October 4, 1999
Contact: Amy Pate, (615) 343-3209
[email protected]
Lecture series to address ways Holocaust is memorialized
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ó "Making and Evoking Memory" is the theme of Vanderbilt UniversityÃs 1999 Holocaust Lecture Series. Programs will focus on ways the Holocaust is memorialized collectively and individually.
The lecture series, in its 22nd year, is the longest-running University lecture series on the Holocaust in the country.
"The theme this year does deal with how our memory is shaped and codified by the information we receive, and how we receive that information, especially in the case of the Holocaust, through memorials, " said Mona Bagasao, associate chaplain at Vanderbilt and one of the series' organizers.
James E. Young, a critic of memorials, will give the keynote lecture of the series Oct. 11. He will address the art and politics of constructing monuments memorializing the Holocaust.
Other guests of the series will share and discuss different ways the Holocaust is remembered. The film "A Letter Without Words," directed by Lisa Lewenz, is one woman's personal memorial to her grandmother, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Ghetto Tango remembers Holocaust victims by reviving their musical legacy.
With the inclusion of Gad Beck, a gay man who lived in Berlin under an Aryan name during the Holocaust, the lecture series is broadening its scope to include discussion of other populations victimized by Hitler's regime.
Each year, the Holocaust Lecture Series also includes first-person testimonies by survivors. This year, two Hungarian-born Jews will speak in conjunction with the showing of the film "The Last Days."
A complete schedule of events and times is attached. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, please call (615) 322-2457.
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HOLOCAUST LECTURE SERIES EVENTS
OCTOBER 11
James E. Young, "The Texture of Meaning: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning"
8 p.m., Room 103, Wilson Hall
James Young will address how Holocaust memorializing can be an endeavor caught between the push of politics and the pull of emotion. Young is professor of English and chair of the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
OCTOBER 14
Gad Beck, "Sensitive Memories: The Story of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin"
8 p.m., Room 103, Wilson Hall
Gad Beck, a Jew, gay man and a member of the anti-Nazi resistance, will share how he survived the Holocaust living in Berlin under an "Aryan" name. He will discuss his experiences as a triple target of Nazi persecution and as a survivor with memories not everyone wanted to hear.
OCTOBER 19
"A Letter Without Words," directed by Lisa Lewenz
7 p.m., Sarratt Cinema
In 1981, Lisa Lewenz discovered a cache of movies that her grandmother Ella had filmed in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s. The film "A Letter Without Words" is the result of Lisa Lewenz's exploration into her grandmother's world as it weaves together the footage of two women looking at history ó one with an eye on what will come, the other looking at what has passed. A discussion will follow the screening of the film.
OCTOBER 21
Ghetto Tango, featuring Zalmen Mlotek and Adrienne Cooper
8 p.m., Steve and Judy Turner Recital Hall
The musicians and playwrights of the Nazi-administered ghettos in Poland and Lithuania persisted in creating artistic commentary, combining influences of Jewish folk song, Italian opera, German and Polish cabaret, tango, and American ragtime and jazz. Ghetto Tango offers a taste of this musical legacy.
OCTOBER 25
"The Last Days," with producer June Beallor and survivors Bill Basch and Renee Firestone
7 p.m., Sarratt Cinema
"The Last Days" chronicles the stories of five Hungarians who fell victim to Adolf Hitler's final genocidal push at the end of World War II. In the film, which won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1999, survivors journey back to their hometown and to the places where they faced the Holocaust. Following the screening, producer June Beallor and two of the survivors featured in the film, Renee Firestone and Bill Basch, will lead a discussion.
OCTOBER 26
Michael Berenbaum, "The Haunting Memory: Confronting the Holocaust"
8 p.m., Room 103, Wilson Hall
Michael Berenbaum will set the making of memory in its plural, multinational context, drawing on the ways that the Holocaust has been remembered, confronted and debated in Germany, Switzerland, France, Poland, the United States and Israel. Berenbaum has served as the president of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, where he was the historian responsible for "The Last Days."
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