Events

The Rita C. Kimerling Public History Endowment, UAB Department of History, and the Alabama Holocaust Education Center welcome Jennifer Teege, author of the international bestseller, My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me. Teege’s mother was German; her father was Nigerian. Unable to raise a newborn child, her single mother placed Teege in a children’s home when Teege...
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Photographs of Holocaust events and places have become some of our lasting memories. But do we really appreciate what those photographs have to tell us? This series, "The Holocaust in Focus," will narrow the focus on iconic Holocaust photographs and critically examine what we know and how we know it. In this first session, Amy...
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Dr. Wiesen will explore two Nazi-era photo albums that are some of the only photographs we have from the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau and its perpetrators. The first, The Lilly Jacobs Album (also known as The Auschwitz Album), was discovered by a survivor recovering from typhus. It depicts the arrival of Hungarian Jews to the...
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As Jews in Paris in the early 1940s, Brenda Hancock's mother's family endured the entire spectrum of experiences resulting from Nazi occupation. Some members hid in their home towns without ever being arrested. Some were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Hancock's mother, Nicole Widerman Holland, managed to escape from Paris in 1942 with the birth...
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International Holocaust Remembrance Day was designated by the UN General Assembly in 2005 as January 27, marking the date in 1945 when Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp, was liberated. In commemoration of this date, the Vilna Shul and its partners will convene a panel to discuss the search for a little-known Holocaust...
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In 1996, Serge Klarsfeld edited French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, a nearly 2,000 page book documenting the roundup and deportation of thousands of French children. At the time of the book’s publication, the Los Angeles Times commented: "French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, more vividly than any other source I know in...
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As Jews in Vienna in the late 1930s, Chris Berdy’s father’s family experienced the Holocaust across three generations. After Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938, Chris’s great-grandparents and grandparents were forced to emigrate to other parts of Europe. Chris’s grandparents ultimately made their way to Lyon, France, where Chris’s father was born in late...
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Christina Chavarria, US Holocaust Memorial Museum In July 1938, delegates from 32 countries, including the United States, met at the Evian Conference in France to discuss options for settling Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany. The Dominican Republic was the only participating country that was willing to accept additional refugees. Why? What were the prospects...
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The Holocaust Days of Remembrance (Yom HaShoah) solemnly observes the memory of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and honors our Alabama survivors and their families. This year's meaningful program will feature various speakers including Governor Kay Ivey, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, and Pastor Chris Edmonds, son of World War II hero Master...
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Anna Wrobel, American historian, teacher, and Holocaust Studies educator, uses original poetry as a creative means for historical and cultural transmission. Family events and memories are framed in scholarly, historical contexts. Anna Wrobel is the daughter of Holocaust survivors – partisan and soldier - an American historian, teacher, poet and Holocaust Studies educator. Her history...
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