10th Annual Holocaust & Genocide Awareness Week offers a variety of programming, perspectives

FIU will hold its annual Holocaust & Genocide Awareness Week, from Jan. 23- 30, with a remembrance ceremony and a series of events that include personal testimonials, a film, lectures and panel discussions. Events will take place on both campuses and elsewhere in the local community, and all are open to the public at no charge.

Presented by Hillel at FIU, the Holocaust & Genocide Studies Program at the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, David Posnack JCC and other sponsors, the week offers the FIU community an opportunity to explore a range of perspectives on the Holocaust and other genocides.

The culmination of the week will be the Annual Holocaust Commemoration Ceremony event on Thursday, Jan. 30, featuring a tribute to the late Tibor Hollo, a Holocaust survivor, who was a well-known real estate developer and philanthropist. Along with his wife, Sheila, he created the Tibor & Sheila Hollo School of Real Estate in the FIU College of Business and provided major support to the Holocaust & Genocide Studies Program.

“This past year FIU and the broader South Florida community lost a hero who cared deeply about Holocaust education, and it is fitting that, in the week the world commemorates 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, we honor the legacy of one of that camp's survivors,” said Oren Baruch Stier, director of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program and professor of Religious Studies.

On Jan. 23, at FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus, political geographer Tamar Mayer will discuss her research on the persecution of the Muslim ethnic group in China's Xinjiang region, in a presentation on “Uighur Genocide and Cultural Memory,” followed by a conversation with journalist Linda Kinstler.

An offering on Jan. 27, at FIU’s Biscayne Bay campus, will feature Leslie Gelrubin Benitah, U.S. producer of The Last Ones – a project that documents and shares stories of the last living Holocaust survivors – and journalism professor Neil Reisner, marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. They will discuss “The Media and Holocaust Memory: Doing Good on the Global Stage.”

Other events include a screening of “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” hosted by the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. The critically acclaimed 1970 Italian film follows the lives of an aristocratic Jewish family living under the Mussolini regime. Eric Finzi, a descendant of the titular family, explores the themes of history, fate and the unknown through an accompanying exhibit of his artwork in the museum gallery. The Amernet String Quartet, FIU's ensemble in residence, will perform before the film.

“At the core of education during the current rise in antisemitism is the idea that unless people speak up and fight hate, history will repeat itself,” said Jon Warech, executive director, Hillel at FIU. “The Holocaust didn't happen overnight or because of the actions of a handful of people. Antisemitism is a contagious disease and fighting it starts with Holocaust and genocide education.”