TU Students Invited to Participate in UN International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust | การจัดการความรู้ภายใน หอสมุดแห่งมหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์

Each 27 January is commemorated as the United Nations International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

The Thammasat University Library collection includes many books about different aspects of the Holocaust, the World War II genocide of the European Jews. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.

European Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event during the Holocaust era (1933–1945), in which Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered other groups, including ethnic Poles, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, the Roma, the disabled, political and religious dissidents, and gay men. The death toll of these other groups is thought to be over 11 million.

Among books about the Holocaust recently acquired by the TU Library are Understanding and teaching the Holocaust edited by Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt; Holocaust icons in art: the Warsaw ghetto boy and Anne Frank by Batya Brutin; Fragments of hell : Israeli Holocaust literature by Dvir Abramovich; Cultural genocide by Lawrence Davidson; Spiritual homelands : the cultural experience of exile, place and displacement among Jews and others edited by Asher D. Biemann, Richard I. Cohen and Sarah E. Wobick-Segev; German Jews in the era of the “final solution”: essays on Jewish and universal history by Otto Dov Kulka; Holocaust graphic narratives: generation, trauma, and memory by Victoria Aarons; Witness: lessons from Elie Wiesel’s classroom by Ariel Burger; Gulag literature and the literature of Nazi camps: an intercontexual reading by Leona Toker; Vichy France and the Jews by Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton; and Ghetto: the history of a word by Daniel B. Schwartz.

TU students invited

This year, a series of events, starting on 21 January, has been scheduled by the United Nations Department of Global Communications as part of 2021 Holocaust Remembrance. They may be of interest to TU students interested in European history, sociology, political science, comparative religion, literature, gender studies, and related subjects:

“Facing the Aftermath: Recovery and Reconstitution after the Holocaust”

The theme guiding Holocaust remembrance and education in 2021 is “Facing the Aftermath: Recovery and Reconstitution after the Holocaust”. It focuses on the measures taken in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust to begin the process of recovery and reconstitution of individuals, community, and systems of justice. Integral to the process of reconstitution was the accurate recording of the historical account of what happened before and during the Holocaust. Challenging the denial and distortion of the historical events was interwoven in the processes of recovery and reconstitution. The theme examines the contribution of the responses to the victims of the Holocaust, and of the survivors, to addressing the needs of the contemporary world, and to the historical record of the Holocaust. Against a global context of rising antisemitism and increasing levels of disinformation and hate speech, Holocaust education and remembrance is even more urgent, as is the development of an historical literacy to counter repeated attempts to deny and distort the history of the Holocaust.

Thursday, 21 January 2021

Panel Discussion “Women and Genocide”

10am – 11:30am Eastern standard time (10pm to 11:30pm Bangkok time)

Students are cordially invited to register at this link: https://bit.ly/36yam3y

Experts will examine the experience of women and the place of gender in the Holocaust, and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. This is Episode 4 of the live discussion series Beyond the long shadow: engaging with difficult histories.

Monday, 25 January 2021

Park East Synagogue Holocaust Commemoration Service

7pm Eastern Standard Time ( Tuesday, 26 January 2021 at 7am Bangkok time)

Watch the service at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S4IM7q98NY&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=ParkEastSynagogue

Park East Synagogue will host a virtual Holocaust Commemoration Service marking the 76th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and Rabbi Arthur Schneier will convene for a discussion under the theme “Survivors’ Plea – Holocaust Education”. The event will include the participation of the diplomatic corps and feature Chief Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, Park East Synagogue Choir and Maestro Russell Ger, Conductor.

Wednesday, 27 January 2021

Discussion “Lessons of the Holocaust – A UN Perspective on Global Antisemitism”

9:15am – 10:30am Eastern Standard Time (9:30pm to 10:30pm Bangkok time)

Students are welcome to register at this link: http://bit.ly/3alw3WW

An event with H.E. Mr. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and UN Focal Point to monitor antisemitism. The event is organized by B’nai B’rith International.

Memorial Ceremony marking the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust

11am – noon Eastern Standard Time (11pm to midnight Bangkok time)

The Holocaust memorial ceremony is organized jointly by the United Nations Department of Global Communications and UNESCO, in partnership with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The event will include remarks by the United Nations Secretary-General and the Director-General of UNESCO, as well as statements by high-level guests, a Holocaust survivor testimony and the memorial prayers. The detailed programme will be announced closer to the date.

Panel Discussion “Holocaust Denial and Distortion”

Noon to 1pm Eastern Standard Time (midnight to 1am Bangkok time)

The online commemoration will be followed by a panel discussion on Holocaust denial and distortion, with contributions of diverse experts in the field. The panel discussion is organized together with UNESCO, and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Thursday, 28 January 2021

Panel Discussion on Nazi Rise to Power and the Weimar Constitution

10am – 11:30am Eastern Standard Time (10pm to 11:30pm Bangkok time)

The panel will consider the democracy that existed before the Nazis came to power, and the extent to which the legal framework in place contributed to the rise of the Nazis, and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The discussion is organized in partnership with the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IJL).

Thursday, 4 February 2021

Civil Society Briefing “Childhood after Atrocity Crimes:

Where Lies Hope for Peace, Dignity and Equality?”

11am-12:30pm Eastern Standard Time (11pm to 12:30am Bangkok time)

The briefing will examine the approaches taken to support children who survived the Holocaust and will consider how these approaches contributed to models adopted for contemporary practice for working with young people who have survived atrocity crimes.

Thursday, 11 February 2021

Film Discussion “The Windermere Children”

11am-12:15pm Eastern Standard Time (11pm to 12:15am Bangkok time)

“The Windermere Children”, a biographical drama, tells the little-known stories of some of the 300 orphaned Jewish refugees who began new lives in England’s Lake District in the summer of 1945 after the end of the Second World War, and the pioneering project to rehabilitate these child survivors. The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion with a Holocaust survivor and an historian.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)