
Ackerman Chronicle
Issue 84 | October 24, 2023
Digital Newsletter of the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas
Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Debbie Pfister led a team of staff and students from UT Dallas (pictured above) who helped organize and presented at this interdisciplinary conference that offered an extraordinary opportunity to bring scholars together for cross-discipline dialogues on these critical topics. By expanding the discussion, this event introduced new approaches to our understanding of the ways in which war, genocide, and human rights intersect, while contributing new perspectives on crimes against humanity and their continued impact on vulnerable groups around the world.
The full conference program is available online here.
Special Presentations
Learn more about these and the other special presentations online here.
UT Dallas Students
Pictured from left to right: Sabro Atman, Juliana Taimoorazy, Yannis Kwon, Tiffany Sidders, Taylor Gee, John Doud, Jennifer Armstrong, and Matteo Hubalek.
Pictured from left to right:
John Doud, "A Reemergence of Holocaust Memory through Early Broadcast Media: The Eichmann Trial."
Taylor Gee, "Accountability for SS Doctors."
Jennifer Armstrong, "Shades of Murder: Pictorial Evidence of Nazi War Crimes in the East."
Additionally, Sabro Atman presented his paper, "Kurdish Participation in Assyrian Genocide" and Juliana Taimoorazy presented "Invasion of Iraq: Unraveling Tapestry of an Ancient Community."
Other Highlights
Undergraduate Apprentice, Yannis Kwon
Intern, Matteo Hubalek
Jeremey Lock, "Life Unfolds"
Please Join Us at These Upcoming Events
Remember This
4 p.m. Film Screening, followed by a talkback by writer Clark Young
Studio Movie Grill at Spring Valley
In a virtuoso solo performance, Academy Award nominee David Strathairn portrays Jan Karski in this genre-defying true story of a reluctant World War II hero and Holocaust witness. After surviving the devastation of the Blitzkrieg, Karski swears allegiance to the Polish Underground and risks his life to carry the first eyewitness reports of war-torn Poland to the Western world and, ultimately, the Oval Office. Escaping a Gestapo prison, bearing witness to the despair of the Warsaw Ghetto and confronted by the inhumanity of a death camp, Karski endures unspeakable mental anguish and physical torture to stand tall in the halls of power and speak the truth. Strathairn captures the complexity and legacy of this self-described “insignificant, little man” whose timely story of moral courage and individual responsibility can still shake the conscience of the world.
View the film's trailer online.
Registration is required. Click here to access the registration site. Scroll down to Remember This and order your tickets (there is no cost for the tickets for this film).
Making Monuments: Public Memory and Violent Pasts
7 p.m. Lecture, followed by a reception
Jonsson Building (JO 4.614), UT Dallas Campus
In this lecture, Dr. Rebecka Katz Thor addresses what new monuments are expected to do. Examples from across Europe show the contestations around state-funded commemorations dedicated to difficult heritage, which challenge who and what is commemorated, how historic violence is made visible and how the historical narratives are constructed in public spaces. Drawing upon Marianne Hirsch’s work on postmemory and James Young’s discussion of countermonuments, the lecture considers monuments in terms of different "posts", reparation and multidirectionality.
Hell Before Their Very Eyes: American Soldiers Who Liberated or Witnessed the Camps
Sunday, November 12
1 p.m. Lecture, followed by a reception
Jonsson Performance Hall (JO 2.604), UT Dallas Campus
Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of firsthand accounts―including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections― Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated or witnessed Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history. Learn more on the event's page.
This event is presented in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas.
Please click here to RSVP.
Catch up with the Ackerman Center Podcast
The Ackerman Center Podcast, edited and produced by UTD graduate students, can be found wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Listen to all of the episodes of the Ackerman Center Podcast by clicking here or on the thumbnail image to the left.
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