Special Staging of Sarajevo
2025-04-06 14:30 - 17:00 (Europe/Helsinki)
RSVP IS ESSENTIAL AS SEATING IS LIMITEDClick the link or email dowi@jhbholocaust.co.za
ABOUT THE PLAY:In the powder keg of Sarajevo in the days before the first shots of the Siege are fired, a South African photojournalist hires a Bosnian Muslim woman as a translator and local guide. As the chaos of war consumes the city around them, the bonds of friends, of lovers, and of countrymen, are stretched beyond breaking.
A play about consent and coercion, violence and power – about trying to hold on to humanity in the fury of war.
There will be a Panel Discussion and Q&A after the Performance.
CONTENT WARNING: Strong Language, Sex, Violence, A Graphic Depiction of Rape, Hate speech, Descriptions of War crimes. Some scenes may be triggering for some viewers.
Not suitable for people under the age of 16.
HEALTH AND SAFETY NOTICE: Herbal Prop Cigarettes are smoked on stage during the performance. Audience smoking/vaping is strictly prohibited. There are also sequences of flashing lights that may impact those with photosensitive conditions.

“Sabotage”: The Legacy of Women’s Resistance in Auschwitz
2025-04-06 20:00 - 22:00 UTC | Online
Join us for a special pre-screening of the documentary Sabotage, to stream on Thursday, April 3 through Sunday, April 6. This will be followed on Sunday, April 6, by a special Talking Memory Program, The Legacy of Women’s Resistance in Auschwitz.

All registrants for the Sunday, April 6, Zoom program will receive the link and code to stream the film.

We recommend watching the film, by Noa Aharoni and produced by Doc.Films, Levi Zini & Avishai Peretz, before attending the Zoom webinar.

Sabotage Film Synopsis:In January 1945, less than two weeks before the evacuation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, four forced labour women—Estusia Wajcblum, Rosa Robota, Alla Gartner, and Regina Safirstein—were hanged in public after being accused of sabotaging the Nazi war machine. This is an almost unknown story of the women’s underground operation in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a story of women’s heroism, resistance, and tragedy, told through the eyes of Anna Wajcblum Heilman, Estusia’s sister and the youngest member of the resistance group. In the horrific inferno of Auschwitz, Anna writes a diary describing the dramatic story of the women’s resistance, camaraderie, and friendship.

The Legacy of Women’s Resistance in Auschwitz Talking Memory Zoom Program on Sunday, April 6, 8 PM SAST

This year marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Our programme will focus on the experiences of women in one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps and their place in public memory.

Dr Sarah Cushman, Director of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University, will explore the deadly environment of Birkenau and how female prisoners struggled to survive. She will examine why armed resistance was rare among women and how they navigated such extreme conditions.

Noa Aharoni, award-winning filmmaker and director of Sabotage, will discuss her documentary about the underground women’s resistance in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which ended in the tragic public hanging of four young Jewish women. She will share insights into the themes of heroism, sacrifice, and hope in her film.

Ariela Heilman, daughter of Auschwitz resistance fighter Anna Heilman (Wajcblum), will share her mother’s story and the fate of her aunt, Estusia Wajcblum, one of the four women executed for their role in sabotaging the Nazi war effort.

Jasmin Ron, Archivist at the Ghetto Fighters’ House, will discuss the life and artwork of Ella Liebermann-Shiber, a German-Jewish painter and Holocaust survivor. Liebermann-Shiber’s paintings document her experiences in the Bedzin Ghetto and Auschwitz-Birkenau, highlighting the role of art in historical memory.

This programme is presented in partnership with Remember the Women Institute, the Rabin Chair Forum at George Washington University, Wagner College Holocaust Centre, and the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre.

Session 1 – Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-04-08 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online
INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE GRANT PROGRAM WINNER 2023

Join us for the IHRA Webinar Series, in collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC), Eastern European Holocaust Studies: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (EEHS), Ukraina Moderna website (UM), and Austrian Service Abroad (ASA) on the theme of “Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial”. Topics that will be engaged with under the central theme include the way in which historical analogies and presentism in studying the history of the Holocaust are used to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking about the Holocaust, current armed conflicts and the rise of hate speech. Ways in which oversimplifications, misrepresentations, distortions, and denial of these topics can be challenged and safeguarded against will also be grappled with, alongside testimonies, resistance, education, remembrance, and the collection and preservation of history.

This first webinar in the series deals with the theme of Othering, featuring speakers: Albert Hytry on “The Colonial Gaze of Nazi Propaganda on Occupied Ukraine (1941-1943)”; Dr Andrea Dahlauist on “Anti-Semitism as Propaganda Tool in Romania During the Interwar Period and Nowadays”; Prof Adam Mendelsohn on “The Holocaust beyond History: The Uses and Abuses of Holocaust Memory in South Africa”; and Prof David Simon on “Pathologies of Exclusion: Patterns in Narratives of ‘Othering’ across the Holocaust and Rwanda”.

Session 1 - Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-04-08 19:00 - 22:00 UTC

Session 2 – Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-04-22 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online
INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE GRANT PROGRAM WINNER 2023

Join us for the IHRA Webinar Series, in collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC), Eastern European Holocaust Studies: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (EEHS), Ukraina Moderna website (UM), and Austrian Service Abroad (ASA) on the theme of “Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial”. Topics that will be engaged with under the central theme include the way in which historical analogies and presentism in studying the history of the Holocaust are used to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking about the Holocaust, current armed conflicts and the rise of hate speech. Ways in which oversimplifications, misrepresentations, distortions, and denial of these topics can be challenged and safeguarded against will also be grappled with, alongside testimonies, resistance, education, remembrance, and the collection and preservation of history.

This second webinar in the series deals with the theme of Occupation, featuring speakers: Doris Bergen on “Cultural Genocides, Genocidal Cultures: How Analogies between Residential Schools for Indigenous Children in Canada and the Holocaust Deepen Understanding of German Occupation Practices in World War II”; Jeffrey Veidlinger “Ukrainian occupations, war, and antisemitism: past and present”; and Judge Mykola Gnatovskyy: “The talk addresses the manner in which the ECtHR addresses contemporary human rights issues that are connected to the Holocaust and other crimes committed in the past.”

Doris Bergen is a historian and the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto, specialising in Holocaust research with a focus on Christianity’s role in Nazi Germany, military chaplains, and the intersection of war and genocide. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she has authored several influential books and pioneered methodologies in gender and sexuality studies related to the Holocaust while advocating for accessible, high-quality research on mass violence.

Jeffrey Veidlinger is the Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan and the inaugural Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, specializing in Jewish history and Holocaust studies. An award-winning author of multiple books, including In the Midst of Civilized Europe (2021), he holds leadership roles in many institutions, including the Vice-President of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Past Chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History, and a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Judge Gnatovskyy, born in 1977 in Kyiv, Ukraine, is an expert in international law with a PhD from Taras Shevchenko National University and extensive experience in academia and international humanitarian law. He served in key roles within the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and other international legal bodies before being appointed as a Judge of the European Court of Human Rights in 2022.

Session 2 - Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-04-22 19:00 - 22:00 UTC

Exhibition opening: Communicating Historical and Current Trauma by Art
2025-04-23 14:00 - 15:30 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
The Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, in partnership with the Embassy of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Association of South Africa, invites you to the opening of the exhibition, Communicating Historical and Current Trauma by Art.

In a series of posters, Ukrainian artist and designer Yuliya Fedorovych tells the story of the Holodomor in her own unique visual language. She highlights the key prerequisites, facts, and consequences of the 1930s famine-genocide, weaving them into a modern aesthetic reflecting Ukrainian culture’s evolution in the 20th century. Traditional elements of folk embroidery—echoes of Ukraine’s deep-rooted identity—are intertwined with the constructivist style of the 1920s and 1930s.

The final posters in the series draw a powerful parallel between history and the present, reflecting on Russia’s ongoing invasion and rekindling the trauma of the past. She calls this exhibition: “Unpunished Evil: HØLØDØMØR & Russia’s Modern-Day Crimes in Ukraine”

Each artwork is enhanced through augmented reality: historical facts come to life when scanned on your mobile phone, creating an interactive experience that deepens engagement with this powerful story.

The exhibition forms part of the broader HOLODOMOR project, promoted by the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv.

Watch the artist describe her work here:🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEdoNtj6dqY

Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future Session 3
2025-04-28 21:00 - 22:00 UTC | Online
As we stand on the cusp of history, the voices of Holocaust and genocide survivors grow ever more urgent, reminding us of the cost of silence, the value of empathy, and the power of resilience. Echoes Across Time invites audiences to explore the crucial lessons these testimonies offer—on values, democracy, and the warning signs of oppression. Through monthly episodes, each centred around a survivor’s testimony about their life experiences, this series poses the question: Are we truly listening?

Join us as we amplify stories from the Holocaust to Rwanda, Cambodia, and beyond, engaging with survivors, scholars, and advocates who work tirelessly to preserve these legacies and inspire a more compassionate future.

Generations of the Shoah: Passing the TorchFeaturing: Esther Toporek Finder, Founder of the Coordinating Council of Generations of the Shoah International and President of Generations of the Shoah – Nevada, along with Sharon Buenos of Zikaron BaSalon.

This discussion will address the pressing issue of legacy and the vital role younger generations play in carrying forward the memories of the Holocaust. Esther and Sharon will share insights on how remembrance can help combat modern-day hate and antisemitism, encouraging participants to consider how they, too, can be torchbearers in this global fight. This session explores the importance of resilience, community, and the role each individual plays in sustaining the impact of survivor stories.

Online book launch GENOCIDE: Personal Stories, Big Questions by Heidi Kingstone
2025-04-30 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Online
To Commemorate the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre invites you to the book launch of GENOCIDE: Personal Stories, Big Questions by Heidi Kingstone

The book tells the story of the last 120 years of genocide, its impact on the world and its relevance today. Kingstone takes the reader on a journey from the Herero and Nama genocide of 1904, through the Armenian genocide, Ukrainian terror-famine and The Holocaust to the Cambodia, Rwanda and Srebrenica genocides of the late 20th century. She also explores the Darfur, Yazidi and Rohingya genocides of the 21st century, starkly illustrating that, while some lessons have been learnt, mankind seems to possess a propensity to dehumanise fellow human beings – all too visible in today’s global conflicts. This human failing, argues Kingstone, is fuelled by fear, greed and propaganda, and the refusal to learn from the past.

The book builds on Kingstone’s 20 years as a foreign correspondent for national and international media and is informed by survivors, witnesses, academics and activists. It is a collection of vignettes that link one instance of tragedy to another – a compendium of stories centred around people that Kingstone has met, observing connections that weave their way through relationships, cultures, and continents across time, leading to salutary parallels, past and present.

Kingstone provides us with the origin and definition of the term genocide – it transpires that the word itself did not emerge until the winter of 1944 when Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer born in 1900, coined the term. We learn that in 1945 Lemkin went to Nuremberg to establish the crime of genocide. Ben Ferencz, the youngest prosecutor at Nuremberg – interviewed for the book by Kingstone just before his death, aged 103 in 2023 – was one of the first people to use the term. It wasn’t until 1948, we are told, that the definition was enshrined in the United Nations Genocide Convention.

Other characters we meet in the book include two remarkable women who spoke to the world – Anne Frank, and Arshaluys Mardiganian who survived the 1915 Armenian genocide, escaped to the USA, and became a global sensation with her story, serialised in the media and turned into a film.

Having met a woman born in Bergen-Belsen, the former Nazi concentration camp, Kingstone talks about life after liberation and how people can rise from the ashes. Haunted by ghosts, children of survivors talk about their lives and the impact of their families’ legacy. And we learn about the ‘Heart of Auschwitz’ – the amazing story of a purple origami heart made by prisoners that survived the Death March. Kingstone’s work also explores the psychology of a perpetrator – how people justify mass murder – and draws parallels between leaders from Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler to Josef Stalin.

The book quotes leading authorities on the complex and perplexing history of genocide, including Professor Menachem Z. Rosensaft, former general counsel of the World Jewish Congress and adjunct professor in law at Columbia Law School; Dr Ümit Kurt, the historian whose awakening to genocide took place in his own hometown of Gaziantep, which he discovered was formerly home to a thriving Armenian community; and Dr Jan Ilhan Kizilhan who is a psychologist, psychotherapist, trauma expert and orientalist.

Commenting on the book, Professor André Singer, President Emeritus, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, stated, “In her beautifully penned and wide-ranging book Genocide – Personal Stories, Big Questions, Heidi Kingstone takes up the challenge of not only reflecting on the Holocaust but on genocides worldwide to paint a fresh and comprehensive picture for the world to learn from. It is her personalised journey covering genocides in so many countries that makes this such a gripping read and fulfils her ambition to help change things and remind us in such a compelling way that we must never look away.”

Journalist Heidi Kingstone has spent her career covering events around the globe for prominent publications from the Financial Times to the Mail on Sunday. She has interviewed key international figures from Benjamin Netanyahu and HRH Princess Anne to Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind. Her interest in human rights and dictatorships led her to Iraq on four occasions, travelling to Baghdad, Irbil, and Basra before and after the invasion in 2003. She has also reported from Bangladesh, Africa and the Middle East. Arriving in an old Soviet helicopter and a C-130 military aircraft, she reported extensively from Afghanistan. She later wrote her first book, Dispatches from the Kabul Café (2014), a memoir of a country at a tipping point. War and genocide have fuelled Kingstone’s pursuits and informed her work. Like so much in her life, from moving to London from her native Toronto to ending up in Iraq and Afghanistan, serendipity played its part in writing Genocide: Personal Stories, Big Questions.

Genocide: Personal Stories, Big Questions, is published by Yellow Press (www.yellowpress.co) and is available as a download from Amazon: https://a.co/d/02a4feW4

Book Launch: Poetry Non-Scenes
2025-05-04 11:00 - 12:30 UTC | Issy’s Coffee & Gift Shop, 1 Duncombe Road, Forest Town, 2193, South Africa
In April 2024, a group of aspiring poets of all ages and from all walks of life, came together for a series of poetry writing workshops held at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre. The poems focused on a range of issues which inform the South African experience, including human rights, race, gender and mental health.

Poetry Non-scenes: New performance poems beyond the struggle (2024) offers an exciting taste of the poems produced during the workshops. Join anthology’s editors: Tom Penfold, Adam Levin and Deirdre Byrne as they reflect on the workshops, the publication of the anthology and the future of the Poetry Nonscenes project. They will be joined by some of the anthology’s contributors who will perform their poems.

Antisemitism in Australia and Working to Counter It
2025-05-06 17:00 - 18:00 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
Join us for a conversation with Rabbi Ralph Genende on Antisemitism in Australia and Working to Counter It: The challenges of Jewish identity today

Rabbi Ralph Genende is a well-known Modern Orthodox Rabbi with a passion for social justice and creating bridges between different cultures and faiths. For him the purpose of religion is to create a better society for all people and to engage with the critical issues facing Australian society. The role of the Rabbi is, in his words, to challenge the comfortable and comfort the challenged.

Rabbi Genende is the Interfaith and Community Officer of AIJAC (Australian Israel Jewish Affairs Council) and on its editorial board. He was Senior Rabbi to Jewish Care, Victoria, Melbourne’s largest Jewish organisation, and is now its Consultant. Ralph is Principal Rabbi to the Australian Defence Force, Member of the Religious Advisory Council to the Minister of Defence (RACS), and board member of and member of the Premier’s Multi Faith Advisory Group. He has served as President of the Jewish Christian Muslim Association (JCMA), was a long-time executive member of the Rabbinical Association of Victoria, and was formerly a member of Swinburne University’s Research Ethics Committee. He is a member of the Department of Health Ethics Committee and of Glen Eira City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan for recognition and integration of our First Peoples.

In 2018, Rabbi Genende was awarded an OAM for his services to multi-faith relations, and to the Jewish community of Victoria. He is a trained counsellor with a Masters degree from Auckland University.

In August 2022, Rabbi Genende published his debut book, Living in an Upside-Down World , an anthology gathered over 20 years of writing that examines the many crises and challenges of the 21st century – from polarisation to asylum seekers, loneliness to climate change.

Virtual Book Discussion Two Sisters: Betrayal, Love, and Resistance in Wartime France
2025-05-07 22:00 - 23:30 UTC | Online
Join us for a compelling virtual discussion with journalist and historian Rosie Whitehouse as we delve into her latest book, Two Sisters: Betrayal, Love, and Resistance in Wartime France.

This powerful true story follows Marion and Huguette Müller, two sisters whose lives were shattered when the Nazis invaded France in 1940. Through meticulous research and gripping storytelling, Whitehouse uncovers their harrowing journey — one marked by loss, resilience, and the courageous efforts of those who risked everything to save them.

Perfect for history enthusiasts, Second World War scholars, and anyone moved by stories of survival and resistance, this discussion will offer unique insights into the moral complexities of war, the strength of human connection, and the enduring quest for justice.

Rosie Whitehouse is an experienced journalist with a distinct focus on exploring the tapestry of Jewish life in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Her insightful writing features in respected publications including BBC Online, The Observer, The Independent, Tablet magazine, The Jewish Chronicle, Haaretz, and others. A proud alumna of the London School of Economics, Rosie also serves as a historical advisor to Centropa, a leading Jewish history institute based in Vienna.

Online Roundtable: Holocaust Literature and Connective Histories of Other Genocides
2025-05-14 19:00 - 21:30 UTC | Online
This online roundtable explores how Holocaust literature has shaped, and been shaped by in return, other histories of extreme violence. The speakers will discuss literature from Rwanda, Australia, and Yugoslavia, and highlight the complex and nuanced ways it engages with the Holocaust and Holocaust literature.

This roundtable is part of an ongoing series featuring original research from the forthcoming Cambridge History of Holocaust Literature. For more information, you can visit the website Rethinking Holocaust Literature: Contexts, Canons, and Circulations.

Speakers: Zoë Norridge Reader in African and Comparative Literature and Visual Cultures, Kings College London; Kirril Shields Director of Education and Regional Policy, Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility; Stijn Vervaet Associate Professor in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Balkan Studies, University of Oslo. Chaired by Stuart Taberner – Professor of German, University of Leeds.

Session 3 - Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-05-20 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online
INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE GRANT PROGRAM WINNER 2023

Join us for the IHRA Webinar Series, in collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC), Eastern European Holocaust Studies: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (EEHS), Ukraina Moderna website (UM), and Austrian Service Abroad (ASA) on the theme of “Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial”. Topics that will be engaged with under the central theme include the way in which historical analogies and presentism in studying the history of the Holocaust are used to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking about the Holocaust, current armed conflicts and the rise of hate speech. Ways in which oversimplifications, misrepresentations, distortions, and denial of these topics can be challenged and safeguarded against will also be grappled with, alongside testimonies, resistance, education, remembrance, and the collection and preservation of history.

This third webinar in the series deals with the theme of Violence, featuring speakers: Prof Andras L Pap on “Law as a tool for Identifying, Classifying, Othering and Annihilating: Legislation and the Hungarian Holocaust”, Anna Furman on “Babyn Yar as a place of violence”, Prof Kai Struve on“Soviet Propaganda, Holocaust Memory, and Ukrainian Nationalism: Shaping Western Perceptions from the Cold War to the Present”, and Prof IIdikó Barna on “Tracing Violence from Language to Atrocity: Learning from Testimonies, Research, and AI.”

András L. Pap is Research Professor and Head of Department for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the (formerly Hungarian Academy of Sciences, currently) HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, as well as Professor of Law at the Faculty of Economics at Eötvös University (ELTE) in Budapest. For 25 years, until its recent closing in 2025, he was Adjunct (Recurrent Visiting) Professor in the Nationalism Studies Program at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest and Vienna. A former visiting scholar at New York University School of Law Global Law Program, and a SASPRO-Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, his research interest include comparative constitutional law, human rights, law enforcement, and the conceptualisation of race and ethnicity. He worked as rapporteur, consultant, senior expert, project manager and lead researcher in various projects commissioned by the European Union, the Council of Europe and the UN. He served as expert witness for courts in the UK and the US and habitually works with international NGO’s and think tanks. He is a member of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. In 2018 he founded the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) Research Group on identity, race and ethnicity in constitutional law. He is also a recurrent evaluator for a variety of EU grants. He has taught over 85 courses, delivered over 250 presentations and published over 100 articles and book chapters in international academic forums.

Anna Furman has been the Chief Executive Officer of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center since 2025, with expertise in cultural management, international cooperation, and digital transformation. She brings over a decade of executive experience leading large-scale cultural and social initiatives both in Ukraine and abroad. Under her leadership, the Center digitised over 7 million archival documents, launched the first online martyrology of civilian victims of the war in Ukraine, and received global accolades, including the Red Dot and Webby Awards. Anna co-authored the Center’s artistic vision, curated impactful exhibitions, and led strategic cooperation with state institutions and archives. She is also a prominent international representative of the institution. Prior to her work at Babyn Yar, she held leadership roles in the legal and educational sectors. She has a Master of Laws degree and researches Human Rights.

Kai Struve is a Senior Research Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and a Privatdozent at the Institute of History of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He received his Ph.D. from the Free University of Berlin in 2002 and has previously worked at the Herder Institute in Marburg and the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture in Leipzig. He has also held fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, and the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas. His research focuses on the history of Ukraine and Poland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly World War II and the Holocaust, but also on questions how societies remember and interpret mass violence in the twentieth century. Among his most important publications are Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt. Der Sommer 1941 in der Westukraine, Berlin 2015 (Ukrainian translation: Nimets‘ka vlada, ukraïns‘kyi nacionalizm, nasyl‘stvo proty ievreïv. Lito 1941 roku v Zakhidnii Ukraïni, Kyïv 2022), and the edited volume (with Gelinada Grinchenko): Krieg und Okkupation. Deutschland und die Ukraine 1941-44, Leipzig 2025 (forthcoming).

Ildikó Barna is a sociologist and professor at ELTE University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Research Methodology, Budapest. Her research topics include antisemitism, memory politics, post-Holocaust studies, and quantitative research on archival sources. In recent years, her interest has turned to automated text analytics, applying natural language processing to complement traditional quantitative and qualitative approaches in these areas. Dr. Barna has been awarded numerous research grants, including the MTA Bolyai János Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2017–2020). She has also held several prestigious fellowships, such as the Visiting Research Fellowship at the Malach Centre for Visual History in Prague (2020), the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) Research Fellowship at the Arolsen Archive in Bad Arolsen and the Wiener Holocaust Library in London (2017), and the Visiting Fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC (2015). She is the author of numerous publications and, together with her co-authors, received the Károly Polányi Prize from the Hungarian Sociological Association in 2003, 2017, and 2023 for the best publication of the previous year.

“Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future” Session 4
2025-05-21 21:00 - 22:00 UTC | Online
As we stand on the cusp of history, the voices of Holocaust and genocide survivors grow ever more urgent, reminding us of the cost of silence, the value of empathy, and the power of resilience. Echoes Across Time invites audiences to explore the crucial lessons these testimonies offer—on values, democracy, and the warning signs of oppression. Through monthly episodes, each centred around a survivor’s testimony about their life experiences, this series poses the question: Are we truly listening?

Join us as we amplify stories from the Holocaust to Rwanda, Cambodia, and beyond, engaging with survivors, scholars, and advocates who work tirelessly to preserve these legacies and inspire a more compassionate future.

On Darkness and Light: The inspiring story of the survivors

Featuring Prof. Hanna Yablonka is affiliated with the History Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research has focused on the cultural and social impact of the Shoah on Israeli society. She pioneered the research field dealing with the survivors of the Holocaust after 1945. In her research, she has emphasized the resilience and activism of the survivors, instrumental in the building of the State of Israel. Prof. Yablonka was also the founder and Chair of the Israel Studies department. Hanna Yablonka is the author of over 40 scientific articles, The editor of 4 books, and the author of six books including: Survivors of the Holocaust (1999) awarded the Ish Shalom prize Yad Ben Zvi, The History of the War Veterans Association (1999,) The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann (2004) awarded the Buchman prize Yad Vashem, Off the beaten track: the Mizrahim and the Shoah (2008). Her last book: Yeladim Besseder Gamur (children by the book) became a best seller. It is the collective biography of the generation of the first native Israelis born in the state of Israel between 1948 – 1955. It was awarded as the best book in Israel for the years 2019 – 2020 by Yad Ben Zvi.

Among her many affiliations she currently is a member of the Yad Vashem Council and was the academic advisor of Yad Vashem’s exhibition marking the 50th and 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. Hanna Yablonka is the chair of Governors of the Memorial Museum of the Hungarian Speaking Jewry in Safed and the chief Historian of the Ghetto Fighters Museum for the last 25 years.

Opening Remarks by Yigal Cohen director of Ghetto Fighters House.

Laughing against Hitler: Soviet Yiddish Jokes and Songs of World War II
2025-05-22 18:00 - 19:00 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
Historian Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto) bring to life long lost Yiddish songs of World War II in this interactive lecture program, entitled Laughing Against Hitler: Yiddish Humor During WWII in the Soviet Union. Can humour be a weapon? If yes, is it effective? Based on Yiddish jokes and anecdotes recorded between 1943 and 1945, the program tells the story of what Jews found funny, and why, as they lived through the darkest period of modern Jewish history in Europe.

None of the jokes and songs, all presented in Yiddish complete with English and Russian translations, was known until they were accidentally discovered in the basement of the Ukrainian National Library in the 1990s.

Anna Shternshis is the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies and director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She received her doctoral degree (DPhil) from Oxford University in 2001. Shternshis is the author of critically acclaimed monographs, including Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923 – 1939 (Indiana UP, 2006), When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin (Oxford UP, 2017), and most recently co-author (together with Oleg Budnitsky, David Engel and Gennady Estraikh) of Jews in the Soviet Union: A History: War, Conquest, and Catastrophe, 1939–1945 (New York UP, 2022). Her latest book Jews in the Soviet Union: Post-War Life, Hopes, and Fears, 1945-1953 is in preparation with New York University Press. She is the author of more than 30 articles on the Soviet Jews during World War II, Russian Jewish culture, post-Soviet Jewish diaspora and Yiddish culture of the Holocaust. Together with artist Psoy Korolenko, Shternshis created and directed the Grammy-nominated Yiddish Glory project, an initiative that brought back to life forgotten Yiddish music written during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. A recipient of 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and President’s Impact Award at the University of Toronto, she is currently finishing her book tentatively entitled Last Yiddish Heroes: A Lost and Found Archive of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union about Yiddish music created in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

Special stagings of Sarajevo
2025-05-25 19:00 - 2025-05-29 19:00 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
Theatre is where we gather — to remember, to feel, to face ourselves. It is not a place of escape, but of confrontation. In Sarajevo, we return to the stage not just to recount history, but to mourn the fragile thread between love and violence, and to ask: how does friendship survive when the world demands enemies?

This is not just a war story. It is a story of three friends — Mirela, Aleksander, Slobo. Bound by childhood, separated by war. Torn by belief, fear, and duty. Through them, we witness how easily a friend becomes a stranger — and how unspeakably hard it is to unmake that distance.

But theirs is not the only gaze. Peter, a foreign conflict journalist, enters their lives with a camer and a thirst for the story. In documenting the war, he becomes part of it. The line between witness and participant blurs. What is the role of the outsider? Of the lens? What does it mean to observe suffering — and when does observation become intrusion?

Theatre lets us feel what headlines numb. In the flicker of a glance, in a trembling breath on stage, we see ourselves — not as soldiers or civilians, not as victims or monsters, but as people once held by love, now lost in the storm of identity, ideology, and narrative.

This play asks you to come closer. To sit with discomfort. To hold your breath in silence as a friendship breaks — and a camera rolls. And maybe, in that shared silence, to remember our shared humanity.

Because theatre, at its best, breaks the spell of forgetting.And friendship, at its truest, defies the logic of war.

Suggested donation/ tickets: R165

Read the review in the Mail & Guardian

Hell is others: Sarajevo and the tragedy of intimacy

Webinar: Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango
2025-06-12 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Online
Join the SAHGF for an inspiring online lecture-concert featuring Grammy-nominated producer Dan Rosenberg and JUNO-winning singer Lenka Lichtenberg, as they share their remarkable music projects inspired by Holocaust poetry. The event will feature music and a discussion about two of their award-winning collaborations.

Silent Tears, The Last Yiddish Tango was created by Payadora Tango, composer Rebekah Wolksteinilent Tears, The Last Yiddish Tango was created by and journalist/producer Dan Rosenberg. The music is based on poems, testimonies, and writtings of women who survived the Holocaust. From inspiring songs about survival to mournful laments, this award-winning program conveys an almost indescribable depth of emotion rarely sung about.

Thieves of Dreams, Lenka Lichtenberg’s Juno Award-winning album, sets her grandmother’s Holocaust-era poetry from Theresienstadt to hauntingly powerful music.

Session 4 – Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-06-17 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online
INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE GRANT PROGRAM WINNER 2023

Join us for the IHRA Webinar Series, in collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC), Eastern European Holocaust Studies: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (EEHS), Ukraina Moderna website (UM), and Austrian Service Abroad (ASA) on the theme of “Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial”. Topics that will be engaged with under the central theme include the way in which historical analogies and presentism in studying the history of the Holocaust are used to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking about the Holocaust, current armed conflicts and the rise of hate speech. Ways in which oversimplifications, misrepresentations, distortions, and denial of these topics can be challenged and safeguarded against will also be grappled with, alongside testimonies, resistance, education, remembrance, and the collection and preservation of history.

This four webinar in the series deals with the theme of Denial featuring speakers: Dr Irina Rebrova on “From ‘Peaceful Citizens’ to ‘Genocide of Soviet Nations’: The Place of the Holocaust Remembrance in Modern Russia”, Dr Vibeke Moe Bjørnbekk on “Denial and distortion in the Norwegian context focusing on narratives about the war in Ukraine on the online platform Steigan.no.”, Prof Hülya Adak on “Reconstructing Discussions of Human Rights and Genocide Prevention in the Interwar Period: How “The Treaty of Lausanne” led to the ”International Declaration of Human Rights” (1929)”, and Prof Karoly Bard on “Fritz Bauer’s contributions to Germany’s culture of remembrance and the Auschwitz trial”.

Dr. Irina Rebrova is a historian of Holocaust and other Nazi victim groups of the Second World War in the Soviet Union. She defended her PhD thesis at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin (ZfA TU Berlin) and 2020 she published a book titled “Re-constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: the Case of the North Caucasus.” She holds a Russian PhD degree (candidate of science in history) and MA in sociology (Gender studies). She has published a number of articles on Oral History, Gender History and Social Memory on World War II in Russian, English and German academic journals and edited volumes. Among others, she was a fellow at the Claims Conference Kagan Fellowship in Advanced Shoah Studies, at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research in Los Angeles, USA. During 2014–2022 she was a Research Associate in Hadassah Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, USA. Since 2022 she is a member of the board of the German non-profit association KONTAKTE-KOНTAKТЫ that promotes intercultural tolerance, education about history and donations for the victims of the Nazi era in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia through international exchange. Her latest project “Remember us…” dealt with the history and memory of people with disabilities who became Nazi victims in the occupied regions of Russia during the Second World War (http://nsvictims.ru/). In November 2023, she began her term as Alfred Landecker Lecturer at ZfA TU Berlin.

Vibeke Moe Bjørnbekk is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies in Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on contemporary antisemitism, Islamophobia, Holocaust memory, and Muslim and Jewish experiences. Moe Bjørnbekk has a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Oslo. Her doctoral thesis explored Muslim-Jewish relations in contemporary Norway. She was project manager of the two last waves of the pioneering Norwegian surveys on antisemitism and Islamophobia (2011, 2017, 2022, and 2024). Moe Bjørnbekk is the project manager of the international research project “Dynamics of hate: local manifestations of a global phenomenon”. The project explores hate speech on a global, regional, and local level and is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moe Bjørnbekk is part of the Norwegian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as member of the Academic Working Group and Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial. She is also an Advisory Board Member of the project “Jewish pathfinders”, a Norwegian government-financed project to combat antisemitism, coordinated by the Jewish Community in Oslo, a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the project “Antisemitism Undermining Democracy – Debunking Antisemitism”, hosted by Åbo Academy, Finland, and member of the Advisory Committee of the Norwegian Human Rights Institution in the period 2024-2028. Among Moe Bjørnbekk’s recent English publications are The Shifting Boundaries of Prejudice: Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Contemporary Norway (ed.) (Scandinavian University Press, 2020) and Narratives about Jews among Muslims in Norway (De Gruyter, 2024).

Hülya Adak is Senior Fellow at the Orient Institut Istanbul der Max Weber Stiftung and Visiting Professor of Gender Studies at the Margherita von Brentano Zentrum at Freie Universität Berlin. Between 2019-2022, she was the Director of SU Gender (Sabancı University’s Gender and Women’s Studies Center). Since 2018, she has served as Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Between 2001-2024, she served as Assistant and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at Sabancı University. She is the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers and Newton Grant (British Academy/with Murat Akser). Her articles in the fields of gender studies, memory and trauma studies, empire studies and nationalism, history of human rights, literature, theater, and film studies have been published in prominent journals. Her recent works include Critical Perspectives on Genocide: History, Politics and Aesthetics of 1915 (Routledge, 2023, with Müge Göçek and Ron Suny), Mapping Gender: What’s New and What’s Ahead in Ottoman and Turkish Studies (Max Weber Stiftung Publications 2022, with Richard Wittmann); Performing Turkishness: Politics of Theater in Turkey and its Diasporas, (Special Issue of Comparative Drama, 2018, with R. Ertuğ Altınay), Halide Edib and Political Violence: The Armenian Atrocities, Dictatorship and Nonviolence (Bilgi University Press, 2016, in turkish), Hundert Jahre Türkei: Von Revolten, Traeumen und Hoffnungen (Unionsverlag Zurich, 2010, with Erika Glassen). She is currently working on the book Afterlives of Archives (with Melanie Tanielian and Erdağ Göknar) that received Duke University Franklin Humanities Institute’s Book Manuscript Award (2021).

Károly Bárd, Professor Emeritus at the Central European University (CEU) has had a distinguished career in law and public service. He began his journey at the Faculty of Law, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. From 1990 to 1997, he served as Hungary’s Vice-Minister and later Deputy State Secretary of Justice, playing a pivotal role in modernizing the country’s legal system and bringing it in line with international human rights standards. Subsequently, he became Research Director at the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute of the Open Society Institute. At CEU, he directed the Human Rights Program of the Legal Studies Department for more than two decades and served as Pro-Rector for Hungarian and European Affairs. Károly Bárd’s expertise in criminal justice, human rights, international humanitarian law and Holocaust trials has been sought by prestigious global organizations, including the United Nations, Council of Europe, European Commission, OECD, and World Bank. He was member of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI; for more than a decade he served on the Advisory Board of the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI). As member of the Hungarian delegation Károly Bárd participated in the elaboration of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future Session 5
2025-06-18 21:00 - 22:30 UTC | Online
As we stand on the cusp of history, the voices of Holocaust and genocide survivors grow ever more urgent, reminding us of the cost of silence, the value of empathy, and the power of resilience. Echoes Across Time invites audiences to explore the crucial lessons these testimonies offer—on values, democracy, and the warning signs of oppression. Through monthly episodes, each centred around a survivor’s testimony about their life experiences, this series poses the question: Are we truly listening?

Join us as we amplify stories from the Holocaust to Rwanda, Cambodia, and beyond, engaging with survivors, scholars, and advocates who work tirelessly to preserve these legacies and inspire a more compassionate future.

“The Global Reach of the Holocaust: Voices from Unexpected Places”

The USHMM and its partners will share highlights from their international education outreach, focused on finding connections and relevance to the Holocaust in unexpected places from South Asia to Africa, the Middle East to Latin America and beyond.

Featuring:

Ilana Weinberg International Programs Officer for the Initiative on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism

Since joining the Museum in 2019, Ilana has worked to build international partnerships to reach young adults and leaders through joint educational projects that deliver accurate information about how and why the Holocaust happened in ways that reflect the relevance of this history to those audiences today. She leads the International Program on Holocaust and Genocide Education, implemented jointly with UNESCO, to build the capacity of education stakeholders around the world to develop context relevant Holocaust education in support of existing national curriculum framework and priorities. Previously, Ilana managed innovative partnerships and programs across the greater Middle East at America Abroad Media, an international nonprofit that empowers and supports local voices that convey universal values through creative content and media programming. Ilana has a BA in Journalism from The George Washington University.

Tad Stahnke: William and Sheila Konar Director of International Educational Outreach

Tad Stahnke is the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s William and Sheila Konar Director of International Educational Outreach, and Director of the Museum’s Initiative on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism, advancing the Museum’s mission to establish the relevance of the Holocaust for new generations. Before joining the Museum, Mr. Stahnke was Program Director at Human Rights First, an international human rights advocacy organization, and Policy Director at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which was created by Congress to advise the U.S. government on advancing respect for the internationally-recognised right to freedom of religion.

Mina Abdelmalak: Senior International Programs Officer, Middle East and North Africa

Mina works with partners across the Middle East and North Africa as well as visitors to the Museum to help introduce the relevance of Holocaust and the early warning signs of genocide in our world today. Mina was born and raised in Egypt, where he received a law degree from Ain Shams University. He studied nonviolence and advocacy strategies at the Arab Academy for Non-Violence Studies in Lebanon. Mina also worked as a legal researcher for the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth (EULY), a Cairo-based, non-profit organisation, which promotes classic liberalism among Egyptian youth.

Tali Nates: Founder and Executive Director, Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre

Tali Nates is the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC) and Chair of the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation (SAHGF). She is a historian who lectures internationally on Holocaust and genocide education, memory, reconciliation, and human rights. Born to a family of Holocaust survivors, her father and uncle were saved by Oskar Schindler. Tali has been involved in the creation and production of dozens of documentary films, published many articles and contributed chapters to different books among them God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors (2015), Remembering The Holocaust in Educational Settings (2018), Conceptualizing Mass Violence, Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations (2021) and The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism (2023).

In 2021 she was part of the 12-member Expert Group of the Malmö Forum, serving in an advisory capacity to the Secretariat of the Malmö Forum on their programme on Holocaust remembrance, education and actions to combat antisemitism. Tali serves on many Advisory and Academic Boards including that of the Contested Histories Initiative, the Interdisciplinary Academic Journal of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and the Academic Advisory Group of the School of Social and Health Sciences, Monash University (IIEMSA), South Africa.

In 2010, Tali was chosen as one of the top 100 newsworthy and noteworthy women in South Africa by the Mail & Guardian newspaper and won many awards including the Kia Community Service Award (South Africa, 2015), the Gratias Agit Award (2020, Czech Republic), the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (2021) and the Goethe Medal (2022, Germany).

POSTPONED: Heroines of the Holocaust: Reframing Resistance and Courage in Genocide
2025-06-22 20:00 - 21:30 UTC | Online
Join us for an online book launch of Heroines of the Holocaust: Reframing Resistance and Courage in Genocide. The co-editors, Prof. Lori Weintrob and Prof. Judy Baumel-Schwartz, will give a brief introduction to the book, which brings together international scholars to explore new perspectives on women’s rescue and resistance during the Holocaust, as well as the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and genocide in Armenia . In addition, two contributing authors, both descendants of Holocaust survivors, will speak about their respective chapters.

Dr Daniela Ozacky Stern will highlight the often-overlooked stories of Jewish women partisans during the Holocaust, focusing on the personal narrative of Chaya Shapira Lazar. Through her grandmother’s journey from the Vilna Ghetto to the partisan forests, Daniela sheds light on the unique challenges faced by female resistance fighters, who had to navigate traditional gender roles alongside revolutionary combat responsibilities.

Dr Steven Meed, son of Vladka Meed (née Feyge Peltel), will speak about his mother’s extraordinary wartime activities. An 18-year-old member of the Bund youth organisation SKIF in Warsaw at the time of the German invasion in 1939, she was quickly recognised for her fearlessness, resourcefulness, perfect Polish, and remarkable memory. These qualities led to her undertaking increasingly dangerous missions, particularly on the Aryan side. After Liberation, she continued to speak and write—initially in Yiddish—about her experiences, bearing witness on behalf of those who perished and those who survived, and reminding the world of the respect owed to both.

This programme is held in partnership with the Wagner College Holocaust Centre, the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University, Remember the Women Institute, the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, Classrooms Without Borders, and the Rabin Chair Forum.

The Nazi Mind: 12 Warnings from History, an Online Discussion with Laurence Rees
2025-06-23 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Online
Join us for an Online Discussion with Laurence Rees The Nazi Mind: 12 Warnings from History.

How could the Nazis have committed the crimes they did? Why did commandants of concentration and death camps willingly – often enthusiastically – oversee mass murder? How could ordinary Germans have tolerated the removal of the Jews?

In his latest book, The Nazi Mind, bestselling author Laurence Rees combines history and the latest research in psychology to help answer some of the most perplexing questions surrounding WW2 and the Holocaust. Rees traces the rise and eventual fall of the Nazis through the lens of ‘twelve warnings’ – from talk about ‘them’ and ‘us’ to the escalation of racism – whilst also highlighting signs to look out for in present day leaders.

Laurence Rees is a renowned historian, acclaimed author and former Head of BBC TV History, known for his acclaimed work on the Second World War. He has created award-winning TV series and bestselling books, including The Nazis: A Warning from History, Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution, and The Holocaust: A New History. Educated at Oxford, he holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sheffield and the Open University. Rees has received numerous prestigious awards, including a BAFTA, two Emmys, and a British Book Award.

Film Screening: Anne Frank: Parallel Stories
2025-06-29 14:30 - 16:30 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
In honour of Anne Frank’s birthday and Youth Month, the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre by Special Arrangement with the Historic Documentary Film Society, invites you to a screening of the acclaimed documentary Anne Frank: Parallel Stories.

Anne Frank who was denied her youth, celebrated her 13th birthday, her last in freedom on June 12th, 1942. For the next two years in hiding, she recorded in her treasured birthday gift her most intimate thoughts and impressions. Today, her diary speaks volumes as a key voice from the Holocaust.

The screening will be introduced by Selwyn Klass, co-founder of The Historic Documentary Film Society.

Narrated by Dame Helen Mirren with readings from Anne’s diary in the secret annex, the film includes interviews with five survivors who were her age when they were deported.

A suggested token donation of R50 (in cash) is requested

Session 5 – Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-07-01 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online
Join us for the IHRA Webinar Series, in collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC), Eastern European Holocaust Studies: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (EEHS), Ukraina Moderna website (UM), and Austrian Service Abroad (ASA) on the theme of “Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial”. Topics that will be engaged with under the central theme include the way in which historical analogies and presentism in studying the history of the Holocaust are used to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking about the Holocaust, current armed conflicts and the rise of hate speech. Ways in which oversimplifications, misrepresentations, distortions, and denial of these topics can be challenged and safeguarded against will also be grappled with, alongside testimonies, resistance, education, remembrance, and the collection and preservation of history.

This fifth webinar in the series deals with the theme of Testimonies featuring speakers: Dr Catherine Clark on “‘Othering’ and the Survivor Testimonies of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute”, Prof Gelinada Grinchenko on “Oral history of war, occupation, and liberation: Kharkiv 1941-1945”, Prof Kerry Whigham on “Testimonial spaces and practices: the power of art and memorials in testifying to past harm”, and Paul Salmons on “The testimony of artefacts: what stories can we find in everyday objects?”

Catherine E. Clark, PhD, is the Senior Director of Programs at the USC Shoah Foundation. Trained as a historian of modern Europe, Clark joined the Shoah Foundation in 2024 after serving at MIT, where she remains a tenured Associate Professor of History and French Studies. From 2022-2024, she served as the Faculty Director of MIT’s Programs in the Digital Humanities. Clark is the author of Paris and the Cliché of History (Oxford University Press, 2018), which won the 2018-2019 Laurence Wylie Prize for the best book in French cultural studies authored by a resident of North America, as well as numerous articles about French history and culture in publications including the American Historical Review, the Journal of Visual Culture, and Representations. She brings her expertise in history, visual culture, and computational methods in the Humanities to her role at the USC Shoah Foundation. Clark is dedicated to strengthening the Institute’s educational, academic, and public programs and fostering impactful partnerships.

Prof. Dr. Gelinada Grinchenko is an Associated Researcher at the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and a Professor at the Department of World History at Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Ukraine (until 2023, she was a Professor at the Department of Ukrainian Studies at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine). She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Ukraina Moderna, Co-Chair of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission, and Co-Chair of the Ukrainian Oral History Association. Her research interests include Oral History, the history and remembrance of World War II, Memory Studies, and Holocaust and genocide research. She is the author of numerous publications on these topics, including: Reclaiming the Personal: Oral History in Post-Socialist Europe, edited by N. Khanenko-Friesen and G. Grinchenko, University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2015,Traitors, Collaborators, and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory: Formulas of Betrayal, edited by G. Grinchenko and E. Narvselius, Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies, 2018, and Grinchenko, Gelinada; Venger, Albert (2024): Archival Case Files Regarding the Killings of Psychiatric Hospital Patients in Occupied Dnipropetrovs’k Region: Historical Sources, People, and Memory (in Ukrainian). She has taught as a Visiting Professor at Bochum and Giessen Universities (Germany) and was a fellow at numerous foundations and institutions, including: Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung, Philipp Schwartz Initiative for At-Risk-Scholars (2023–24), Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (2022, 2023), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2022, 2021, 2006, 2004), Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena (2019–20), Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (2018), The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Brandeis-Genesis Institute for Russian Jewry, Brandeis University, USA (2015), Gerda Henkel Stiftung (2012, 2004–06), The Center for Advanced Study and Education (2010, 2009), and the American Council of Learned Societies (2008, 2003).

Kerry Whigham is Assistant Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University and Co-Director of its Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP). His first book, Resonant Violence: Affect, Memory, and Activism in Post-Genocide Societies, is published by Rutgers University Press. He has also published articles in Genocide Studies and Prevention, Memory Studies, Public Administration Review, Public Administration and Development, and The International Journal of Transitional Justice, and has written chapters for several edited volumes. He served as a Fulbright Specialist at UNESCO and regularly trains government agencies on atrocity prevention policy and practice. He received a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University. In addition to his academic work, he is the Director of Research and Online Education at the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, an international non-governmental organisation that works with over 90 countries around the world on creating public policy for the protection of vulnerable groups and the prevention of mass atrocities.

Paul Salmons specialises in difficult, challenging histories, exploring the continued relevance of the past in today’s complex world. He is Director of the exhibition and education company, Paul Salmons Associates, Chief Curator of the travelling exhibition, Seeing Auschwitz (produced by Musealia for UNESCO and the United Nations), and co-curator of Musealia’s international award-winning Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. He was consulting curator on two new permanent Holocaust exhibitions in New York City and St Louis, Missouri, and helped to create the major new international travelling exhibition The Berlin Wall: Living in a Divided World, currently on display in Paris. Previously, Paul helped create the United Kingdom’s national Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum; co-founded the Centre for Holocaust Education at University College London; and for 20 years played a leading role in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. He is also the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s first Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Fellow, contributing to a range of the Museum’s international and educational projects.

Session 6 – Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial
2025-07-08 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online
Studies: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (EEHS), Ukraina Moderna website (UM), and Austrian Service Abroad (ASA) on the theme of “Othering, Occupation, Violence, and Denial”. Topics that will be engaged with under the central theme include the way in which historical analogies and presentism in studying the history of the Holocaust are used to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking about the Holocaust, current armed conflicts and the rise of hate speech. Ways in which oversimplifications, misrepresentations, distortions, and denial of these topics can be challenged and safeguarded against will also be grappled with, alongside testimonies, resistance, education, remembrance, and the collection and preservation of history.

This sixth and final webinar in the series deals with the theme of Education about Denial featuring speakers: Dr Lorrie Lynn King on “Genocide Education as Transformative Justice Against Denial: A Mainstreaming Case Study”, Jakub Nowakowski on “Distorted Narratives: Misrepresentation and Propaganda in the Discourse About the Holocaust in Poland Since 1989″, Richard Newell on “Making Sense of Holocaust and Genocide Denial in the Former Yugoslavia”, and Thomas Köhler and Peter Römer (Villa ten Hompel Memorial & Museum) “Narrating gender perspectives in educational settings on the Holocaust by Bullets”.

For nearly thirty years, Dr. Lorrie Lynn King has worked across applied, academic, and philanthropic sectors in global health and humanitarian aid. Her career spans 40 countries and fifteen Indigenous nations, collaborating with organizations like CARE International, the American Red Cross, the Carter Center, and UMCOR. Her community health programs, including HIV/AIDS Case Management Training in post-genocide Rwanda and Coffee Klatch Psychosocial Support for survivors of sexual violence, have been recognized by the Rwandan Ministry of Health and the CDC. Lorrie’s pioneering work in menstrual equity earned her a spot in CNN’s Top Ten Inspiring Women of 2014 (“The Stigma Stopper”), along with honors from the Georgia State House of Representatives, Rotary International, and Global Menstrual Hygiene Day. As a PhD scholar in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, she researches global resistance and reparation, Nazi resettlement in the U.S., and Jewish Drag and Gangsterism. She teaches Public Health, Social Justice, and Religion at Emory University and Agnes Scott College, serving as faculty advisor for the Jewish Student Union, “The Jew Crew”. Lorrie holds a BA in International Development from Oglethorpe University, an MPH from the University of Liverpool, and is completing her PhD at Gratz College. She has certifications in Health and Human Rights from Harvard, Health in Prisons from Johns Hopkins, and Mental Health First Aid. Additionally, she is a certified yoga teacher and ordained by the Universal Life Church. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, film, black coffee, red wine, and laughter.

Jakub Nowakowski was born and raised in Kazimierz, the former Jewish district of Kraków. Coming from a non-Jewish family that lived in Kazimierz for generations, from an early age he was compelled to research the history of his neighbourhood. In 2007 he graduated from the Department of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University, where he wrote a thesis on Jewish resistance in Kraków during the Second World War. His interest in Jewish history and Polish-Jewish relations led him to become a student volunteer and a member of Polish-American-Jewish Alliance for Youth Action (PAJA). The goal of the organisation was to create opportunities for dialogue between young Poles, Jews and Americans. In 2005 Nowakowski joined the staff of the newly open (2004) Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków. In 2006 he joined the Museum’s Education Department, and in 2008 he became its manager. In 2010, after an international competition, Nowakowski was appointed as the director of the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, Poland. He served in this role for 13 years. In 2023 he was appointed as the director of the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre. Jakub Nowakowski is the co-author of a number of Museum publications, including Poland: A Jewish Matter, and the proceedings of a symposium exploring contemporary Jewish life in Poland, marking the close of Jewish programming for Polska! Year. He is also a curator of the Museum exhibitions including “Fighting for Dignity”, “Jewish Resistance in Kraków, A City Not Forgotten”, “Memories of Jewish Lwów and the Holocaust”, “The Girl in the Diary”, and “Searching for Rywka from Łódź ghetto”. The exhibitions he has curated have been presented in Poland and internationally.

Richard Newell is a PhD candidate, based in Sarajevo, studying at the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz (Austria). His previous research and publications have been on the memory conflicts surrounding the genocide in Srebrenica and Rwanda. His current research is focused on the memorialisation of WWII in the Balkans, with particular focus on the Jasenovac Concentration Camp. He is co-producer of the Aegis Trust’s “Peace at Risk in Bosnia” podcast and member of the Sarajevo Security Conference.

Thomas Köhler is the second deputy director of the Villa ten Hompel Memorial and Museum in Münster(Germany) and an associate researcher at the University of Münster. His research, education and exhibitions focus on the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust, police history in the 20th century and the culture of remembrance after 1945. As a partner of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., he is developing educational outreach programs for their German-language traveling exhibition “Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust.” Together with the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, he co-developed the didactic folder “Entscheiden und Handeln” regarding the synagogue massacre in the eastern Polish city of Bialystok in June 1941. He is writing his doctoral thesis on the ideological radicalization of Nazi police officers and is the author and (co-)editor of An der Seite der SS. Die deutsche Polizei im Dritten Reich (expected to be published in 2025), Polizei und Holocaust. Eine Generation nach Christopher Brownings Ordinary Men (2023), Lublin-Majdanek. Das Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager im Spiegel von Zeugenaussagen, 2nd edition (2014), ‘Nicht durch formale Schranken gehemmt’. Die deutsche Polizei im Nationalsozialismus (2012).

Born in Hamburg in 1984, Peter Römer moved to Münster to study political science, modern and contemporary history, and public law at the University of Münster. His experience abroad at the University of Warsaw sensitized him to issues of memory culture and political history. He graduated with a Master of Arts degree. He has worked as a as a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration in North Rhine-Westphalia and the German Police University and at the University of Münster. Römer completed his traineeship at the Villa ten Hompel memorial and museum from 2016 to 2018 and has been working here as an educational and Research Associate since 2019. He conceived and planned the international conference “Facing Police and Holocaust” (2019). He was project manager for the projects “Den Tätern auf der Spur” (On the Trail of the Perpetrators) (2020-2022) and “Das geht mich ja was an!” (That’s My Business!) (2021-2022), both funded by the EVZ Foundation. He is responsible for the content and organization of education of adults at Villa ten Hompel (particularly in the area of professional training for police, fire department, and judicial personnel, students, and multipliers). He therefore designs projects for democracy and human rights education, anti-Semitism prevention, the history of the police under National Socialism, and the current development of the executive and judicial branches. He also conducts research on police history and how people become perpetrators. Römer has been deputy director of the historical site since 2023.

Mini conference: 80 Years On: Memory, Responsibility, and the Future of Remembrance
2025-08-14 14:00 - 17:30 UTC
Join the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre and its partners for a conference focusing on 80 years since the end of World War II and the Holocaust, highlighting memory, responsibility, and the future of remembrance.

Learn from experts Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner (historian and director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation), Dr. Yohai Cohen (director of Yad Vashem’s guiding department), Tal Bruttmann (French historian and writer on the Auschwitz Photographs) with participation of Sylt Foundation’s director, Indra Wussow and JHGC’s director, Tali Nates.

The conference will be followed by the opening of More Important than Life: The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition at 6pm.

Dr. Yohai Cohen, current director of Yad Vashem’s guiding department, has worked at Yad Vashem since 2006. He wrote his doctoral thesis in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the history of the Holocaust in Yad Vashem exhibitions from the 1950s to the present day. Previously, he worked at Yad Vashem as a museum guide, curator of photographs in the museum, and researcher of photographs in the archive.

Born in 1966, Prof. Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner studied medieval and modern history, geography, and Romance philology in Göttingen and Santiago de Chile (M.A.). He completed his doctorate at the University of Göttingen in 1999 with a thesis on the history of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp. In 2000 he was a guest scholar with the Max Planck Society research project “Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im NS” (Berlin). He served as director of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial (Nordhausen) 2001–2014, as executive director of the Lower Saxon Memorials Foundation 2001–2014, and director of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial (Celle) 2014-2020. He has been director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation since 2020.

Tal Bruttmann is a historian specializing in the Holocaust and antisemitism. His work focuses on antisemitic policies in France during the war, as well as the systematic murder of European Jews and the killing centres. He is notably the author of “Auschwitz” (La Découverte, 2015) and “Les cent mots de la Shoah” with Christophe Tarricone (PUF, 2016), as well as “Microhistories Of The Holocaust” (Berghahn Books, New York, 2016) with Claire Zalc. His latest book, “Un album d’Auschwitz : comment les nazis ont photographié leurs crimes” (Seuil, 2023), written with Stefan Hördler and Christoph Kreutzmüller, is a study dedicated to the photographs taken by the SS at Auschwitz. He also contributed to the script of the graphic novel “Du sang dans la clairière. Mont-Valérien 1941-1944,” alongside historian Antoine Grande and cartoonist Efix.

Exhibition opening: More Important Than Life: The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto
2025-08-14 18:00 - 20:00 UTC
Join the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre for keynotes by Jens-Christian Wagner (Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation), Yohai Cohen (Yad Vashem), Tal Bruttmann (French historian), and ambassadors at the opening of the powerful new temporary exhibition from NSDoku München and the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute with the support of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland: More Important Than Life: The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto.

On display for the first time in Africa, the exhibit explores rare images and documents from the hidden archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, known today as the Ringelblum Archive. This collective of academics, writers, and activists worked secretly to document the mass murder of European Jews as it was happening.

The exhibition tells the story of this act of resistance: a never-ending, arduous, harrowing but ultimately successful attempt to write the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of its victims.

Online book discussion on We Share The Same SKy with Rachael Cerrotti
2025-08-21 15:30 - 16:30 UTC
Winner of the Maine Literary Award, We Share the Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory & Migration, is a riveting and awe-inspiring book by author and inaugural Storyteller in Residence for USC Shoah Foundation, Rachael Cerrotti. Cerrotti had always known her grandmother Hana was a Holocaust survivor, but what she discovered – an entire archive of her life – after Hana’s passing led to an incredible journey of discovery and self-discovery.

Join us for an online book discussion with Cerrotti as we follow her through a decade-long journey to weave together the thin threads of her family history in this masterpiece of intergenerational storytelling.

Rachael Cerrotti is an award-winning author, educator, curator, and podcaster who works in the field of narrative nonfiction storytelling. Through an interdisciplinary practice, she explores stories rooted in the humanity of grief and inherited memory. Her critically-acclaimed book and podcast, WE SHARE THE SAME SKY, tell the story of her decade-long journey to retrace her grandmother’s wartime history and is an educational resource for teachers worldwide. Rachael was the Inaugural Storyteller in Residence for USC Shoah Foundation and has been a fellow with The Witness Institute and New America. She works with organizations, institutions and individuals on storytelling projects and community programming, and currently produces and hosts ALONG THE SEAM, a conversational podcast about the role of the past in our present day lives. She writes a series of essays on Substack to accompany the podcast as well. Learn more at: www.rachaelcerrotti.com.

Film Screening of Syberiada Polska(Siberian Exile)
2025-08-24 14:30 - 17:00 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
To commemorate Black Ribbon Day, Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism you are invited to a screening of

SYBERIADA POLSKA (SIBERIAN EXILE)

Produced by Mirosław Słowiński over seven long, difficult years this film depicts the fates of Poles deported to Siberia by the Soviet Union during WWII. The film portrays the harsh conditions of the Soviet labour camps (Gulags) and the struggles faced by the deportees, highlighting themes of love, courage, and hope amidst adversity. It was filmed in the majestic and severe Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, aiming for a realistic portrayal of the era and environment. The film is in Polish with English subtitles.

A Hidden Jewish Child during the Holocaust with Armand Schmidt
2025-09-16 17:30 - 19:00 UTC | Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, 1 Duncombe Rd, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2193, South Africa
Armand Schmidt’s story is one of survival, courage, and resistance in the face of unthinkable danger. It is the true story of a Jewish child, hidden in a Catholic institution during the Holocaust to escape persecution, deportation and death. He will explore life before, during and after World War II and the Holocaust, using original photographs and historical documents, pieces of memory, alternating historical background information linked to personal and family events.

Armand Schmidt is a Holocaust survivor, who was hidden in a Catholic institution, Institut Enfant Jésus in Belgium as a child. He is a journalist, who is currently studying Jewish ‘lost tribes’. He has presented his incredible story of survival across the world, and will be doing so in South Africa for the first time.
