Manhattan College Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center

In collaboration with the UNO School of the Arts Gallery and the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy exhibit titled Nobody’s Listening, Piers Secunda's lecture will describe how his abstract painting practice changed direction 20 years ago and became an examination of the destruction of culture. His work has been exhibited internationally since the mid 90s, was used as a tool of diplomacy between warring factions in Iraq in 2018 and is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Iraq National Museum, Baghdad, and on permanent display at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University — the oldest Museum in the world.

This program is organized and hosted by UNO's School of Arts and the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy and co-sponsored by the Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College; Center for Genocide and Human Rights Research in Africa and the Diaspora at Northeastern Illinois University; The Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at Western Washington University.

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.

In Afghanistan, Sohaila Kakar was a practicing surgeon; then, in 2021, the Taliban took over the country. Join us as Sohaila discusses life before and after the Taliban's takeover in Afghanistan–and the physical, economic, and psychological toll it had upon her family as they fled. Her story also highlights the compassionate work done by Upwardly Global, the non-profit agency that provided guidance to Sohaila’s family as they settled in the U.S.

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.