Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center

In her latest book, The Ravine: A Family: A Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed, Dr. Wendy Lower, Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College, observes that in the aftermath of World War II, “Eisenhower ordered that visual evidence be collected to guard against forgetting and disbelief." In this lecture, Dr. Lower shares her investigation of a single photograph—a rare “action shot” documenting the horrific final moment of a family’s murder in Ukraine. Through years of forensic and archival research, Lower sought to uncover the identities of the photographed and in the process recovered new details about the Nazis’ open-air massacres in eastern Europe, the role of the family unit in Nazi ideology, and a rare case of rescue and postwar justice.

This event is part of the 2022-23 Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Colloquium, “Trauma, Remembrance, and Compassion.” The event is organized by the KHC at Queensborough Community College and is co-sponsored by the Ray Wolpow Institute at Western Washington University; the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College; and the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University.

The featured speaker is David E. Fishman a professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary, teaching courses in modern Jewish history. Dr. Fishman also serves as director of Project Judaica, JTS's program in Ukraine, which is based at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy University. He directs its Jewish Archival Survey, which publishes guides to Jewish archival materials in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Dr. Fishman is the author of numerous books and articles on the history and culture of East European Jewry. This is not an HGI event but HGI strongly encourages its supporters to attend the event hosted by the Riverdale Temple and YIVO.

The producer and director, Dan Tarrant, will be present to introduce the film and have a Q&A following. The film shows a faith-based response to war and genocide in a complex society that continues to have religious and political contention.