Holocaust and Other Genocides Lecture Series

(for more information, visit the VU Holocaust web site)

October 25-November 8, 2001
Theme: Resistance to the Holocaust

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28
8:00 p.m., Wilson 103
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Reflections on Resistance and Jewish Resistance

Nechama Tec is a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust whose "imaginative and pathbreaking" research sheds light on a variety of topics previously unexplored. Tec's book, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans,shows how an embattled group of fighters took on a second role of rescuers. The Bielski partisans became the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews during World War II. An earlier book, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland, offers a first insight into the motives of ordinary Poles to shelter their Jewish neighbors. A new book, The Puzzle of Gender and the Holocaust, will be published by Yale University Press in 2002. Tec is a Senior Research Fellow at the Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Scholar-in-Residence at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. She is also Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut at Stamford. She is a frequent lecturer at national and international universities as well as a guest speaker on television and radio programs.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29
7:00 p.m., Sarratt Cinema
FILM AND DISCUSSION: Resistance: Untold Stories of Jewish Partisans (2001)

Directed by Seth Kramer
Resistance tells the story of Jewish Partisans in World War II. It addresses the often asked question, "Why did the Jews go like sheep to the slaughter?" The answer this documentary film gives is, put simply, "They didn't." Interviews with Jewish partisans reveal the profoundly moving story of the dramatic fight for survival by young men and women in the forests of Eastern Europe. A discussion with the producer of the film, Kenneth Mandel, will follow the film.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30
8:00 p.m., Sarratt Cinema
LECTURE/DISCUSSION: The Heart of Resistance: Partisans Speak

Two of the former partisans whose stories are told in the film, "Resistance: Untold Stories of Jewish Partisans," Shalom Yoram and Eta Wrobel, will elaborate on their experiences, and answer questions from the audience.

At the age of 17, Shalom Yoram escaped into the forests and swamplands of Poland in 1942, after seeing his parents murdered by Nazis before his eyes. He and his brother formed the nucleus of a partisan band that waged guerilla warfare against the Germans for the rest of the war. He smuggled himself into Israel at the end of the war, and made important contributions to the development of the Jewish State. Eta Wrobel escaped with her father to the forests near her home in Lukov, Poland when her ghetto was burned to the ground by the advancing German Army. By the age of 17 she joined a small partisan group of sixty people, men, women, "boys and girls," who resisted Nazi occupation. For her, the partisan experience took on a dual role of rescuer and fighter. Eta brought numerous other Jewish refugees to her partisan unit and helped find shelter for them. Following the war she married and moved to the United States. She is a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother and a passionate activist against intolerance and hate crimes.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1
7:00 p.m., Sarratt Cinema
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: Songs of Struggle and Resistance: The Resilience of the Jewish Spirit
Adrienne Cooper and Lorin Sklamberg

Throughout Jewish history, spiritual and political struggle has been expressed through song. From the Jewish religious tradition to the struggle for trade unionism to the Holocaust, a vibrant and diverse music expresses spiritual seeking, a vision of a just economic and social order, and the will to resist mankind's greatest inhumanity during the Holocaust. This music will be presented by two of the leading vocalists of the New Yiddish Culture and Klezmer Revival movements, Adrienne Cooper and Lorin Sklamberg. Adrienne Cooper has inspired a generation of listeners and musicans alike with her reinterpretations of Yiddish vocal music. Her recordings include Mikveh, Ghetto Tango and the Grammy-nominated Partisans of Vilna. She is Director of The Center for Cultural Jewish Life of the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring . Lorin Sklamberg, founding member and lead vocalist with The Klezmatics, is featured on three dozen recordings including Nigunim with Frank London, Knitting on the Roof with Uri Caine and Live in the Fiddler's House where he duets with violin virtuoso Itshak Perlman. Mr. Sklamberg directs the Music Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6
7:00 p.m., Sarratt Cinema
FILM AND DISCUSSION: Weapons of the Spirit (1989)
Directed by Pierre Sauvage

This film by Pierre Sauvage tells the true story of a small French village which managed to save five thousand Jews from the Holocaust. The inhabitants of the village, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, were descendants of Huguenot Protestants who themselves had been severely persecuted in previous centuries. They decided to resist evil with "weapons of the spirit" and managed to double the population of their community right under the noses of the Nazi-occupiers. The film is Sauvage's personal story. Born to Jewish parents hiding in Le Chambon, he returned to chronicle the town's resilient story and interviewed the inhabitants. A discussion with Professor Michael Bess of the Department of History at Vanderbilt will follow the film.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8
8:00 p.m., 103 Wilson Hall
LECTURE: The German Resistance and the Holocaust
Peter Hoffman

Professor Hoffmann is the leading authority on German resistance to Hitler. His most recent book is Stauffenberg. A Family History, 1905-1944. (Cambridge University Press, 1995). Among his several other books and numerous articles are these two landmark studies: German Resistance to Hitler. (Harvard University Press, 1988) and The History of the German Resistance 1933-1945. (Macdonald and Jane's, 1977). His studies have appeared in German, French and Italian editions. Peter Hoffmann is William Kingsford Professor at McGill University.

IN CONJUNCTION
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25
8:00 p.m., Steve and Judy Turner Recital Hall, Blair School of Music
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: An Evening of Jewish Song
Amy Jarman, soprano, and Amy Dorfman, piano

Soprano Amy Jarman has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for her "radiant tone and moving phrasing...". The Dallas Times Herald has called pianist Amy Dorfman's playing "poised and sensitive." Join these two dynamic performers as they present a moving concert of Jewish music. Songs in Yiddish, Hebrew, English and Ladino showcase the diversity of the Jewish musical heritage. Included in the program are Simon Sargon’s delightful "On Grandfather’s Knee" and favorite selections from Yiddish theater, as well as Maurice Ravel’s haunting setting of the Kaddish prayer, and songs which reflect on the tragedy of the Holocaust. Both Amy Jarman and Amy Dorfman are on the faculty of the Blair School of Music.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 to MONDAY, OCTOBER 22 Guided Tour Trip to U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

During the academic semester's Fall Break, the Office of the
University Chaplain will sponsor a Vanderbilt student trip to
the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The trip will be led by Vanderbilt Hillel Director, Shaiya Baer.
Students will depart from Nashville on Saturday, October 20,
and return on Monday, October 22. For more information, call
322-2457.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29
8:30 a.m. until 4:15 p.m.
Sarratt Student Center
Vanderbilt University
Partisan Resistance During the Holocaust

An Educational Outreach Program (EOP) of the Tennessee
Holocaust Commission

This conference is designed for secondary school teachers,
grades 7 - 12, and mature high school students.

• Reflections on Resistance and Jewish Resistance -- Professor Nechama Tec, University of Connecticut, Holocaust survivor and author of Defiance: The Bielski Partisans
• Film -- Resistance: Untold Stories of Jewish Partisans
• Choosing Resistance -- Eta Wrobel and Shalom Yoran, two former partisans featured in the film, answer questions
• Teaching about Resistance -- A conversation with Nechama Tec, Shalom Yoran, and Eta Wrobel
  

For registration information, call or write: Tennessee Holocaust
Commission, 2417 West End Avenue, Nashville 37240
Telephone: (615) 343-2563 or 343-1171
Email: tnholcom@vanderbilt.edu

FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10
8:00 p.m. and NOVEMBER 4 at 2 p.m.
Neely Auditorium, Vanderbilt University
THEATER PERFORMANCE: Lebensraum
by Israel Horovitz

Using a cast of three to play 40 sharply drawn characters, this bold work of penetrating intelligence is based on the fanciful, explosive idea that a German Chancellor might, as an act of redemption, invite six million Jews to Germany and promise them citizenship and jobs. A resulting scenario unfolds that explores the effects of the policy on Jews and nonJews with widely varying outlooks, from an unemployed American dockworker to a survivor of Auschwitz.

General admission will be $7.00. Admission will be free for
undergraduates with Vanderbilt I.D., and $4.00 for graduate
students.

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