The Children of Survivors of the Holocaust and Genocide: Remembrance and Reflection

Public Lecture & Teachers Workshop - September 30, 2024

"We do not live in the past, but the past lives in us" (Elie Wiesel): Post-Holocaust Generations and the Extension of Holocaust Memory.”

• September 30, 2024
  Teachers Workshop: 6:00 - 7:00 PM - McComsey Hall - Ford Atrium
  Public Lecture: 7:30 - 8:30 PM - McComsey Hall - Myers Auditorium

Dr. Victoria Aarons (Trinity University) and Dr. Alan Berger (Florida Atlantic  University), will lead the workshop and give the lecture.
Here is a description of their talk:

We find ourselves now, in the early decades of the 21st century, at a critical turning point in post-Holocaust history, an era that will witness the end of lived, eyewitness testimony. Thus, the obligation to remember, to continue the ever-receding narrative of the past and extend the memory of the Holocaust to future generations, has become even more imperative. Nearly eight decades after the Shoah ended as an historically anchored event, the Holocaust is being trivialized, distorted and denied. In danger of being enveloped by the murky shadows of history, this most researched, thoroughly documented and written about event is being preserved in a unique way by the children and grandchildren of its survivors. New generations have taken up the obligatory call to memory to extend and memorialize the legacy of those whose voiced testimonies recede into history. Although both geographically and experientially isolated from the terrible events which threatened to make the world Judenrein and imperil all people, the offspring of survivors seek to chart a course that will enable them both to live with their inherited memories and proceed with their lives.

Through a variety of genres, novels, plays, graphic novels, film, and memoirs, the second and third generations have established a benchmark for remembering and reflecting on the traumatic memory of the Holocaust. The movement from survivor writing to second and third-generation accounts of the Nazi genocide marks an important shift in the intergenerational transmission and expression of Holocaust memory, trauma, and representation.

From the recent Israeli film "Unorthodox," which tells of the struggles of a granddaughter of survivors, who flees an orthodox community and goes to Germany, to Helen Epstein's pioneering study, "Children of the Holocaust," readers have before them a fascinating and challenging landscape of Holocaust inheritance. Professor Victoria Aarons’ groundbreaking study of graphic Holocaust novels and Professor Alan Berger's insightful study of rescuers reveal the dynamic at work in those who do not live in the past but in whom the past lives. We will reflect on the important works of second and third-generation writers such as Daniel Mendelsohn, Thane Rosenbaum, Helen Epstein, Eduardo Halfon, Bernice Eisenstein, and Amy Kurzweil. We will also consider films, such as Pierre Sauvage’s "Weapons of the Spirit," that represent the meaning and example of those who were their brothers' keepers. 

This event was made possible by the generous donations of the Jewish Community Alliance of Lancaster and Eleanor Isaacson

P. Alan and Linda Loss Keynote Lecture - April 1, 2025

P. Alan and Linda Loss Keynote Lecture:
The Commitments of the Son of a Survivor: How the Holocaust Has Shaped My Moral, Political and Spiritual Commitments by Yossi Klein Halevi

• April 1, 2025 - 7:00 PM
  Winter Visual Performing Arts Center - Biemesderfer Concert Hall 

About the speaker:

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is co-host, together with Donniel Hartman, of the Hartman Institute’s podcast, “For Heaven’s Sake” – the number one Jewish podcast in the English-speaking world.

Halevi’s 2013 book, "Like Dreamers," won the Jewish Book Council's Everett Book of the Year Award. His latest book, "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,” is a New York Times bestseller and has appeared in a dozen languages.

He has written for leading op-ed pages in North America and is a former contributing editor to the New Republic. He is frequently quoted on Israeli, Middle Eastern and Jewish affairs in leading media around the world and is one of the best-known lecturers on Israeli issues in the North American Jewish community and on North American campuses.

He co-directs the Hartman Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI), which teaches emerging young Muslim leaders in North America about Judaism, Jewish identity and Israel. Over 150 Muslim leaders have participated in the unique program.

Born in Brooklyn, he received his BA in Jewish studies from Brooklyn College, and his MS in journalism from Northwestern University.

He moved to Israel in 1982 and lives in Jerusalem with wife, Sarah, who helps direct a center for Jewish meditation. They have three children.

He is also the child of a Holocaust survivor, his father Zoltan. And that story will be shared in the following Conference event, the screening of the film KADDISH.

The P. Alan and Linda Loss Keynote Lecture is made possible by the generous donations of Alan and Linda Loss and multiple private donors from the Lancaster community.

Screening of the Documentary Kaddish - April 22, 2025

On Screen/In Person screening of the documentary Kaddish

• April 22, 2025 The Ware Center
            Pre-screening panel - 6:15 PM
            Film screening - 7 PM
            Post-screening Q&A  - 8:35 - 9:00 PM
  The Ware Center

The evening will include a live pre-screening panel discussion with Dr. Jack Fischel, Dr. Victoria Khitterer, Dr. Jeff Mufson, Rabbi Jack Paskoff and Julia Fallows. There will also be a live post-screening Q&A with the film’s director, Steve Brand.

The film is about the psychological ramifications of history, the choice between viewing ourselves as perpetual victims or resilient survivors, and the search for a Post-Holocaust Judaism.

It is the story of the stormy yet loving relationship between recovering Jewish activist Yossi Klein and his father Zoltan, who had survived the Holocaust’s devastation of Hungarian Jewry by hiding in a hole in the ground for six months. Meanwhile his parents perished at Auschwitz.

After the war, Zoltan didn’t see the point of bringing a Jewish child into the world, but his bride-to-be Breindy wouldn’t hear of it. Once Yossi and his sister Karen were born, Zoltan was determined to raise them to be emotionally prepared for another holocaust. The story of his hiding in the forest and the murder of his parents became his children’s bedtime stories. Breindy tried to compensate by reading them Dr. Seuss books.

Supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Kaddish originally premiered at New Directors/New Films in 1984, went on to win a Special Jury Award in Documentary at Sundance, and made David Edelstein’s 1985 10 Best Films list in the Village Voice. The film has received critical accolades ranging from New York Magazine (“a remarkable American documentary”) to the Los Angeles Times (“Superb ... nothing less than a spiritual odyssey”), the Washington Post (“remarkable for its sensitivity and immediacy”), St. Louis Globe-Democrat (“a riveting 90 minutes”), Boston Globe (“deeply felt ... disturbing”), Village Voice (“a stunning profile”), Variety (“an important film of lasting value”).  The film has recently received a loving restoration.

Committee Members:

Committee Co-Chairs – Dr. Victoria Khiterer (History Dept.) and Barry Kornhauser (Office of Visual and Performing Arts)

Miriam Baumgartner (Jewish Community Alliance of Lancaster) 

Dr. Sarah Brooks (Educational Foundations Dept.)

Dr. Kasia Jakubiak (English and World Languages Dept.)

Dr. Tanya Kevorkian (History Dept.)

Rabbi Jack Paskoff (Congregation Shaarai Shomayim)

General Contact, Questions and Information