Holocaust Awareness Series

March 25-28, 2019

The Holocaust Awareness Series is an interdisciplinary forum of events and seminars that focuses on the origins, experiences, and implications of genocide in the modern era. It looks not only at the groups systematically targeted by the Nazi regime, but also at those who were the victims of government-sponsored atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Rwanda, Iraq, and the Balkan region, and the current genocides taking place in Nigeria, Myanmar, and the Sudan. Our goal is to bring together local Grand Junction residents with the Colorado Mesa University academic community, emphasizing issues of education, respect, and diversity. Once again, we will host a Field of Flags display on the central campus, which represents the different groups targeted during the Holocaust.

All of these events are free and open to the general public.

Schedule of Events

Monday, March 25

Moment of Silence Dedication for the Field of Flags Display • 10:50am • The Plaza

Sponsored by the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department of Colorado Mesa University and constructed by many volunteers, the Field of Flags display on the campus green southwest of the University Center presents over 2,000 flags representing the major groups targeted by the Nazis during World War II, including Jews, Poles, Soviet citizens, homosexuals, communists/socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Roma, Sinti, and the disabled. Each flag represents 5,000 individuals and the colors match the various known color schemes used by the Nazis. Flags will be displayed the entire week, from Monday, March 25 through Saturday, March 30. Grand Junction Pipe and Supply generously donated the flags. Members of the Gay-Straight Alliance created the posted signs with details about the Field of Flags.

Is It Possible to Forgive the Unforgivable? A Screening of Forgiving Dr. Mengele • 5:30-7:30pm • Houston Hall 139
Presented by Vincent V. Patarino Jr., Associate Professor of History

This presentation will explore the notion of forgiveness as it relates to war crimes during the Holocaust by screening the moving and controversial film, Forgiving Dr. Mengele, by filmmakers Bob Hercules and Cheri Pugh. Highly provocative, the film suggests that in order to heal from the unimaginable horrors of genocide, we must first forgive. The film explores how Eva Kor, a survivor of the Holocaust, chose to forgive the brutal Nazi doctor, Dr. Mengele, who was responsible for the death of Eva's twin sister Miriam, and many others. Is it even possible to forgive the unforgivable? Discussion of the film will follow the screening.

Tuesday, March 26

Keynote Presentation: Peter Gorog, Holocaust Survivor • 6-7:30pm • Meyer Ballroom, UC
Keynote sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Born in 1941 in Budapest, Hungary, Péter Grünwald experienced the Holocaust, the end of the Second World War, and the descent of the Iron Curtain firsthand. As Jews, his family were the targets of discriminatory legislation and violent persecution. His father, Árpád, died working in a forced labor battalion when his son was still a boy. His mother, Olga, managed to protect her young son by securing hiding places in Budapest. Together, Olga and Péter spent the final months of the war taking cover in a basement in the Jewish ghetto. After liberation by the Soviet army, Péter grew up in Communist Hungary and eventually acquired a M.S. in electrical engineering. In 1962, he changed his family name from Grünwald to Gorog for fear of anti-Semitic discrimination. He defected to the United States in 1980, where he worked for NASA before retiring in 2014. Today, he is a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.  The donors of the 2018 CMU Day of Giving Campaign, the Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Society, the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Department of Languages, Literature and Mass Communication are honored to sponsor his visit to Colorado Mesa University.

Wednesday, March 27

Aestheticizing the Holocaust: Art Spiegelman's Graphic Novel, Maus • 4:30-6pm • Houston Hall 139
Presented by Barry Laga, Professor of English

On one hand, there is an intense desire to document and historicize the Holocaust. On the other hand, the Holocaust becomes unknowable, beyond our conceptual reach. This presentation will address these competing desires by discussing Art Spiegelman's Maus, a work that reminds us that aestheticizing the past is not an apolitical or benign affair. With his graphic novel, Spiegelman provides us with a kind of history that seems to move between presence and absence, asserting a tangible past while undermining its very possibility. In other words, instead of presenting Maus as an accurate record of the past, Spiegelman highlights its fictive and second-hand nature. History, even of the Holocaust, is inevitably a construct that is mediated in an infinite number of ways, with dire consequences. Spiegelman wants to show us the seams of history, the places where cause and effect are stitched together. Discussion will follow.

Perversion of Truth: A Screening of Denial • 6:30-9pm • Houston Hall 139
Presented by CMU Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta

The act of denial in the face of overwhelming truth is a difficult concept for many to approach. Such was the case for Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. The film Denial (2016), directed by Mick Jackson, shows the true story of Lipstadt's fight against the perversion of truth after she is sued for libel by the notorious Holocaust denier, David Irving. This film not only portrays the expanding issue of distorted truth but also the importance of a historian's role in the analysis of sources. The film also relates to other examples of genocide denial such as the Turkish government's ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide and the Japanese denial of the Nanjing Massacre. Due to its ability to perpetuate hate, denial might be considered as the final stage of genocide, and therefore something of which we should be aware. Discussion will follow.

Thursday, March 28

Dark Tourism at Holocaust Sites in Dachau and Auschwitz • 4:30-6pm • Houston Hall 139
Presented by Adam T. Rosenbaum, Associate Professor of History

It is categorically unpleasant to visit cemeteries, crash sites, and death camps, and yet people queue up to see such places. In addition to demolishing the simplistic definition of tourism as "traveling for pleasure," the phenomenon known as "dark tourism" tells us something about modern society's complicated relationship with death. It may also illuminate some of the ways in which we deal with larger anxieties about industrial, scientific, and political progress. This presentation will briefly discuss the scholarship on dark tourism before focusing on contemporary visits to Holocaust sites in Dachau, Germany and Oświęcim, Poland, better known as Auschwitz. It will utilize personal photographs and stories to address the possibilities and problems of this unique subcategory of modern travel. Discussion will follow.

How is this still a thing? Contemporary anti-Semitism in America • 6:30-8pm • Houston Hall 139
Presented by Stephen Merino, Assistant Professor of Sociology

The mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA in 2018 shocked and horrified the country. It quickly became apparent that the shooter was motivated by anti-Semitic beliefs and conspiracy theories that thrive in online communities and social media platforms such as Gab. Moreover, the FBI and other organizations have reported an uptick in anti-Semitic hate crime incidents in recent years.  This presentation will examine the nature of contemporary anti-Semitism and its beliefs. It will pay particular attention to how the Internet and online communities have allowed anti-Semitism to exist and evolve in a new millennium. Discussion will follow.