Holocaust Education Week 2015

The Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, Toronto, presents the 35th year of Holocaust Education Week in venues across the Greater Toronto area.

More than 100 programs will take place in civic, cultural, religious and public venues across Toronto and in Ontario communities from 2-9 November 2015. Exploring the theme of Liberation: Aftermath & Rebirth, HEW 2015 will run from November 2-9, and the Opening Night features David Eisenhower on the topic Victory in Europe: Commemorating 70 Years of Liberation. The week long educational forum culminates in a commemoration of the anniversary of the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass) (November 9-10, 1938). Featured presenter Dr. Marc Grellert of the Technical University Darmstadt will speak on Creating a Digital Culture of Remembrance: Reconstructing Synagogues Destroyed during Kristallnacht. HEW 2015 will contribute to our collective understanding of the Holocaust by exploring the theme via new scholarship, engaging in cultural and literary analysis, and providing an inquiry-based learning medium for new generations to hear firsthand accounts from those who survived the Holocaust.

One of the most comprehensive educational forums in the world, HEW 2015 presents a group of outstanding experts-in- residence. The scholar is Prof. Hilary Earl

(Nipissing University), an historian of the Holocaust whose research focuses on perpetrator testimony and war crimes trials in the aftermath of the Holocaust and her book The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958: Atrocity, Law, and History provides an important account of the post-war justice system; the educator is Dr. Lauren Granite, North American Education Director for Centropa, a Jewish historical institute based in Vienna, Austria, dedicated to preserving 20th century Jewish family stories from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans; and the feature photographer is Toronto-based Elliot Sylman document the lives of Holocaust survivors through contemporary portrait photography. HEW 2015 is an inclusive week of programming that aims to educate about the variety of aspects and implications of the Holocaust, its victims, survivors, and legacies.

See the program guide for a complete list of programs. This year’s cover illustration is by Oscar Cahen (1916-1956) who narrowly escaped Prague in 1939 and arrived in Canada as a Jewish refugee in 1940 where he was interned as an “enemy alien”. Cahen was a celebrated artist and illustrator whose works can be found in the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario among others. The illustration used on this year’s program guide was created for a story about emigration from post-war Europe by Richard D. McMillian and appeared in Maclean’s Magazine, 15 August 1947.

All programs are free of charge unless otherwise indicated. A letter from IHRA Mr. Szabolcs Takács can be read on page 3.