Holocaust Memorial Lecture
The Cohen Institute’s Holocaust Memorial Lecture, which takes place annually during the fall semester, features noted scholars, survivors, artists and musicians, and other people who bring unique perspectives to bear upon our understanding of the Holocaust as well as the experiences of those who were persecuted under Nazi rule. Thanks to the generosity of Norma and Lester Cohen, who made an endowed gift to support this lecture series in 2000, this event has been held annually for more than two decades.
Past Holocaust Memorial Lectures
| Year | Speaker | Lecture Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Prof. Caroline Sturdy Colls | “From Treblinka and Trawniki: Forensic Archaeological Investigations at Sites of Nazi Persecution” |
| 2023 | Dara Horn | “In the Haunted Present: Jews in a Non-Jewish World” |
| 2022 | Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein | “The U.S. and the Holocaust: A Conversation with Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein” |
| 2021 | Dr. Bjorn Krondorfer | “Growing up German: My Father, The Wehrmacht, and ‘Ordinary’ Antisemitism” |
| 2020 | Ben Ferencz | “Is the Rule of Law Still Important? Lessons from Nuremburg with Ben Ferencz” |
| 2019 | Ronald Leopold | “Is the Past a Foreign Country? Holocaust Memory and Education in the 21st Century” |
| 2018 | Dr. Debórah Dwork | “Americans to the Rescue during the Nazi Years” |
| 2017 | Jennifer Teege | “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me” |
| 2016 | Multiple Musicians & Performers | “Voices of Terezin: Music and Witness” |
| 2015 | Dr. Wendy Lower | “Hitler’s Furies: Researching Women Perpetrators, Accomplices and Witnesses to the Holocaust” |
| 2014 | Eva Hoffman | “Across Generations and Cultures: Reflections on the Long Aftermath” |
| 2013 | Prof. Daniel Mendelsohn | “‘Lost’ Between Memory and History: Writing the Holocaust for the Next Generation” |
| 2012 | Dr. Timothy Snyder | “Bloodlands: Eastern Causes of the Holocaust” |
| 2011 | Father Patrick Desbois | “The Holocaust by Bullets: An Evening with Father Patrick Desbois” |
| 2010 | Dr. Samson Munn | “Next Generation Responsibilities” |
| 2009 | Gerda Weissmann Klein | “An Evening with Holocaust Survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein” |
| 2008 | Prof. Christopher Browning | “Holocaust Denial in the Courtroom: The Historian as Expert Witness” |
| 2007 | Ernest W. Michel and Hubert Locke | “An Evening with a Holocaust Survivor” |
| 2006 | Wolf Kahn | “Growing up Privileged and Jewish in Nazi Germany” |
| 2005 | Dr. Peter F. Hayes | “German Corporate Complicity in the Holocaust” |
| 2004 | Nechama Tec | “Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust” |
| 2003 | Prof. John Roth | “Ethics After the Holocaust” |
| 2002 | Lore Segal | “The Kindertransport” |
| 2001 | Theodore “Zev” Weiss | “Memoir of a Child Survivor” |
| 2000 | Dr. Yaffa Eliach | “There Once Was A World: Restoring and Rebuilding a Vanished Past” |
| 1999 | Dr. Richard Breitman | “Official Secrets: What did British Intelligence Know of the Unfolding Holocaust?” |
| 1998 | David Faber | “A Holocaust Survivor’s Memoir” |
