman Sentenced to 30 Years By UN Genocide Tribunal
A former businessman accused of supervising the massacre of some 2,000 Rwandan Tutsi civilians taking shelter in a church was today convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison by the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the 1994 genocide.
Gaspard Kanyarukiga, who was arrested in South Africa in July 2004, was found guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity, according to a press release by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
(Continue Reading)A genocide survivor's last wish
The Armenian Reporter
by Tom Vartabedian
Published: Tuesday November 02, 2010Haverhill, Mass. - Like many Armenian Genocide survivors, my mother would stand erect at April 24th commemorations with a red carnation in hand, recite her prayers and sing her songs with conviction.
The fact she was into her mid-90s paid little consequence.
As the years rolled by, she watched her coterie dwindle from 70 to a precious few. In her home town of Haverhill, she remained the sole survivor. Her Armenian name was Ojen --- an unusual one at that --- and her very last observance in 2008 had fate written all over it.
(Continue Reading)Probe Details Culpability Of Nazi-Era Diplomats
During the Third Reich, Germany's foreign ministry staff across Europe cooperated in the mass murder of Jews and others, according to a government-sponsored study released Thursday in Berlin.
The report says German diplomats during the Nazi era were far more deeply involved in the Holocaust than previously acknowledged. It also shows how West German diplomats after the war worked to whitewash history and create a myth of resistance and opposition to Nazi rule.
(Continue Reading)Pennsylvania Board of Education chairman urges Lincoln to reconsider Siddique tenure
Yesterday we posted an article about Academic Freedom and the Holocaust in regards to the statements made by Kaukab Siddique, associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. Today's article deals with the community's reaction to the professor and his statements.
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Jeremy Roebuck
Inquirer Staff Writer
October 28, 2010The head of the Pennsylvania Board of Education this week joined a growing list of protesters urging Lincoln University to reconsider the tenure of a professor who has questioned the Holocaust and urged the overthrow of Israel's government.
Calling professor Kaukab Siddique's recent statements "disgraceful," board Chairman Joseph M. Torsella called on the Chester County school to repudiate the instructor's views and investigate whether campus resources have been used to support his cause.
(Continue Reading)Academic Freedom and Holocaust Denial
Inside Higher Ed
By Dan BerrettOctober 26, 2010
A Pennsylvania English professor whose anti-Israel rhetoric and denial of the Holocaust as a historic certainty have ignited controversy is citing academic freedom as his defense.
Kaukab Siddique, associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, appeared last month at a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, where he called the state of Israel illegitimate. "I say to the Muslims, 'Dear brothers and sisters, unite and rise up against this hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism,' " he said at a rally on Sept. 3. "Each one of us is their target and we must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel -- if possible by peaceful means," he added.
(Continue Reading)"Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-18" by Grigoris Balakian
Review of new important work about the Armenian Genocide
Copies available for loan at CHGSChigago Tribune Book Review
Carlin Romano
Special to the Tribune"Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-18"
By Grigoris Balakian
Translated by Peter Balakian with Aris Sevag
Alfred A. Knopf. 509 pp. $35Armenian Golgotha is the astonishing memoir of Father Grigoris Balakian (1876-1934), a work from the 1920s shepherded into English by his great nephew Peter Balakian, the leading American expert on the ARMENIAN genocide. Grigoris Balakian witnessed the genocide from many angles and swore to document it if he survived. According to his great-nephew, Grigoris Balakian at times "lived like an animal" in order to do so.
With the approach of Armenian Remembrance Day, a commemoration held worldwide on April 24, Americans would be well-advised to read this memoir, which recognizes the Ottoman Empire's targeted killing of its Armenian citizens from 1915 to 1918 as genocide. Turkish soldiers, government-organized death squads and ordinary Turks, acting under orders and incitements from Ottoman Minister of the Interior Mehmet Talaat, massacred -- indeed, sometimes literally hacked to pieces -- up to 1.5 million Armenians.
(Continue Reading)New Online Resource Debuts For Nazi-Era Looted Art
National Public Radio
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK October 18, 2010, 08:41 am ETThe Nazis stripped hundreds of thousands of artworks from Jews during World War II in one of the biggest cultural raids in history, often photographing their spoils and meticulously cataloguing them on typewritten index cards.
Holocaust survivors and their relatives, as well as art collectors and museums, can go online beginning Monday to search a free historical database of more than 20,000 art objects stolen in Germany-occupied France and Belgium from 1940 to 1944, including paintings by Claude Monet and Marc Chagall.
(Continue Reading)German Jewish leader welcomes Hitler exhibition
BERLIN (AP) -- A German Jewish leader welcomed a new exhibition in Berlin exploring the Adolf Hitler personality cult that helped the Nazis win and hold power, saying Friday that it takes a good approach to a difficult issue.
"Hitler and the Germans -- Nation and Crime," which runs through Feb. 6 at the German Historical Museum, is the first exhibition in the capital to focus so firmly on Hitler's role -- another step in the erosion of taboos concerning depictions of the Nazi era.
(Continue Reading)Rwanda: The Country Welcomes War Crimes Suspect's Arrest
by Alexandra Brangeon
13 October 2010
Allafrica.comRwanda has welcomed France's arrest of rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana who is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda's Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama told RFI on Wednesday that it was a "step in the right direction". Survivors of the genocide said that this should not mean that his role in Rwandan genocide should be forgotten.
(Continue Reading)The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota presents the groundbreaking documentary Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades
Thursday, November 4 at 7:00p.m.
Sunday, November 7 at 6:30p.m.Followed by a question and answer session with filmmaker Michael Prazan
Moderated by Rembert Hueser
Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch Studies
and Moving Image StudiesSt. Anthony Main Theater
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115 Main St SE
Minneapolis
Tickets: $6.00 students /senior $8.50 general admissionIs Jean-Luc Godard an anti-Semite?
CHGS will explore this question more in depth during our lecture series "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" in March and April of 2011. check our web site for updates and information coming soon.
October 6, 2010
Is Jean-Luc Godard an anti-Semite?
Jean-Luc Godard to get honorary Oscar, questions of anti-Semitism remain
By Tom Tugend
JewishJournal.comHollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will bestow an honorary Oscar on iconic Swiss-French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard on Nov. 13.The announcement has raised a new question and revived an old one. First, will Godard show up to accept the award? Second, is he an anti-Semite?
Both questions can be answered with a categorical "maybe yes or maybe no." Godard, who will mark his 80th birthday in December, is one of the originators, and among the last survivors, of the French New Wave cinema, which he helped kick-start in 1960 with "Breathless," still his best-known work.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust Studies / The final chapter
Haaretz.com
In a major new study, Daniel Blatman argues that on the Nazi death marches constituted a completely new stage in the history of the German genocide - in which murderous chaos had the upper hand.
By By Boaz Neumann
The Death Marches
The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide, by Daniel Blatman Yad Vashem Publications (in Hebrew ), 666 pages, NIS 98. Forthcoming in English in January 2011 (translation by Chaya Galai ) from the Belknap Press of Harvard University, 524 pages, $35It's hard to come up with a new historical thesis about the Holocaust or Nazism, fields of study that are already jam-packed with researchers. But groundbreaking studies do appear every now and then, studies that offer a different interpretation of familiar historical events and can change the way we understand history. Daniel Blatman's "The Death Marches" is such a work.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust / No job for innocents
Haaretz.com
Both Tom Segev and Guy Walters see Simon Wiesenthal as all-too-human - that is, as flawed - but whereas the latter judges the Nazi hunter with unusual harshness, Segev's biography is insightful and nuanced, as well as extremely thorough.
By Michael Berenbaum
The Life and Legends, by Tom Segev Doubleday, 457 pages, $35
Hunting Evil:The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice, by Guy Walters Broadway Books, 518 pages, $27
Anyone dealing with the Holocaust is acutely aware of the passage of time. Soon, all too soon, the last survivor will be no longer. Soon too, though not soon enough, the last of the perpetrators will also be gone. The Angel of Death has outpaced the machinery of justice. The U.S. Justice Department has changed the mission of its Office of Special Investigations to include perpetrators of other genocides; it is not for naught that the last Israeli Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, has termed his most recent efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice "Operation Last Chance." It is now or never.
(Continue Reading)CHGS to hold Open House October 26
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies invites you to an Open House
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:00pm-7:00pm Room 760 Social Science Building, 267 19th Ave. S. University of Minnesota.Join us for a tour of our new offices and resource library, learn about upcoming programs, and meet new director Bruno Chaouat and the CHGS staff.
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Wine and light refreshments will be served. We look forward to meeting you.
To RSVP or for more information please contact us at 612-624-0256 or e-mail chgs@umn.edu
Parking is available in the 19th Ave. Ramp (300 19th Ave. S.) and the 21st Ave. Ramp (400 21st Ave. S.)
Newly unveiled document: WWII French gov't toughened anti-Jewish laws
By Reuters
The head of the French government which collaborated with the Nazis during World War II personally made harsh anti-Jewish legislation even tougher, a leading Nazi hunter said on Sunday, citing a newly unveiled document.
(Continue Reading)The Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust
Edwin Black, New York Times best-selling and international investigative author, will discuss his new book The Farhud: The Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust.
Thursday, October 7
Noon
Nolte Center for Continuing Education 140
(Pizza at noon; introduction at 12:10)Monumental and Exhaustively Documented. Monumental in scope, Edwin Black's new book The Farhud sheds light on the under-researched, 14-century-long confrontation between the Caliphate and the Jewish communities, and offers new exhaustively documented details of exactly how the Pan Arabist and Jihadist movement of the Levant, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini, partnered with the Nazis during the darkest days of the Holocaust.
-- Walid Phares, author of Future Jihad and Fox TV Terrorism Analyst
(Continue Reading)Edwin Black Live Lecture and Film Screening
War Against the Weak, Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race
Edwin Black, New York Times best-selling and international investigative author, will introduce his latest film, War Against the Weak, Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, based on his book of the same name.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust Victim Is Remembered With His Music
Holocaust Victim Is Remembered With His Music
By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER
September 12, 2010
New York TimesA day before its memorial concert on Saturday for victims and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bargemusic paid tribute to the victims of another atrocity -- Jewish composers killed during the Holocaust.
The pianist Rita Sloan spoke briefly about Gideon Klein, a composer from Czechoslovakia who died in 1945 at 26 under unknown circumstances -- probably in a labor camp or during a forced march. Klein wrote several scores during his internment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where many prominent artists, scientists and scholars were held before being sent to Auschwitz. He encouraged musicians like Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Haas, who were interned with him, to continue composing.
(Continue Reading)Holocaust survivors reunited after 65 years
Holocaust survivors reunited after 65 years
Thursday, September 2, 2010
LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 2, 2010, 1:25 AM
BY HOWARD PROSNITZ
TEANECK SUBURBANITE
STAFF WRITER NorthJersey.comTEANECK - In 1944 Jack Rosenfeld, then 15, entered the Mauthausen Concentration camp. At the time the Russian army was pressing from the East and the Germans were moving concentration camp inmates.
Before reaching Mauthausen, Rosenfeld was interred along the way in a smaller camp near the Austria Hungary border, having been marched there by the Nazis with hundreds of other Jews. With him were his brother and his boyhood friend from the Hungarian village where he grew up, Imri Meir.
By chance, Meir's father, a physician, was also an inmate at the camp. The day after their arrival, the father came and carried his son away.
That was the last time Rosenfeld saw Meir.Until Monday, when the two boyhood friends, who attended school and played soccer together, and who last saw each other 65 years ago in a concentration camp, were reunited at Rosenfeld's South Forest Drive home.
(Continue Reading)Wiesenthal Worked for Israeli Spy Agency, Book Alleges
New York Times
September 2, 2010
Wiesenthal Worked for Israeli Spy Agency, Book Alleges
By ETHAN BRONNERJERUSALEM -- Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who gained worldwide fame for decades as a one-man Nazi-hunting operation, was in fact frequently on the payroll of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, a new biography asserts.
The assertion, based on numerous documents and interviews with three people said to be Mr. Wiesenthal's Mossad handlers, punctures not only a widely held belief about how he operated; it also suggests a need to re-evaluate the standard view that the Israeli government took no interest in tracking down Nazis until the 1960 capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, and little thereafter.
Mr. Wiesenthal died in 2005 at the age of 96 in his Vienna home.
(Continue Reading)Volunteers Needed to Assist Holocaust Survivors with Oral History
A group of local Holocaust survivors meet every month at the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul. The meetings are recorded to preserve the stories, experiences and the conversations that take place at the gathering. The group is looking for volunteers to type up transcripts of the recordings for historical posterity.
To volunteer, send an email to amram001@umn.edu. Please type "holocaust" in the subject line.
For more information about the group please click here to be linked to their page on the CHGS website.
(Continue Reading)Jewish teacher suspended in France for teaching 'too much' about Holocaust
A high school history teacher is accused of 'brainwashing' her students, says French news agency AFP.
By Haaretz Service
A French history teacher in Nancy, France, has been suspended for breaching the principle of secularism and neutrality after the French education ministry concluded that she was teaching "too much" about the Holocaust and spending too much time organizing trips for her students to Nazi death camps in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Catherine Pederzoli, 58, was investigated by officials at the education ministry, who released a report about the matter in July. The report accused the teacher of "lacking distance, neutrality and secularism" in teaching the Holocaust, and of manipulating her charges through a process of "brain-washing," according to the French news agency AFP.
(Continue Reading)Wiesel calls on France to stop Roma deportations
Jewish Chronicle
By Jennifer Lipman, August 31, 2010Elie Wiesel has condemned the French government's decision to expel Roma immigrants but cautioned that a comparison with the Nazi round-ups was not appropriate.
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The Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor described the repatriation of Roma people from France to Romania and Bulgaria as unacceptable.Rwanda warns of Darfur troops pullout if UN publishes report
Daily Nation
Posted Tuesday, August 31 2010 at 19:47
KIGALI, TuesdayRwanda will withdraw more than 3,000 peacekeepers from Sudan if the United Nations publishes a report on war crimes allegedly committed by Kigali in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an army spokesman said today.
"The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) has finalised a contingency withdraw plan for its peacekeepers deployed in Sudan in response to a government directive in case the UN publishes its outrageous and damaging report," a statement from spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jill Rutaremara said.
The UN draft report alleges that Rwandan Tutsi troops and their rebel allies targeted, chased, hacked, shot and burned Hutus in the DR Congo, from 1996 to 1997, after the outbreak of a cross-border Central African war.
(Continue Reading)Obama and the Mess in Sudan
August 28, 2010, 6:13 PM
By NICHOLAS KRISTOFMy Sunday column is about President Obama's failure to follow his own campaign rhetoric about paying attention to genocide and Sudan. As a senator, Obama was one of the leaders in calling on the Bush administration to do more about Darfur -- and yet he has been disengaged in Sudan issues and his administration hasn't been as successful as the Bush administration in getting Sudan to behave a bit better.
There are, of course, a thousand caveats. Genocide in southern Sudan, if it happens, won't be Obama's fault but that of Bashir and a thousand other local players. And while I focus on Bashir's shortcomings, it's also worth pointing out that southern Sudanese officials have shown poor leadership and often more penchant for corruption than building a state. The Darfur rebels enjoy nice hotel rooms but for the most part haven't tried hard to negotiate a serious peace. There's plenty of blame to go around. But it's also a false moral equivalence to say that because all of the actors are flawed, they are all equally bad. There is a big difference between an official in the south with a secret bank account and an official in the north who orders villagers massacred.
(Continue Reading)It's not your father's Holocaust denial
An upcoming lecture series at the U of M will examine how demented Holocaust denial arguments have been rebranded as 'alternative narratives'By BRUNO CHAOUAT
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota -- of which I am honored to serve as the new director -- is launching a lecture series titled "Alternative Narratives -- or Denial" for the 2011 spring semester.
Denial is not always easy to recognize. Calling the Holocaust a "fable" or a "myth" is not the only mode of denial. Denial can sometimes be called "alternative narratives" or "revision of history," and be disguised as scholarly inquiry. Scholars in the United States and in Israel have demonstrated a continuum between drawing questionable analogies to the Holocaust and denying it. Through historical, literary and philosophical inquiry, this lecture series will explore the moral and intellectual issues raised in revising the history of the Holocaust and of genocides.
(Continue Reading)Anne Frank's Tree Falls As Holocaust Denial Rises
By Bonnie Erbe
Posted: August 23, 2010How sad and odd, that the so-called Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam should fall at a time when Holocaust denial is growing, especially in the Arab world, according to one White House official.
Hannah Rosenthal, U.S. special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, told the Jerusalem Post that the Obama administration is working hard to combat anti-Semitism but despite that, Holocaust denial is on the rise, especially in the Arab world.
(Continue Reading)US envoy slams central bank over 'antisemitic' Romanian coin
BUCHAREST -- The US ambassador in Romania on Friday slammed a central bank decision to go on selling a coin depicting an inter-war leader with anti-Semitic views despite criticism from the Holocaust Museum in Washington. "I am very disappointed by the decision on the part of the National Bank of Romania to issue the coin commemorating Patriarch Miron Cristea", Mark Gitenstein said in a statement.
"Cristea's actions as Prime Minister - specifically his role in the revocation of citizenship for over 225,000 Romanian Jews - cannot be ignored," he added.
Cristea headed the Romanian government in 1938-39.
(Continue Reading)Volunteers Needed to Assist Holocaust Survivors with Oral History
A group of local Holocaust survivors meet every month at the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul. The meetings are recorded to preserve the stories, experiences and the conversations that take place at the gathering. The group is looking for volunteers to type up transcripts of the recordings for historical posterity.
To volunteer,send an email to amram001@umn.edu. Please type "holocaust" in the subject line.
For more information about the group please click here to be linked to their page on the CHGS website.
(Continue Reading)Bruno Chaouat to speak on Anti-Semitism, Israel, and Ideological Change in France
HAVE FRENCH JEWS TURNED RIGHT?
Anti-Semitism, Israel, and Ideological Change in FranceSince 9/11 and the second intifada, the Left has often charged Jews with becoming increasingly right-wing. This charge is based on the support of Jews for Israel and the United States, both deemed reactionary countries by many on the Left in France and Europe. Bruno Chaouat will analyze whether French Jews have turned to the Right by examining debates among those on the Left and by exploring the reactions of the French Jewish community to recent waves of anti-Semitic violence in relation to the Middle East conflict.
(Continue Reading)American Muslim leaders visit concentration camps
August 17, 2010
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Eight Muslim American leaders who visited concentration camps and met with Holocaust survivors signed a statement condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.
The trip earlier this month, intended to teach the participants about the Holocaust, featured visits to Dachau and Auschwitz.
(Continue Reading)Germany charges ex-Rwandan mayor with genocide
BERLIN -- German prosecutors say they have filed charges against a former Rwandan mayor for his alleged involvement in the African country's 1994 genocide.
Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they charged the 53-year-old ethnic Hutu -- identified only as Onesphore R. -- with genocide and murder as well as incitement to those crimes. They said he was a mayor of an unspecified district in northern Rwanda at the time of the killings.They say the man called for a pogrom against the Tutsi ethnic minority on three occasions in early April 1994 and forced a local official to throw out Tutsis who had taken refuge in his house.
Prosecutors say the man ordered and coordinated three massacres between April 11 and 15, 1994, in which at least 3,730 Tutsis were killed.Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
(Continue Reading)Schools can exclude materials disputing Armenian genocide Court ruled on 1999 case
Schools can exclude materials disputing Armenian genocide Court ruled on 1999 case
By Peter Schworm
Globe Staff / August 12, 2010In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that statewide public school guidelines on teaching human rights history can exclude materials disputing that the mass slaying of Armenians in the First World War era constituted genocide.
(Continue Reading)"It's a Woman's World" airs
Dr. Ellen Kennedy and Sabina Zimering, Holocaust survivor, appear in the episode "It's a Woman's World". The episode is scheduled to air on February 8th at 9:30 am and 4:30 pm on Metro Cable Network, Channel 6. It will also air on SPNN Channel 15 on February 5th and 12th at 6:30 pm.
(Continue Reading)The Ritchie Boys
Thank you for all that attended our Ritchie Boys event on November 12th at the MN History Center.
To listen to the MPR interview with Dr. Guy Stern and Walter Schwarz click here.
The Film "The Ritchie Boys" can be purchased here from Amazon.com or here from Barnes and Noble.
Dr. Guy Stern referenced additional information that we would be posting to our website. This information can be found here.
You can see photos from the Nov. 12th event and Dr. Stern's visit here.
(Continue Reading)World Without Genocide Student Action Award
World Without Genocide Student Action Award
Knowledge + Action = PowerThis annual award, to be given by World without Genocide (formerly Genocide Intervention Network-Minnesota), recognizes community outreach projects by college and high school classes to raise awareness about any aspect of genocide: protection, prevention, prosecution, and remembrance.
(Continue Reading)Dr. Ellen Kennedy received the "Outstanding Citizen" award from the Anne Frank foundation
(Continue Reading)CHGS in the News
(Continue Reading)From TPT/Channel 17 Twin Cities
The Minnesota Channel has a new distribution option available to its partners, that could be especially useful for those, like the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, that have been making DVD copies of our collaborative television programs to mail out to schools around the nation for classroom use.
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