holocaust education Archives - Page 2 of 3

Oct 9, 2023

Horst Eisfelder (1925-2023):
Diasporic Life in Shanghai’s State of Exception
Lecture by Dr Noit Banai, Hong Kong
and Dr Anna Hirsh, Melbourne

Rachel Stern2023-11-08T20:46:18-05:00October 9th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Horst Eisfelder (1925-2023):
Diasporic Life in Shanghai’s State of Exception
Lecture by Dr Noit Banai, Hong Kong
and Dr Anna Hirsh, Melbourne

Lecture by Dr Noit Banai and Dr Anna Hirsh, followed by Q&A with Rodney Eisfelder, son of Horst Eisfelder. Image above: Horst Eisfelder. Street scene in the Shanghai Ghetto, Shanghai, China, circa 1945. Black and white photograph. Copyright: Horst Eisfelder estate After fleeing Berlin a few weeks before Kristallnacht and arriving in Shanghai with his family in late November 1938, Horst Eisfelder (1925-2023) became one of the most prolific photographers of the ‘Shanghai Ghetto’ before emigrating to Australia in May 1947. Embedded within the history and theory of photography, this presentation considers his images of the city of Shanghai as well as the Designated Area for Stateless Refugees as vital representations through which to understand [...]

Sep 29, 2023

Eva Zeisel, Designer Extraordinaire
Lecture by daughter Jean Richards, New York

Rachel Stern2023-10-25T13:56:11-04:00September 29th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Eva Zeisel, Designer Extraordinaire
Lecture by daughter Jean Richards, New York

Eva Zeisel (born Éva Amália Striker, Budapest 1906 –2011 New City, New York) was one of the most important designers of the 20th century. She believed that beautiful things make people happy. Although she was known for her ceramic tableware, she also designed in glass, wood, plastic and metal. Her designs are in major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum and MoMA, where she had the first one woman show in 1946. Lecture by Eva’s daughter Jean Richards. Image above: Eva Zeisel, Red Wing Pottery pieces from "Town and Country" collection. Glazed earthenware, ca. 1945. CC BY 4.0 Photograph of a young Eva Zeisel. © Eva [...]

Aug 31, 2023

From Émigré to Englishman: Fred Uhlman, ‘Painter of Dreams’
Lecture by Dr. Nicola Baird, London

Rachel Stern2023-09-13T13:30:35-04:00August 31st, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on From Émigré to Englishman: Fred Uhlman, ‘Painter of Dreams’
Lecture by Dr. Nicola Baird, London

Manfred [Fred] Uhlman was born on 19th January 1901 in Stuttgart, Germany, the eldest child of Ludwig Uhlman (1869–c.1943), a textile merchant, and his wife, Johanna Grombacher (1879–c.1943), both of whom were later to perish at Theresienstadt concentration camp. He studied law at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich, and Tübingen, graduating with a doctorate in 1923. In 1927 he joined the Social Democrat Party, becoming its official legal representative in 1932. Image above: Fred Uhlman, Still Life with African Figures, oil on canvas, Hatton Gallery, © the artist's estate / Bridgeman Images. Photo credit: Hatton Gallery In March 1933, after a warning that his arrest was imminent because of his political affiliations, he fled [...]

Aug 23, 2023

Samson Schames: Fragments of Exile
Lecture by Annika Friedman, Frankfurt

Rachel Stern2023-12-15T11:28:36-05:00August 23rd, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Samson Schames: Fragments of Exile
Lecture by Annika Friedman, Frankfurt

This event is sponsored by Ilona Oltuski in memory of Ruth Drory. Image above: Samson Schames, Kindling of the Lights, c. 1956. Glass tiles on glass, 56 x 71 cm. Jewish Museum Frankfurt Samson Schames (1898-1967) came from a long-established Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main. With the support of his uncle, renowned gallery owner Ludwig Schames, he made his way into the 1920s art scene and began his training as a painter, graphic artist, and stage designer. Schames’ designs, drawings, and oil paintings from the period up to 1933 testify to his deep connection to Frankfurt and her landscapes. Samson Schames, Opernplatz Frankfurt, 1930. Jewish Museum Frankfurt [...]

Jul 26, 2023

THE ISLAND OF EXTRAORDINARY CAPTIVES
Book Talk by author Simon Parkin, London

Rachel Stern2023-08-23T14:13:45-04:00July 26th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on THE ISLAND OF EXTRAORDINARY CAPTIVES
Book Talk by author Simon Parkin, London

In May 1940, faced with a country gripped by paranoia, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the internment of all German and Austrian citizens living in the country. Most were refugees who had come to the country to escape Nazi oppression. They were now imprisoned by the country in which they had staked their trust. More than 1,200 men were taken to Hutchinson camp, on the Isle of Man, which a group of world-renowned artists, musicians and academics turned into history’s most extraordinary prison camp. This is a story of a battle between fear and compassion at a time of national crisis that reveals how Britain’s treatment of refugees during the Second World War led to one of the [...]

Jul 17, 2023

A Painter in Search of an Audience:
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky in Exile
Talk by Ines Schlenker, London

Rachel Stern2023-08-09T14:35:11-04:00July 17th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on A Painter in Search of an Audience:
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky in Exile
Talk by Ines Schlenker, London

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky was born into a wealthy, aristocratic Jewish family in Vienna in 1906. She trained under the German painter Max Beckmann, a family friend, and embarked on a promising career. When the National Socialists marched into Austria in 1938 Motesiczky fled the country for the Netherlands, eventually settling in England. Her attempts to build a new life in a foreign country were supported by a network of fellow émigrés, among them the painter Oskar Kokoschka and the writer Elias Canetti, with whom she had a long relationship. Lecture by Ines Schlenker, introduced and moderated by Rachel Stern. Image above: Self-Portrait with Red Hat, 1938 (Private Collection) ©️Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust 2023 [...]

Jul 9, 2023

Between America and France:
Varian Fry and the Rescue of Artists
Talk by Ori Z Soltes, PhD

Rachel Stern2023-07-19T13:51:04-04:00July 9th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Between America and France:
Varian Fry and the Rescue of Artists
Talk by Ori Z Soltes, PhD

With a belated reminder of the proximity of the American and French Independent Day celebrations, this talk focuses on the artists’ Schindler, the American journalist, Varian Fry (1907-1967). Using methods both legal and not, Fry managed to rescue some 2,000 individuals from France between 1940 and 1941. France had become largely swallowed up by Nazi Germany, the “free” parts in Southern France (Vichy France) were not necessarily unreluctant to assist with the deportation of Jews into Nazi-held territories, and the US immigration policies were far from open-handed to those seeking refuge. Who was he and who were some of those he helped—or in some cases, could not help—to escape destruction? Lecture by Ori Z. Soltes, introduced and moderated by [...]

Apr 19, 2023

Benno Elkan (1877-1960)
and the Definition of Israeli Art
Talk by Ori Z Soltes, PhD

Rachel Stern2023-04-26T13:54:56-04:00April 19th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Benno Elkan (1877-1960)
and the Definition of Israeli Art
Talk by Ori Z Soltes, PhD

In honor of Yom Ha'azmaut, Israel's Independence Day, and this year's 75th anniversary of the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, this talk by Georgetown University professor Ori Z Soltes addresses the question of what defines Israeli art and when it began to take shape. Is it made only by Israelis---then how did Elkan's Menorah become the consummate symbol of Israel when he never lived in the state? Did "Israeli" art begin with or before the birth of the state? How does this relate to the opening of the Bezalel School of Art in 1906--and closing by 1929, only to re-open years later? How does it relate to the question of defining Jewish art? Benno Elkan's stunning work, [...]

Mar 28, 2023

The Missing Archive:
Bauhaus Designers and the Holocaust.
Presentation by Elizabeth Otto, PhD, Buffalo, NY

Rachel Stern2023-05-03T14:36:21-04:00March 28th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on The Missing Archive:
Bauhaus Designers and the Holocaust.
Presentation by Elizabeth Otto, PhD, Buffalo, NY

Histories of Germany’s Bauhaus art and design school (1919–33) usually position it exclusively as a movement in exile as soon as the Nazis took power in 1933. In fact, the vast majority of its members remained and embraced Nazism, survived it, or became its victims. In this talk, art historian Elizabeth Otto scrutinizes traces of the work and lives of Bauhäusler who, through their imprisonment and often deaths in the concentration-camp system, have largely been lost to the history of the Bauhaus movement. Using archival sources—often scant materials preserved by family members and friends, including documents, photographs, and private memoirs—she reconstructs aspects of these artists’ work and lives and considers how to write the histories that Nazi violence has taken [...]

Mar 6, 2023

EARLY ISRAELI AND AMERICAN ARTISTS:
RE-VISIONING THE HOLOCAUST.
Talk by Ori Z Soltes, Georgetown University, Washington DC

Rachel Stern2023-04-17T19:19:05-04:00March 6th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on EARLY ISRAELI AND AMERICAN ARTISTS:
RE-VISIONING THE HOLOCAUST.
Talk by Ori Z Soltes, Georgetown University, Washington DC

In honor of Yom HaShoah, this talk by Georgetown University professor Ori Z Soltes focuses on three Israeli and three American familiar and unfamiliar artists working in very diverse styles and not typically thought of as focusing on the Holocaust. Each of them, however, has offered powerful reflections on the defining catastrophe of the twentieth century. Barnett Newman, the foremost verbal spokesman for the chromatic side of the abstract expressionist movement redefining American painting in the early 1950s, offers an unexpectedly intense reflection on the question of theodicy. Mordecai Ardon, in the process of assuming leadership of the Bezalel school in Jerusalem at around the same time, balances between abstraction and figuration in depicting the Nazi-engendered chaos. Yigal Tumarkin’s [...]

Jan 24, 2023

The Art of Felix Lembersky (1913-1970)
Yelena Lembersky and Ori Z Soltes, PhD

Rachel Stern2023-03-15T14:04:18-04:00January 24th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on The Art of Felix Lembersky (1913-1970)
Yelena Lembersky and Ori Z Soltes, PhD

The program features a talk by Lembersky’s granddaughter, Yelena Lembersky, co-author of the recent and highly acclaimed memoir, Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour: Memories of Soviet Russia. Yelena will be introduced by Georgetown University professor, Ori Z Soltes, who has known her for many years and has written extensively on the work of Felix Lembersky. “We are merely honest people and see what is good and bad, and we cannot be confused.” – Felix Lembersky, Leningrad, the Soviet Union, 1960 Image above: Felix Lembersky, At the Train Station, ca 1960-64. © Felix Lembersky estate Felix Lembersky (1913-1970) was a Soviet Jewish painter, teacher, theater sets designer, and an organizer of artistic groups in Leningrad and [...]

Jan 8, 2023

Seven Murals by Philip Orenstein (b. 1938)
A French-Jewish Perspective on France During World War II
Philip Orenstein and Dr. Nadine M. Orenstein in conversation

Rachel Stern2023-02-15T19:21:41-05:00January 8th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Seven Murals by Philip Orenstein (b. 1938)
A French-Jewish Perspective on France During World War II
Philip Orenstein and Dr. Nadine M. Orenstein in conversation

Inspired by a visit to his birth country in the 1990s, American artist Philip Orenstein (b. 1938) created seven murals about the French complicity in the persecution of Jews in France during World War II. At that time, the French government had not admitted it had taken part in the persecution. The murals have been shown in various galleries and museums in the United States. In 1999, William Zimmer wrote in the New York Times, “Mr. Orenstein’s method involves combining poignancy with the determination that the viewers not miss the story. To this end, Mr. Orenstein skillfully, and wittily, employs the look of today’s splashy graffiti.” The works have not yet been shown in France. Born in Paris, France, in 1938, [...]