WSU Week of Remembrance March 2-5 Focuses on Holocaust Rescues and Rescuers; Scholar and Survivor to Visit Campus
PULLMAN, Wash. – The 2008 Week of Remembrance at Washington State University March 2-5 will examine the motivations and character of the people who risk life and limb to save others in peril, focusing on those involved in the Holocaust of World War II.
The four-day program, “Rescue and Rescuers in the Holocaust,” will feature films, discussions, presentations by a scholar and a survivor, and a musical performance by WSU faculty member Sheila Converse.
Co-directors of this year’s event are Rachel Halverson, associate professor of German, and Ray Sun, professor and co-chair, Dept. of History; both teach in the WSU Honors College.
Visiting campus will be emeritus Whitman College Professor Patrick Henry and Dutch child Holocaust survivor Peter Metzelaar, both Washington residents.
Henry, Whitman’s Cushing Eels Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Literature, will present, “Why Study the Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust,” on Monday evening, March 3. He is in the speakers bureau of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, a New York City organization that provides monthly financial support to 1,400 non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.
An author and scholar of the French language, Henry has presented lectures on French rescuers at numerous universities, schools, religious centers, and community organizations. His book, “We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the Holocaust,” was just published in November 2007.
Metzelaar will present, “A Dutch Child Survivor of the Holocaust,” Tuesday evening, March 4. A speaker with the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, he was five years old when Nazi soldiers marched into Holland and his mother contacted the Underground for help. The two spent several years in hiding, first sheltered by a farming couple who made a hiding place beneath their house and another in a nearby cave, and later in the cities of Hague and Amsterdam. In 1949, they immigrated to the United States. He returned to Holland nearly 45 years later and visited some of the places they had been in the war. Upon his return to America, his mother did not want to hear about his findings; when she died the following year, he decided to tell the story.
The schedule of events for the 2008 WSU Week of Remembrance includes:
Sunday, March 2, 7:00 p.m., Smith CUE 203 – “Au Revoir Les Enfants,” a 1987 film directed by Louis Malle, 104 minutes long, with a presentation by Steve Kale, history professor.
Monday, March 3, 7:00 p.m., Smith CUE 203 – “Why Study the Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust,” presented by Henry.
Tuesday, March 4, 7:00 p.m., Kimbrough 101 – “A Dutch Child Survivor of the Holocaust,” presented by Metzelaar.
Wednesday, March 5, 7:00 p.m., Bryan Hall Auditorium – “Anne Frank Remembered,” a 1995 film directed by Jon Blair, 117 minutes long, with a presentation by Halverson.
Wednesday, March 5, 9:00 p.m., Bryan Hall Auditorium – “Voice from the Annex,” by José Bowen, performed by Converse, senior instructor in the School of Music, accompanied by Meg Kelley, Pullman piano teacher. This is a song cycle based on texts written by Anne Frank, renowned author of “The Diary of a Young Girl,” about her experiences hiding from Nazi soldiers in Amsterdam in the 1940s.
WSU’s first Week of Remembrance was held in fall 2003, but the seeds of the program were sown more than a decade earlier in the WSU Honors College (then Program). Over the years, three professors have organized the annual events – Halverson, Sun, and R. Wes Leid, recently retired senior faculty fellow in Honors. The purpose each year is to focus on topics related to the Holocaust. Previous programs have included addresses, musical and film presentations, and discussions among guests, speakers, students, faculty, staff, and community members.
All events of the Week of Remembrance are open to the public at no cost. Among the sponsors of the program this year are the Honors College, the Dept. of History, and the Dept. of Foreign Languages and Cultures.
For more information, contact co-directors Halverson at 509-335-4361, or rachel_halverson@wsu.edu, and Sun at 509-335-4622, sunray@wsu.edu.
CONTACT: Beverly Makhani, WSU OUE Communications Director, 509-335-6679, makhani@wsu.edu
Rachel Halverson, Week of Remembrance Co-Director and Associate Professor of German, 509-335-4361, rachel_halverson@wsu.edu
Ray Sun, Week of Remembrance Co-Director and Professor and Chair of History, 509-335-4622, sunray@wsu.edu