Past Programs & Events
Mar 23, 2011
A 'Film Unfinished' shows truth behind Nazi footage
Yael Hersonski’s award-winning documentary, “A Film Unfinished,” which shows how historical and propaganda footage were woven into Nazi films in their efforts to exterminate Jews, will have two presentations on March 23 at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
http://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2011/03/a_film_unfinished_shows_truth.html
Apr 14, 2011
The Arts of Counter-Memory
Renowned German artist and memorialist, Horst Hoheisel presents his numerous memorial projects, ranging from the victims of the Nazi euthanasia program, to the Jews of Germany, to the desaparacidos of Argentina.
Horst Hoheisel's talk will take place on April 14th, at 4:00 at the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies. In his slide-lecture, "The Arts of Counter-Memory," renowned German artist and memorialist, Horst Hoheisel presents his numerous memorial projects, ranging from the victims of the Nazi euthanasia program, to the Jews of Germany, to the desaparacidos of Argentina.
May 3, 2011
The Holocaust in Translation
Ruth Franklin and Peter Filkins Discuss H.G. Adler, Holocaust Literature, and Memory. One of only a few death camp survivors to fictionalize his experiences in German, H.G. Adler’s depiction of the Holocaust in a novel caused furious debate and delays in the publication of his now-classic novels of the Holocaust, translated by Peter Filkins and reviewed by Ruth Franklin in The New Yorker. In this public conversation during the days of Holocaust remembrance, prominent literary critic Ruth Franklin and acclaimed translator Peter Filkins explore the lines between Holocaust history and fiction, the translation of personal Holocaust memory into literature.
Tuesday, May 3rd
4:30 P.M.
IHGMS, 758 North Pleasant Street
Ruth Franklin is a literary critic and a senior editor at The New Republic. Her writing also appears in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications. Her book, A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, which investigates work by writers such as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Imre Kertész, and W.G. Sebald, was published in November 2010 by Oxford University Press. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Peter Filkins is an award-winning translator and poet, the recipient of a Berlin Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin. His acclaimed translations of H.G. Adler’s classic Holocaust novels Panorama (Random House, 2011) and The Journey (Random House 2008) have brought Adler’s work to American audiences for the first time. Peter Filkins is also the translator of The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann (Zephyr Press, 2006). He is Professor in Languages & Literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Co-sponsored by the Dept. of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies and the UMass Center for Translation Studies.
Mar 1, 2012
Among the Angels of History: Poetry and the Art of Witnessing --A Poetry Reading with Marjorie Agosin
Part of the Art of Conflict Transformation Event Series on "Transforming Threads of Resistance: Political Arpilleras & Textiles by Women from Chile and Around the World," Department of Political Science, UMass Amherst.
Mar 2, 2012
Art, Memory, and State Violence
A Panel Discussion with Marjorie Agosin, Roberta Bacic, and James Young (Part of the Art of Conflict Transformation Event Series on "Transforming Threads of Resistance: Political Arpilleras & Textiles by Women from Chile and Around the World," Department of Political Science, UMass Amherst).
Mar 28, 2012
Reaching Out and Building Peace
An Opening Reception and Roundtable to Honor the Rescuers Project Traveling Exhibition at the IHGMS, with Leora Kahn, Olivia Dreier, Linda Tropp, and James Young. "The Rescuers Exhibit" (March 28 to April 12) on display at the IHGMS features photographs and testimonials from around the world that highlight the stories of ordinary people, who at great risk to themselves, intervened to protect and save targeted groups of other people during violent conflict. This exhibition and associated events are sponsored jointly by the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at UMass Amherst and the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst.
Apr 12, 2012
The Memory of State Terrorism in Latin America: A Roundtable Discussion
This discussion will take place at 4 p.m., with Max Page, Professor of Architecture, University of Massachusetts; Karen Robert, Professor of History, St. Thomas University, Canada; Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture, Amherst College; and Joel Wolfe, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts.
This program is also a fundraiser for the publication of Memorias en la Ciudad (Memories in the City), an important work on the sites of state terrorism in Buenos Aires, which has been accepted for publication by the University of Massachusetts Press. It will be edited by Max Page, with an essay on memory culture in Latin America by Ilan Stavans, and translation assistance by Karen Robert. Max Page’s photographs of sites of memory in Buenos Aires will be available, as well as Ilan Stavans’ fotonovela Once@9:53am. All proceeds will go toward the publication subvention.
Apr 25, 2012
Roundtable on the Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe: With Omer Bartov, Joanna Michlic, and John-Paul Himka
In honor of the Spring publication of Bringing the Dark to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, co-edited by Joanna Michlic and John-Paul Himka, the IHGMS is very pleased to host a roundtable discussion of Holocaust reception in post-communist Europe , with the co-editors and one of their esteemed authors, Omer Bartov. The roundtable will be moderated by James Young, Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst. Admission is free, but seating is limited to 100. A reception and book-signing will follow.
Speakers:
Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University and chair of the department of History. He was born and raised in Israel and received his BA degree from Tel Aviv University. He was awarded his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1983, and taught at Tel Aviv University until 1989. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His books include The Eastern Front, 1941-45 (1985), Hitler's Army (1991), Murder in Our Midst (1996), Mirrors of Destruction (2000), Germany's War and the Holocaust (2003), The "Jew" in Cinema (2005), and Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (2007). His books have been translated into many languages. Bartov has also written for such magazines as The New Republic, The Nation, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and other European and Israeli journals. He is now completing a new book, The Voice of Your Brothers Blood: Buczacz, Biography of a Town, to be published with Simon & Schuster in the next couple of years.
John-Paul Himka is Professor of History at the University of Alberta. He served as co-editor for history for The Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 3-5. He has also written four monographs on Ukrainian history and edited or co-edited six other books. Currently he is working on Ukrainians and the Holocaust. His 2009 Mohyla lecture was published by Heritage Press (Saskatoon) as Ukrainians, Jews, and the Holocaust: Divergent Memories. In 2011 he received the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research.
Joanna Beata Michlic is a social and cultural historian, and founder and Director of HBI (Hadassah-Brandeis Institute) Project on Families, Children, and the Holocaust at Brandeis University. Her publications include Neighbors Respond: The Controversy about Jedwabne (2004), co-edited with Antony Polonsky; and Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present (2006), and the forthcoming Bringing the Dark to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, co-edited with John-Paul Himka (2013). She is also the editor of the forthcomingJewish Families in Europe, 1939-Present: History, Representation, and Memory (2014). Her two current research topics are the history of rescuers of Jews and East European Jewish childhood, 1945-1950.
May 4, 2012 - May 6, 2012
Present Company Excluded
The Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst and the Yiddish Book Center are pleased to present a bold new play from The Drama Studio, inspired by the Institute’s powerful Holocaust teaching exhibit, “A Reason to Remember: Roth, Germany 1933-1942.”
Written by Doug Foresta and directed by Dan Morbyrne, Present Company Excluded will be performed at The Yiddish Book Center in the Applebaum-Driker Theater on Friday, May 4th at 12:00 p.m., Saturday, May 5th at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 6th at 2:00 p.m. The Yiddish Book Center is located in the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building, at 1021 West Street, Amherst.
Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for students, seniors, and Yiddish Book Center members. Reservations are very strongly recommended and tickets can only be reserved online at http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/. Any additional questions regarding the performance can be directed to The Drama Studio at (413) 739-1983.
Jun 14, 2012
The Minister’s War: Educators’ 25-minute Version
The Film-story of American Rescue during the Holocaust
Followed by Q&A with film-maker Artemis Joukowsky and reception!
The Minister’s War tells the story of Waitstill Sharp, a Unitarian minister, and his wife Martha, a social worker, who just days prior to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, left their young children and home in Wellesley, MA to begin what would become a perilous, heroic journey. At a time when most Americans were turning a blind eye to the gathering clouds in Europe, this pair rushed headlong into the storm, where they faced arrest, torture, and perhaps worse from the Gestapo had they been captured while aiding Jews and anti-Nazi dissidents escape Czechoslovakia and later France. Who were these “American Schindlers”? What lay behind their willingness to put the well-being of their fellow human beings ahead of their own comfort and family? What is their legacy for us today?”
“We realized that we were living at the front lines against Nazism. We had never felt such an urge to act before it was too late — to serve these brave people, to help them save their world and our own.” -- Martha Sharp
To find out more about THE MINISTER’S WAR Contact:
Artemis Joukowsky: artemis@joukowsky.com
Sandri Valente: avalente320@gmail.com
Emma Blaxter: emma.blaxter@gmail.com
Aug 22, 2012
Student-Docent Training for High School Students
In this half-day workshop, conducted at the Institute in the exhibition hall, student-docents studied in depth both the origins of and teaching approaches to the permanent exhibition, “A Reason to Remember: Roth, Germany 1933-1942.” On successfully completing this workshop, Student Docents are invited to return as tour facilitators working in tandem with their supervising teachers to guide their high school peers and classmates through this exhibition.
Sep 5, 2012
Language, Culture and Testimony: A Case Study of Lithuanian Jewish Survivors
Hannah Pollin-Galay holds a B.A. from Columbia University in English and Yiddish literature and an M.A. in Jewish history from Tel Aviv University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in history at Tel Aviv University. Over the course of her studies, she has received a Fulbright Fellowship, a Rotenshtreich Fellowship for Excellence in the Humanities and a Shoah Foundation Research Residency. This summer, she has been developing her dissertation as a Graduate Fellow in Residence at the UMass Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies. Her doctoral project explores how language, place and culture shape the narration of the Holocaust in oral and audio-visual testimonies. In addition to writing her dissertation, Hannah lectures in Yiddish language and culture at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. This talk will take place at 4 p.m.
Oct 1, 2012 - Oct 31, 2012
The Berke Family Collection of Nuremberg Deposition Papers
This collection contains nearly 600 pages of depositions, photos, and German war records gathered by American soldiers and prosecutors as the Allies pushed through Germany in 1945. They include dozens of first-person eye-witness accounts by German soldiers and their commanders of Nazi war-crimes against Jews and other victims of the Third Reich. Originally donated to Kent State University in 2002, the original copies are now archived at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
In honor of the 100th Birthday Anniversary of her father, David M. Berke, Cathy Berke Abrams is donating a copy of these deposition papers to the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with the intention of making this material as widely available to scholars and researchers as possible. Toward this end, the gift of these papers by the Berke Family is accompanied by a fund to digitize the entire collection, which will then be posted for all researchers on the Institute's web-site.
In October 2012, (a specific date will soon be announced) Professor Lawrence Douglas of Amherst College, author of The Memory of Judgment (Yale University Press), will give a lecture on the value of these deposition papers for historical understanding of the Holocaust, followed by a reception honoring Cathy Berke Abrams and the Berke Family for the gift of these papers.
Oct 9, 2012
A Lecture by Peter Bush: Memory, War and Translation: In Diamond Square by Mercè Rodoreda
From the vantage point of the 1950s, Mercè Rodoreda’s heroine recounts her harsh experience in Barcelona of the coming of the Second Republic, civil war and dictatorship. In Diamond Square is a working-class woman’s narrative of resilience and devastation on the home front. Peter Bush discusses the challenges of translating this classic of Catalan literature and the way a translator’s reading can trigger personal sets of memories to nourish what is a third re-writing in English.
In Diamond Square will be published by Virago (Little Brown) in March 2013.
Peter Bush works in Barcelona as a freelance literary translator. He was awarded the Valle-Inclán Literary Translation Prize for his translation of Juan Goytisolo's The Marx Family Saga. Recent translations from Spanish include Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Tirano Banderas, Queen Cocaine by Nuria Amat, Exiled From Almost Everywhere by Juan Goytisolo, Celestina by Fernando de Rojas, and The Havana Fever by Leonardo Padura. From Catalan, Bush has translated The Enormity of the Tragedy by Quim Monzó and A Not So Perfect Crime by Teresa Solana. He was Professor of Literary Translation at Middlesex University and at the University of East Anglia where he directed the British Centre for Literary Translation. He teaches a course on literary translation and the publishing industry as visiting professor at the University of Málaga. <?xml:namespace prefix = o />
Nov 28, 2012
OUT OF BROWNSVILLE: Encounters with Nobel Laureates and Other Jewish Writers
The Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst and The Department of English at UMass Amherst are very pleased to present Jules Chametzky, Professor Emeritus of English and Judaic Studies reading and discussing his new book OUT OF BROWNSVILLE: Encounters with Nobel Laureates and Other Jewish Writers. Wine and Cheese Reception to follow
Dec 5, 2012
Student-docents Training Workshop at the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies
We're very pleased to announce the second Student-docent Training Workshop from 3:00 to 4:30, at the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In this workshop for high school and university students, we will offer a training session for students interested in learning how to lead their student peers through the Institutes permanent Holocaust teaching exhibition, A Reason to Remember: Roth, Germany, 1933-1942." This workshop will introduce students to the exhibition and its origins and will encourage further study and training in order to become student tour facilitators.
Upon completing the session, students will receive a certificate of completion and an invitation to bring their classes and teachers back to the Institute for a tour. Students who earn the certificate should contact their school administrators about receiving credit toward community service.
This workshop is free of charge, and light refreshments will be served. For inquiries and registration, please call 413.835.0221 or send an e-mail to ihgms@acad.umass.edu.
For further information about the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst and its permanent exhibition, A Reason to Remember: Roth, Germany, 1933-1942, please visit: http://www.umass.edu/ihgms
Mar 4, 2013
Ilan Stavans Talks About His New Graphic Novel: El Illuminado
Discussion of a compelling mystery of southwestern Spanish secrets.
Book signing and reception afterwards.
Apr 3, 2013
Reception and Lecture for Gift of Berke Family Collection of Nuremberg Deposition Papers
At 4:00 p.m. there will be a reception and Lecture by Professor Lawrence Douglas of Amherst College to honor Cathy Berke Abrams's gift of The Berke Family Collection of Nuremberg Deposition Papers to the Institute's permanent archive. This collection contains nearly 600 pages of depositions, photos, and German war records gathered by American soldiers and prosecutors as the Allies pushed through Germany in 1945. They include dozens of first-person eye-witness accounts by German soldiers and their commanders of Nazi war-crimes against Jews and other victims of the Third Reich. In his lecture, Professor Douglas (author of The Memory of Judgment, Yale University Press) will discuss the value of these papers for historical understanding of the Holocaust.
Apr 25, 2013
Roundtable on the Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe
With Omer Bartov, Joanna Michlic, John-Paul Himka, and Catherine Portuges
In honor of the Spring publication of Bringing the Dark to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, co-edited by Joanna Michlic and John-Paul Himka, the IHGMS is very pleased to host a roundtable discussion of Holocaust reception in post-communist Europe , with the co-editors and one of their esteemed authors, Omer Bartov. The roundtable will be moderated by James Young, Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst. Admission is free, but seating is limited to 100. A reception and book-signing will follow.
Speakers:
Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University and chair of the department of History. He was born and raised in Israel and received his BA degree from Tel Aviv University. He was awarded his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1983, and taught at Tel Aviv University until 1989. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His books include The Eastern Front, 1941-45 (1985), Hitler's Army (1991), Murder in Our Midst (1996), Mirrors of Destruction (2000), Germany's War and the Holocaust (2003), The "Jew" in Cinema (2005), and Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (2007). His books have been translated into many languages. Bartov has also written for such magazines as The New Republic, The Nation, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and other European and Israeli journals. He is now completing a new book, The Voice of Your Brother's Blood: Buczacz, Biography of a Town, to be published with Simon & Schuster in the next couple of years.
John-Paul Himka is Professor of History at the University of Alberta. He served as co-editor for history for The Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 3-5. He has also written four monographs on Ukrainian history and edited or co-edited six other books. Currently he is working on Ukrainians and the Holocaust. His 2009 Mohyla lecture was published by Heritage Press (Saskatoon) as Ukrainians, Jews, and the Holocaust: Divergent Memories. In 2011 he received the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research.
Joanna Beata Michlic is a social and cultural historian, and founder and Director of HBI (Hadassah-Brandeis Institute) Project on Families, Children, and the Holocaust at Brandeis University. Her publications include Neighbors Respond: The Controversy about Jedwabne (2004), co-edited with Antony Polonsky; and Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present (2006), and the forthcoming Bringing the Dark to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, co-edited with John-Paul Himka (2013). She is also the editor of the forthcoming Jewish Families in Europe, 1939-Present: History, Representation, and Memory (2014). Her two current research topics are the history of rescuers of Jews and East European Jewish childhood, 1945-1950.
Catherine Portuges is Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies, and Curator of the annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her books include Cinemas in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 (with Peter Hames, Temple, 2013); Gendered Subjects (with M. Culley, Routledge, re-issued 2012); and Screen Memories: the Hungarian Cinema of Márta Mészáros (Indiana, 1993). Her most recent essays appear in Bringing the Dark to Light: the Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe (Nebraska 2013); Companion to Historical Film (Wiley-Blackwell 2013); Cinema's Alchemist: The Films of Péter Forgács (Minnesota 2012); Blackwell Companion to East European Cinema (Wiley-Blackwell 2012); The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema (Brandeis 2012); and Hollywood's Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema (2011). She was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for "The Subjective Lens: Post-Holocaust Jewish Identities in Hungarian Cinema;" the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal for her contributions to Hungarian Cinema (Republic of Hungary, 2009); and the Chancellor's Medal for Distinguished Teaching (2010). She is a frequent keynote lecturer at international conferences and invited programmer, curator, consultant, and delegate for international film series and festivals.