Holocaust conference to educate participants

For its 20th year, Hillel's Annual Conference on the Holocaust will bring two weeks of lectures and other activities to the campus community to educate people about one of the most tragic events in history.

The conference, which LSA senior and publicity Chair Cara Hecker called "one of the largest programs of its kind in the country," is completely student-run, although she said Hillel's staff provided help and support.

"Our main goal is education ... keeping the discussion going of how to remember the event," Hecker said, adding that the current time period is crucial because testimonies of Holocaust survivors are becoming more precious as survivors get older.

"Where is the memory going to go?" she asked. "How do we keep it alive when the survivors are no longer alive to tell their story? What's going to happen to the memory of the Holocaust?"

LSA junior Celia Alcoff also stressed the importance of survivor testimony.

"We're lucky to still have survivors," said Alcoff, a conference co-chair. "We have to use them as a resource while we still can.

"It is especially important for the Jewish community to learn about our history and look towards the future to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust from ever happening again." she added. "It is our duty to inform others."

Alcoff said that as a Jewish woman and the granddaughter of two Holocaust survivors, she has a "personal investment" in the conference's goals, but she encourages people of all religions and cultures to attend because the conference will "convey the emotions and ramifications of the Holocaust."

Hecker said that in past years, the conference has drawn people from the entire campus community - including University students, Ann Arbor residents and others from the state of Michigan - because it is "specifically designed to be a way to reach out."

The conference will begin tomorrow at noon on the Diag with a 24-hour reading of names of people who died in the Holocaust. At noon on Thursday, following the reading of thousands of names, a memorial service for Holocaust victims is scheduled.

LSA junior Geoffrey Dworkin said the 24 hours spent reading the names demonstrates a dedication of time to commemorate each person and the fact that "they're individuals, not just numbers."

For the Michael Bernstein Memorial Lecture, Melissa Muller, who wrote "Anne Frank: The Biography," will give a complex portrait of Frank's life. Muller's lecture is scheduled for March 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rackham Auditorium

Hank Greenspan, a psychologist and playwright who teaches in the Residential College, said not only were individuals destroyed in the Holocaust - a whole way of life and culture were lost. "Can we even begin to mourn ... how do we deal with loss on that level?" he asked.

Although Greenspan said there is no simple definition of the Holocaust, it "was the deliberate and systematic murder of 6 million European Jews, as well as members of other groups who were picked out as victims" - including gypsies, Russian prisoners of war, and "those whom the Nazis deemed 'unworthy of life,'" like the disabled.

"We have a handful of names, and a lot of people who are just gone," Greenspan said. "It's not simply a question of death, but people being erased from history, from the earth, without graves, without our knowing what happened.

"We have to do what we can do," he said. "And at the same time recognize that at some level it's beyond saving."

Conference events:

n Memorial of Names, tomorrow at noon on the Diag

n Diag Memorial Service, Thursday at noon on the Diag

n Showing of plays "The Jewish Wife" and "REMNANTS," Thursday at 8 p.m. in the RC Auditorium

n Showing of "Schindler's List," Saturday at 8 p.m. in Auditorium A of Angell Hall

n Yaron Svoray, son of Holocaust survivors, will talk about his experience as an undercover neo-Nazi in the early 1990s during his lecture titled "In Hitler's Shadow," March 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Hillel

n Havdallah with Survivors, March 27 at 7 p.m. in the Hillel Courtyard

n Melissa Muller, author of "Anne Frank: The Biography" will give a more complex portrait of Frank's life during the Michael Bernstein Memorial Lecture, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rackham Auditorium

-List of events courtesy of Hillel

More events:

n Yaron Svoray, son of Holocaust survivors, will talk about his

experience as an undercover

neo-Nazi during his lecture titled "In Hitler's Shadow," March 25, 7:30 p.m., Hillel

n Melissa Müller, author of "Anne Frank: The Biography" will give a more complex portrait of Frank's life during her lecture, March 29, 7:30 p.m., Rackham Auditorium

-List of events courtesy of Hillel

03-16-99