The 28th Annual Holocaust Lecture Series

October-November 2005
Legacies: Remembering, Forgetting, Reconciling

In 1979 then University Chaplain, now emeritus, Beverly Asbury organized what would prove to be the first of the now longest continuous Holocaust Lecture Series at any American university. Under the rubric "Holocaust: Jewish and Christian Perspectives," prominent theologians and philosophers Irving Greenberg, Emil Fackenheim, and Franklin H. Littel as well as one of the leading survivor memoirists, Gerda Klein, spoke to the greater Vanderbilt community.

Since then our ongoing examination of ourselves and our society in the wake of the Holocaust has brought such notable figures as Elie Wiesel, Simon Wiesenthal, Terrence des Pres, Lawrence Langer, Nechama Tec, and Deborah Lipstadt, among many others, to campus and has addressed such themes as ethics, resistance, law, gender, art, and memory. In a world in which we still find racial and religious persecution and even genocide, more than half a century since the Holocaust, the twenty-sixth anniversary of the series is an appropriate time to reflect on difficult and unresolved issues of justice and redress.

The difficulty of doing justice reflects the enormity of the crime. By this standard, we are still struggling to take the measure of the Holocaust. Almost sixty years after the end of World War II, we continue to tax our ethical, legal, financial, political, and artistic resources in an effort to redress the crimes of the Holocaust and make whole the victims of Nazi atrocities.

About the 2005 Lectures

Another anniversary passes and with it fewer victims and perpetrators walk among us. Many fear that with their passing, so too will the memory of the event. But memory comes in many forms: through the stories told – and untold– it is inscribed in the survivors’ children and in their children’s children and it is borne by those of us who have heard their testimonies in person andin print, on tape and on video. What are we to remember? What responsibilities do these memories bring? Do the memories of victims create different responsibilities than those of perpetrators? Can we suffer from too much memory: caught in a perpetual mourning or driven by desire for retribution? What are the effects of memories that could not or cannot be shared? Is forgetting always wrong or is a certain amount or kind of forgetting necessary for us to live together? This year the Vanderbilt Holocaust Lecture Series examines these issues in film, lecture, and conversation through the testimonies of those who lived through both sides of the event and of those who came after.

2005 HOLOCAUST LECTURE SERIES SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

All regular events are free and open to the public, For more information, call 322-2457.

Sunday, October 9, 7 p.m.
Lecture, Wilson Hall room 126
The Forgiveness of Sins: Prison Chaplains Work with Nazi Perpetrators 1945-1970
Katharina von Kellenbach
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, St. Mary's College of Maryland

Many Nazi perpetrators rejoined Christian churches while incarcerated in Allied internment camps and prisons after 1945. While they professed a deeply held faith in Christ, few felt any repentance for their genocidal actions or expressed compassion for their former victims. This lecture examines the interactions between perpetrators and their Christian pastoral counselors and ultimately asks whether the Christian proclamation of the forgiveness of sins succeeded in facilitating moral awakening and spiritual transformation in the hearts and minds of Nazi perpetrators.

Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at St. Mary's, Professor von Kellenbach's research interests include feminist theology and Jewish-Christian relations (Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, 1994), the life and the work of the first female Rabbi Regina Jonas of Berlin (1902-1944) and the religious, moral, personal and political issues raised by the Holocaust. Tonight's lecture draws upon her current research project, which has been funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Monday, October 10, noon
Panel Discussion, Sarratt Student Center room 189
Remembering, Forgetting, Reconciling
Katharina von Kellenbach
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, St. Mary's College of Maryland
Björn Krondorfer
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, St. Mary's College of Maryland
Ruth Arbitman Smith
Clinical Psychologist, Nashville, Tennessee
Two German Gentiles and an Israeli-American Jew discuss dealing with familial legacies and the rights, rites, and responsibilities of reconciling with the descendants of victims and perpetrators.

Monday, October 10, 7 p.m.
Lecture, Wilson Hall 126
To Remember in Order to Forget: The Holocaust in German Postwar Autobiographies
Björn Krondorfer
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, St. Mary's College of Maryland How does personal memory collude with or augment the public discourse on remembrance and commemoration? Autobiographical writings in the context of a perpetrator culture negotiate an ever-present tension between the desire to tell one's story and the desire to protect oneself by justifying one's choices and attitudes. Reading them against the backdrop of the postwar German discourse on National Socialism and the Holocaust, this lecture addresses how post-1945 memoirs of German Protestant theologians - preeminently men - eluded complicity and culpability as each author talked about himself at great length while, at the same time, sought to hide his self as an acting moral agent.

Professor Krondorfer's works include Remembrance and Reconciliation: Encounters Between Young Jews and Germans (1995). He has edited Edward Gastfriend's My Fathers's Testament: Memoirs of a Jewish Teenager (2000), and co-edited: Von Gott reden im Land der Täter (Talking about God in the Land of Perpetrators; 2001), and Das Vermächtnis annehmen: Kulturelle und biografische Zugänge zum Holocaust (Accepting the Legacy: Cultural and Biographical Approaches to the Holocaust; 2002). He is the director of the International Summer Program on the Holocaust, a one-month study program for American and European students.

Sunday, October 16, 7 p.m.
Film, Sarratt Cinema
Sometimes in April
(2003, USA)
Directed by Raoul Peck
One nation, decimated by ethnic rage. Two brothers, divided by marriage and fate. This film is a gripping drama inspired by trueevents surrounding one of history's darkest chapters: the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Cosponsored by the Sarratt Film Committee and the Bishop Johnson Black Cultural Center.

Friday-Sunday, October 21-23
Trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. (open to current Vanderbilt students only)
Join other Vanderbilt students for a guided trip through the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. This event will take place over the Fall Break and is open to full-time Vanderbilt students only. There is a co-pay required and space is limited. For more information call 322-2457.

Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.
Film and Discussion, Sarratt Cinema
Secret Lives: Hidden Children and their Rescuers During World War II
(2003, USA)
Director Aviva Slesin will take questions following film
Secret Lives tells the complex and emotional story of a number of Jewish children who were saved from the Nazis by non-Jews who, at great personal risk, took them into their homes as an extraordinary act of human decency. Whether hidden for months or years, the experience affected both the hidden children and their rescuers and is the focus of this documentary film written, produced and directed by Academy Award winner Aviva Slesin, herself a former hidden child from Lithuania. Slesin will take questions after the screening. Cosponsored by the Sarratt Film Committee.Secret Lives tells the complex and emotional story of a number of Jewish children who were saved from the Nazis by non-Jews who, at great personal risk, took them into their homes as an extraordinary act of human decency. Whether hidden for months or years, the experience affected both the hidden children and their rescuers and is the focus of this documentary film written, produced and directed by Academy Award winner Aviva Slesin, herself a former hidden child from Lithuania. Slesin will take questions after the screening. Cosponsored by the Sarratt Film Committee.

Wednesday, November 2, 7 p.m.
Film and Discussion, Sarratt Cinema
Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after the Holocaust
(2004, USA)
Directed by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky
Discussion moderated by Rabbi Saul Strosberg
This award-winning documentary recounts the remarkable journey of filmmaker Menachem Daum, Orthodox Jew and child of Holocaust survivors, who travels with his wife Rifka and their two ultra-Orthodox sons to Poland to try to find the Christian farmers who hid his wife's father from the Nazis. Daum hopes that by encountering these seemingly unlikely exemplars of decency that they will recognize, as does he, that all humanity, Jew and Gentile, has the potential for goodness. A discussion moderated by Rabbi Strosberg follows the film. Cosponsored by Sarratt Film Committee.

Thursday, November 10, 7 p.m.
Lecture, Law School Renaissance room
An Uncommon Friendship: From Opposite Sides of the Holocaust
Bernat Rosner and Frederic Tubach with introduction by Sally Tubach
Bernie Rosner, a Hungarian Jew, survived the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, before eventually being adopted by an American soldier and moving to the United States. Fritz Tubach was the son of a German army soldier and member of the Nazi Youth Movement. In their poignant memoir, ?An Uncommon Friendship: From Opposite Sides of the Holocaust?, they tell how they became friends and how their friendship forced each of them to come to terms with his past. Co-author Sally Tubach Ph. D., wife of Fritz Tubach, will introduce the program.

In Conjunction
Wednesday and Thursday, September 28 and 29, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Sarratt Cinema Film Series
Remembering Rwanda
The Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center and the Division of Student Life are cosponsoring two films that explore the Rwandan genocide. The 7 p.m. screening ?Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire? is a documentary of the genocide as seen through the eyes of the U.N. commander. Hotel Rwanda, the 9 p.m. screening, is a portrayal of the hotel manager who helped protect thousands of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide. There is an admission charge for these films and ticket sales begin 30 minutes prior to screening time at the Sarratt Student Center Box Office.

Sunday, October 16, 2-4 p.m.
Fisk University Chapel
Community Forum on Darfur
This educational forum sponsored by Tennesseans Against Genocide is designed to educate the community about the crisis at hand in Darfur, Sudan. The TAG coalition of religious and civic organizations has combined forces to raise public awareness and concern about the disaster in Darfur, including a more dramatic outcry for increased action to end the atrocities and reduce the suffering in Darfur and nearby refugee camps. The featured speaker at the forum will be Jerry Fowler, the Director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience. For additional information contact Hazel Joyner-Smith at the Fisk
University Race Relations Institute, phone 615-329-8812 or e-mail rri@fisk.edu.

Tuesday, October 11, 7 p.m.
Sarratt Cinema
Project Dialogue Film
"Mr. Death"

Sunday-Saturday, November 6-12
The Irvin and Elizabeth Limor Educational Outreach Program of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission
5th Annual Nashville Jewish Film Festival
In 2005, this conference designed for secondary school teachers and mature high school students turns its focus to Jewish children hidden by non-Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and the courageous people who sheltered them at great risk to their own lives. It explores the emotional connections that flowered between hidden children and those who offered them refuge during the war years and what happened once peace was established. For registration information call or contact the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, Inc., 2417 West End Avenue, Nashville, TN 37240; telephone: (615) 343-2563 or 343-1171; e-mail: tnholcom@vanderbilt.edu

Monday, November 14, 6 p.m.
Sarratt Cinema
Film with panel discussion
"Lost Boys of Sudan"
Reception following at the Bishop Johnson Black Cultural Center
The Nashville Jewish Film Festival will celebrate its fifth anniversary at the Belcourt Theatre in Hillsboro Village, November 6-12, 2005. These films highlight the history, heritage, and culture of the Jewish experience and include the Kathryn H. Gutow Student Film Competition, a panel of experts discussing the Berlin Jewish Museum, and several invited guests, including filmmakers and directors. For more information, call 356-1322, or visit the Web site at www.nashvillejff.org.

Acknowledgments
Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee
NCCJ, Nashville Chapter
Tennessee Holocaust Commission
Vanderbilt University
Bishop Johnson Black Cultural Center
Blair School of Music
Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership
Center for the Study of Religion and Culture
College of Arts and Science
Department of Communication Studies and Theatre
Department of Comparative Literature
Department of English
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages
Department of History
Department of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
Department of Religious Studies
Department of Sociology
International Programs
Program in Jewish Studies
Divinity School
Division of Student Life
John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development
Margaret Cuninggim Women's Center
Office for GLBT Life
Office of Housing and Residential Education
Office of Student Activities
Office of the Provost
Office of the University Chaplain and Affiliated Ministries
Baptist Student Center
Presbyterian Campus Ministry
Reformed University Fellowship
Saint Augustine's Episcopal Chapel
Vanderbilt Catholic Community
Vanderbilt Hillel
The Wesley Foundation
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs
Opportunity Development Center
Peabody College
Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
School of Engineering
School of Law
School of Medicine
School of Nursing
Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies

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Copyright © 2005, Vanderbilt University. Last Modified: Oct. 6, 2005. For more information: 615-322-2457.