The deepest wish of Holocaust survivors is that their experiences not be forgotten. But what does it mean to remember? In her presentation on November 29, 2012, entitled “Remembering the Holocaust: Empathy and Historical Memory for Future Generations,” Dr. Baum explores how true historical memory is an emotional relationship to the past that changes who we are. Drawing connections to the Armenian genocide and present-day events, she articulates a notion of “emotional responsibility,” offering tangible examples of how Holocaust memory can be nurtured for generations to come.

Made possible by a generous grant from the Jack Chester Foundation, with additional sponsorshop by the USF Libraries Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center and the USF College of Education, Department of Secondary Education.

Historian Ronald Grigor Suny gave a talk entitled The Persistent Past at the USF Tampa Library on Monday, April 23rd, 2012. Suny is the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History and Director of the Eisenberg Institute of Historical Studies at the University of Michigan, as well as Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago.

About the lecture:
A century ago the Young Turk government carried out deportations and massacres of various peoples in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, Arabs, and others.  Several of these brutal relocations have been designated ‘genocide,’ yet the current Turkish state, along with the United States and other countries, refuses to label any of them ‘genocide.’  The denial of past violence and its erasure from historical memory has allowed violence and human rights abuses to continue, worldwide, to the present day.

Presented by the USF Libraries Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center and cosponsored by the USF Department of History.

On Sunday, February 26th, the USF Libraries Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center presented scholar and author Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt in a discussion of  her latest book, “The Eichmann Trial.”

Dr. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. She is widely known for her studies of the Holocaust, with particular emphasis on Holocaust deniers, as reflected in her book “History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier.”

This event was co-sponsored by the USF Libraries Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center and Congregation Kol Ami.

The Second Annual Armenian Studies Symposium focused on the Armenian genocide within the context of Turkish national security policy and international relations. It featured renowned scholar Dr. Taner Akçam. Dr. Akçam’s presentation was followed by a panel discussion with USF faculty Steven C. Roach and Edward Kissi.

Historian and sociologist Dr. Taner Akçam is the Kaloosdian/Mugar Professor in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University and an internationally-renowned scholar on the subject.

Download a copy of Dr. Akcam’s presented paper.

An international team of archeologists, historians, and geophysicists used oil- and gas-exploration technology to locate the gas chamber at the Sobibor extermination camp, hastily buried by the Nazis after a prisoner uprising in 1943. Freund used ground-penetrating radar and electro-magnetics to make some significant discoveries that will help create the most accurate post-war map of a site deliberately hidden from view by the Nazis.

Renown Armenian studies scholar and Guggenheim Fellow Richard Hovannisian‘s keynote address from the “Rediscovering Armenia: History, Memory, and the Future,” the 1st Annual Armenian Studies Symposium, held October 29, 2010 – October 30, 2010.  The symposium was made possible with generous support by Chris and Carol Ann Sassouni, David and Nancy Kazarian, Manoug Manougian, the USF Honors College, and the USF Libraries Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center.

Author Talk with Michael Hirsh

On March 31st Bill Garrison, Dean of the USF Libraries, welcomed a standing-room-only crowd to the Tampa Library’s Grace Allen Room to hear author Michael Hirsh discuss his new book, The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust. Dr. Mark Greenberg, Director of the Libraries Special and Digital Collections, introduced Hirsh’s longtime friend, Dr. Jay Wolfson, who formally introduced the author. Dr. Wolfson is the distinguished Service Professor of Public Health and Medicine and the Associate Vice President for Health Law, Policy and Safety at USF in Tampa.

In his work, Hirsh allows the people he interviews to tell their own stories and to bear witness to one of the worst events in recorded history:

“The compounds were packed with the skinniest people you ever saw in your life. Huge, huge eyes. The eyes is what I remember most. And they had pajamalike garb on, blue and white stripes. There were hundreds that we could see, and we never did see the full extent of the camp. And the eeriest thing about it was, there was not a sound. It was just incredible; not a sound out of them. You never saw people like this before.” – Norman Fellman Hirsh, M. (2010). The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust. New York: Bantam Books.

Norman Fellman’s account of Berga an der Elster, the Nazi slave-labor camp, is from a perspective much different from that of many of Hirsh’s interviewees. Norman Fellman’s account is from the inside and his story is just one of the many fascinating stories told to author Hirsh for his book.

Pictured here author Michael Hirsh with the family of LeRoy Petersohn.

Another compelling story Hirsh recounted was about LeRoy Petersohn, a medic with the 11th Armored Division who saved the life of a three-week-old baby at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria (liberated May 5, 1945 by the 11th Armored Division).

Mr. Petersohn tells this story during his interview with Michael Hirsh that is available as part of the USF Libraries Oral History Program Concentration Camp Liberators OHP – http://guides.lib.usf.edu/ohp » Mr. Petersohn tells Hirsh how, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp, he was reunited in Austria with Hana Berger Moran, the baby he had saved sixty years earlier. Hana’s story is told in Hirsh’s book, and her story helps the reader to understand the importance of a single life.

What Michael Hirsh conveys with his inspirational book, and what comes through loud and clear in the voices of the liberators he interviewed, is the humanity of the individual.

Meaning, Debate, and New Framework

Speaker Benjamin Madley (Yale University)

Part of USF Libraries Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center 2009 Lecture Series.

Speaker Fabian Klose (University of Munich/Princeton University)

Part of USF Libraries Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center 2009 Lecture Series.