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Holocaust Lecture Series

Learning from history. Leading with purpose.

Crowd in Holocaust Lecture Series event

The Holocaust Lecture Series at Vanderbilt University creates opportunities for learning, reflection and dialogue that deepen understanding of the Holocaust and its enduring lessons for individuals and society.

Established in 1977 by University Chaplain the Rev. Beverly A. Asbury, the series has become the longest continuous lecture series on the Holocaust at an American university. For more than four decades, the Holocaust Lecture Series has brought scholars, survivors and liberators, and artistic examinations of the Holocaust to Vanderbilt's campus.

Through lectures, conversations and other educational experiences, the series invites the Vanderbilt community to examine history, consider its implications for the present and engage difficult questions with curiosity, empathy and purpose.

Past Holocaust Lecture Series

2025-26 "The Weight of Witness"

Dr. Alan E. Steinweis, Professor of History and Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont, joins Vanderbilt for lecture titled “Kristallnacht and the Reversibility of Progress."

Co-sponsored by the Holocaust Lecture Series, Hillel, and the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies

  • 2024-25 "Songs of Remembrance"

    This theme illuminates the power of music and artistic expression as acts of resistance, remembrance, and hope—showing how creativity sustained individuals during the Holocaust and continues to carry their stories forward.

  • 2023-24 "The Weight of Words"

    With conversations featuring survivors, this theme underscores the importance of hearing their stories directly, in their own words.

  • 2022-23 "Like a Reed"

    Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar taught, “Be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar.” In that spirit, the Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe developed Yiddishkeit—“the Jewish way of life”—a rich language and culture that endured despite pogroms, Nazi genocide, and Soviet oppression. This theme discusses how Yiddish culture became a vital source of strength and resilience during the Holocaust and beyond.

  • 2021-22 “The Root of Hate”

    This theme highlights the age of media —constant streams of videos, posts, and messages that can dull our awareness of the power behind words and images — and how they can connect or divide, nurture empathy or fuel fear, inspire compassion or incite hate and violence.

  • 2020-2021 “Children in the Holocaust”

    The theme explores the experiences of children during the Holocaust — loss, survival, exile, displacement — and highlights both the tragedy and resilience of young Holocaust victims and survivors.

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