Martin & Doris Rosen Summer Symposium Agenda

 

Seventh Annual Martin and Doris Rosen Summer Symposium
Remembering the Holocaust:
A Summer Symposium for Educators and the Community
June 21-27, 2008

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Day 1 -- Saturday, June 21
Day 2 -- Sunday, June 22
Day 3 -- Monday, June 23
Day 4 -- Tuesday, June 24
Day 5 -- Wednesday, June 25
Day 6 -- Thursday, June 26
Day 7 -- Friday, June 27
Symposium Presenters
Acknowledgments
In Memoriam

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SATURDAy, June 21 (ARRIVAL of teachers)

• 12:30-3:30 p.m. - Participating Teachers move into Residence Hall (Appalachian Heights Residence Hall)
• 6:30-8:30 p.m. - Cook-out on the Lawn (Appalachian Heights Residence Hall)

SUnday, June 22 (Jewish Culture and History)

• 10:00 - 12:00 : Sessions on Jewish Culture and History
• 12:00 - 1:00 : Jewish meal with the Friends (Broyhill Inn and Conference Center)
• 1:00 - 4:00 : Sessions on Jewish Culture and History
• 11:00 - 12:00 : Historical Overview of the Holocaust (continued)
• 7:00 - 9:00 : Opening Banquet (Broyhill Inn and Conference Center Helen Powers Room)

MONday, June 23

• 8:30 - 9:15 : Opening Session/Agenda Overview Comments: Marilyn Ramo, Steering Committee, Friends of the Office of Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies
• 9:15 - 10:45 : Historical Overview of the Holocaust (David Klevan, USHMM Education Manager for the Division of Outreach Technology)
• 10:45 - 11:00 : Break
• 11:00 - 12:15 : Historical Overview of the Holocaust (David Klevan, USHMM Education Manager for the Division of Outreach Technology)
• 12:15 - 1:00 : Lunch Buffett (Broyhill Inn Buffet)
• 1:00 - 2:30 : “In the Mind of the Perpetrator” -- Includes film excerpt from “Conspiracy” (Dr. Michael Berenbaum)
• 2:45 - 4:00 : Warsaw Ghetto Resistance (Dr. Michael Berenbaum)
• 3:00 - 4:00 : Jews in America (Ruth Etkin, Steering Committee, Friends of the Office of Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies)
• 4:00 - 7:30 : Dinner (on your own)
• 7:30 - 9:00 : Keynote Evening - : “How much more do we know about the Holocaust? What are we still likely to learn?” (Prof. Michael Berenbaum, Founding Director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, author, film consultant, and currently Professor of Religion, University of Judaism in Los Angeles)

Tuesday, June 24

• 8:30 - 8:45 : Review, Reflection, Questions
• 9:00 - 10:30 : The Nuremberg Laws (Dr. Harry Reicher, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania)
• 10:30 - 10:45 : Break
• 10:45 - 12:00 : Implications for Today
• 12:00 - 1:00 : Lunch Buffet (Broyhill Inn)
• 1:00 - 2:30 : Literature of the Holocaust (Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff)
• 2:30 - 2:45 : Break
• 2:45 - 4:00 : Teaching the Holocaust Using USHMM Posters (Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff & Tom Glaser, USHMM Mandel Fellow )
• 4:00 - 7:30 : Dinner (on your own)
• 7:30 - 9:30 : Keynote Evening Address - "The Great Scattering: Jewish Refugees, 1933-1946" (Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt)

wednesday, June 25

• 8:30 - 8:45 : Review, Reflection, Questions
• 8:45 - 10:30 : The Architecture of Auschwitz (Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt)
• 10:30 - 10:45 : Break
• 10:45 - 12:00 : The Architecture of Auschwitz (Cont.) (Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt)
• 11:45 - 1:00 : Lunch Buffet (Broyhill Inn)
• 1:00 - 3:00 : Holocaust Survivor Testimony (Joe Sachs, Survivor from Poland, and David Mermelstein, Survivor from Czechoslovakia)
• FREE EVENING : Dinner on your own

Thursday, June 26

• 8:30 - 8:45 : Review, Reflection, Questions
• 8:45 - 10:30 : The Power of Film in Holocaust Education: What Works and What Doesn’t (Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff)
• 10:30 - 10:45 : Break
• 10:45 - 12:00 : Teaching Elie Wiesel’s “Night” (Drs. Zohara Boyd (Child Refugee of the Holocaust), Rosemary Horowitz, and Rennie Brantz)
• 12:00 - 1:00 : Lunch (Broyhill Inn)
• 1:00 - 2:15 : Power of Perseverance: Escaping from Europe on the Eve of the Holocaust (Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff)
• 2:15 - 2:30 : Break
• 2:30 - 3:45 : Using the Survivor Testimony in the Classroom (Dr. Rosemary Horowitz)
• 3:45 - 7:30 : Dinner (on your own)
• 7:30 - 9:30 : Keynote Evening Presentation Topic - “Hiding Edith” - award winning author on Jewish Children Who Survived the Holocaust in Hiding (Kathy Kacer, author, presenter)

Friday, June 27

• 8:30 - 9:00 : Review, Reflection, Questions
• 9:00 - 10:30 : Educational Strategies – Final Review (Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff and Staff)
• 10:30 - 11:30 :Discussion of Simon Wiesenthal's “Sunflower” (Drs. Boyd, Brantz, and Horowitz)
• 11:30 - 12:15 : Evaluations
• 12:15 - 1:15 : Closure, Recognitions, Graduation
• 1:15 pm : Lunch and Departure

 

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Symposium Presenters

Click on the presenter's name to read the speaker's full biography

Dr. Michael Berenbaum: Founding Director of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, author, film consultant, and currently Professor of Religion, University of Judaism in Los Angeles

Dr. Harry Reicher: Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff: Director of Holocaust Studies Summer Institute, University of Miami and District Education Specialist for Holocaust Education, Miami-Dade County Public Schools

Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt: Author, internationally renowned historian, and currently University Professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Dr. Peter Cohen: Professor of the Philosophy and Religion Department, Clemon University in Clemson, SC

Mr. David Klevan: Education Manager in the Division of Outreach Technology at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC

Kathy Kacer: Children’s author who writes historical fiction and non-fiction for young readers

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Acknowledgments

          We gratefully acknowledge those who have enabled our                            Symposium to succeed. We thank you all.

 

Martin & Doris Rosen

 

Participating Members of Steering Committee for Friends of the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies:

 

Appalachian State University Faculty & Additional Speakers:

Dr. Zohara Boyd, Professor of English Emeritus
Co-director of the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, & Peace Studies

Dr. Rennie Brantz, Professor of History
Co-director of the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, & Peace Studies

Dr. Rosemary Horowitz, Professor of English
Co-director of the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, & Peace Studies

Ruth Etkin, Steering Committee Member

Stan Etkin, Steering Committee Member

Marilyn Ramo, Steering Committee Member

Ben Fogel, Friend of the Center

Joe Sachs, Survivor from Poland

 

Appalachian State University's:

College of Arts and Sciences
College of Education
Departments of English & History
Carol Grotnes Belk Library
Broyhill Inn and Conference Center
University Bookstore

 

And the following organizations and community supports:

Conference on Jewish Materials Claims Against the German Government
Leon Levine Foundation
NC Governor’s Council on the Holocaust
Boone Jewish Community

 

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In Memoriam

The Center and all its friends grieve the passing our dear friends and family.

Alva Rennie Brantz
Mother of Dr. Rennie Brantz

 Sara Klein
Mother of Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff

 

Dr. Stephen Feinstein

Stephen Feinstein served as our Scholar in Residence at the Appalachian State University Summer Symposium on “Remembering the Holocaust” in Boone, North Carolina for the past 6 years. It is with great sorrow that we mourn his passing but with great respect and love that we cherish the memory of his participation in these past years as a friend of the symposium. We dedicate this first day when he was to present on June 23rd, 2008 to the memory of Stephen. May his name and memory be for a blessing.

   
Stephen Feinstein was Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and also Professor of History. He was also Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where he taught from 1969-1999 before assuming duties at the U of M. Feinstein taught the History of the Holocaust since 1975. He was curator of the traveling art exhibition, “Witness and Legacy: Contemporary Art About the Holocaust,” at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, which toured in 17 American museums from 1995-2002.   In 1999, he was curator of a 7,000 square foot exhibition at the University of Minnesota's Nash Gallery, "Absence/Presence: The Artistic Memory of the Holocaust and Genocide.  Feinstein published more than 45 published articles. His latest edited book was Absence/Presence: Critical  Essays on the Artistic Memory of the Holocaust. (Syracuse University Press, 2005) Feinstein also served as guest curator for the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg.

 

Morris Rosenblat

Morris Rosenblat served as our "Survivor in Residence" at the Appalachian State University Summer Symposium on "Remembering the Holocaust" in Boone, North Carolina for the past 5 years. It is with great sorrow that we mourn his passing but with great respect and love that we cherish the memory of his participation in these past years as a friend of the symposium. We dedicate this week to the memory of Morris. May his name and memory be for a blessing.

 

Excerpt from the Miami Herald by Elinor J. Brecher

His name was Morris A. Rosenblat, except in the Auschwitz death camp, where he was B8079. A teenager when Nazis rousted him from the Lodz, Poland, ghetto with his mother and two brothers, Rosenblat was loaded into a cattle car bound for a living hell where Jews were gassed and burned. Rosenblat survived World War II with one brother, moved to Israel, married and moved to Canada, then became a North Miami Beach tailor raising two sons. But after retiring, he found his true calling: telling his story to students and teachers, so that they might understand, remember, and enlighten others about the deadly consequences of hate. He died March 13 of pancreatic cancer, at 79.

Speaking out "was his mission in life," said Riva Rosenblat, his wife of 45 years. "He felt that he survived for a reason. . . . He suffered so much, but he had the understanding that he wasn't alone."

He was born Moshe Aaron Rozenblat in the Polish town of Brzeziny; population: 12,000 people, half of them Jews. In 1942, those who hadn't already been killed were herded into the Lodz Ghetto. His father, Shaja, a tailor, had been gassed in a mobile death chamber.

Two years later, the remaining family members were sent to where his mother, Chava, and youngest brother, Benjamin, perished.

As the war drew to a close in May 1945, Morris and his brother, Cvi, were death-marched into the Austrian woods, where American soldiers liberated them. From a Displaced Persons camp, they went to Israel and fought with the Haganah, a paramilitary force, in the 1948 War of Independence. Morris followed their only surviving uncle to Canada.

On a 1958 vacation in Israel, Morris met Riva Shimansky, whose family survived the war in the Soviet Union. They married a year later and spent eight more years in Canada before settling in North Miami Beach.

For 25 years, husband and wife operated Point East Tailors, at West Dixie Highway and 172nd Street. They retired in 1995.

A few years later, Rosenblat heard that Appalachian State was establishing a Holocaust honors program, and on one day's notice, he showed up to speak, said Professor Rennie Brantz, co-director. "He told his story to 24 honors students and they were absolutely enthralled." The summer institute, in its seventh year, evolved from that program. The Rosenblats have attended every one.

"His presentation is so genuine and important," Brantz said. " We miss him enormously."'