Newsletter

CHGS is hosting four major speakers this spring: Father Patrick Desbois, whose work is described on the front page; Dr. Ashis Brahma; Pastor Carl Wilkens; and scholar-priest Kevin Spicer.

Dr. Ashis Brahma, the only doctor caring for a group of 25,000 refugees along the Sudan/Chad border, will speak about his work and the Darfur genocide. More than 400,000 people in Darfur have died due to the violence that began in 2003, and another 2.5 million have been forced into refugee camps where starvation, malnutrition and disease are now creating “genocide by attrition.” He will speak to civic, educational, and faith-based audiences at the University of Minnesota, Gustavus Adolphus College, the Rotary Club of Edina, Congregation Shir Tikvah, and Edina High School during his visit from February 10–14. For details of his schedule, please visit www.chgs.umn.edu or call 612-624-0256.

Pastor Carl Wilkens, labeled a true humanitarian by Human Rights Reports and the recipient of the Dignitas Humana award from St. John’s University in 2004, will be here from March 26–28. In April 1994, when all Americans were evacuated from Rwanda at the beginning of the genocide, Wilkens refused to leave. He was personally responsible for saving hundreds of lives and has become an outspoken advocate for acceptance and understanding. His appearances:

Friday, March 27, 8:00 pm at Congregation Shir Tikvah, 5000 Girard Avenue South, Minneapolis (part of the evening service; all are welcome).
Saturday, March 28 workshop; see next column for details.

Dr. Kevin Spicer, Catholic priest and professor, has written an exposé of 138 “brown priests” in Germany who served as Nazi propagandists. His book, Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism, documents the story of these avowed Nazis who justified their Nazi beliefs by Church doctrine. A third of these priests even joined the Nazi party and supported Hitler’s final solution of the extermination of the Jews.

Spicer has also written a book that examines the other side of this issue. In Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler’s Berlin, he focuses on many clergy who offered a quiet resistance to their parishioners, a resistance that presented Catholicism as an alternative to the Nazi ideology that was a total way of life. He also examines how, even for these priests who opposed Nazism, they did not stand up on behalf of Jews and others who were oppressed and murdered.

Spicer will speak about these complicated and compelling roles of the Catholic clergy at four talks in the Twin Cities and in Duluth:

Thursday, April 2, 4:00–5:00 p.m. University of Minnesota-Duluth
Friday, April 3, 12:00–1:00 p.m. University of Minnesota, Nolte Center for Continuing Education, Minneapolis
Friday, April 3, 7:30 p.m. Mount Zion Temple, 1300 Summit Ave., St. Paul
Saturday, April 4, 4:00–5:00 p.m. Basilica of St. Mary, 88 N. 17th St., Minneapolis
His visit is sponsored by Temple Israel, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, University of Minnesota-Duluth, Mount Zion Temple, and CHGS.

Workshops

Saturday, Feb. 14, Genocide: A Public Health Disaster
Location: University of Minnesota campus
Featuring Dr. Ashis Brahma, this workshop examines the public health issues for innocent victims where genocide occurs; in refugee camps; and in subsequent resettlement. The workshop includes presentations by Dr. Steve Miles, who designed health services in refugee camps in the 1970s for victims of the Cambodian genocide; Evelyn Lennon from Center for Victims of Torture; Augustino Ting Mayai, survivor; and a reading of selections from “Stone Hearts,” a play based on interviews with survivors in Srebrenica.

To register, go to
http://chgs.umn.edu/news/pubhealth.html

Saturday, Mar. 28, Standing Up To Genocide: Rwanda and Cambodia
Location: Christ the King Church, Minneapolis
Pastor Carl Wilkens will speak about his work in Rwanda. Judy Saumweber, humanitarian aid worker and missionary, will describe her years of experience in post-genocidal Cambodia and her recent work to prevent violence against women, a crisis of epidemic proportion in Cambodia as a direct consequence of the 1970s genocide.

The workshop includes historical overviews and a film about the Rwandan tragedy.

To register, go to:
http://chgs.umn.edu/news/ctk.html

Saturday, May 2, Genocide and the Pain of Memory: Rwanda and the Holocaust
Location: Park Square Theater, St. Paul.
This workshop features reflections by Alice Musabende, a young orphan survivor of the Rwandan genocide; presentation by scholar and playwright Dr. Robert Skloot on using theater to educate; and teacher Rachel Harmon on engaging ordinary citizens to take a stand against genocide. The workshop concludes with Park Square Theater’s production of I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to me by a Young Lady from Rwanda, a compelling play by Holocaust descendant Sonja Linden about a Rwandan survivor’s struggle to understand the tragedies in her own past.

To register, go to:
http://chgs.umn.edu/news/parksquare.html

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