Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies will hold the 19th Annual Martin and Doris Rosen Summer Symposium from July 18-23, 2021. The 19th Symposium will focus on Children in the Holocaust. The language of instruction is English. Originally scheduled for 2020, but postponed during the first wave of the pandemic, the 2021 symposium will take place online. Many of the symposium’s participants, audience members, and speakers belong to a high-risk group for COVID-19 and it has always been the Center’s priority to keep everyone safe. Far too many Holocaust survivors have, sadly, died from the virus in recent months.

To register for the public symposium programs on ZOOM, click here
(One registration covers all public ZOOM events of the week, beginning with Prof. Michael Berenbaum’s keynote lecture on Sunday).

The online platform will allow us to easily connect to teachers, researchers and audiences in the High Country, US, Europe, Israel and elsewhere and also explore relevant Memorials and Centers. Participating teachers will have the opportunity to learn from and converse with, among others, Prof. Deborah Dwork (Clark University), Prof. Gabriel Finder (UVA), Dr. Eva Fogelman (Florida), and Dr. Patricia Heberer-Rice, the Senior Historian at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as well as other accomplished Holocaust educators and scholars from the International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

Participants viewed the pre-recorded lecture by Dr. Fogelman and discussed it on July 20. Public Discussion: Children During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath.

Moreover, several child survivors of the Shoah such as Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff (University of Miami), herself an accomplished educator, and of the Rwandan genocide will give testimony. Participating teacher-participants will learn and analyze how the Nazi regime sought to indoctrinate Gentile children and turn them into supporters of their regime. They will also examine how persecuted Jewish children tried to cope with persecution and, eventually, outright genocidal onslaughts. The presentations and assigned materials will shed new light on children’s complex challenges and struggles under Nazi rule and occupation, in the ghettos and even camps as well as many’s resilience and despair.

Since 2002, the Center has organized and held the annual Martin & Doris Rosen Summer Symposium “Remembering the Holocaust.” Named for symposium benefactors, the late Doris and Martin Rosen, the symposium endeavors to provide teachers with the most current research on the Holocaust, racism, and anti-Semitism in tandem with teaching strategies and plans needed by every educator to tackle this urgent topic in an informed and successful manner in a classroom setting. During this time, close to 700 educators from North Carolina, the U.S., Canada, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Croatia, and the Baltic states have attended the symposium. In recent years, the Center has cooperated with the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Echoes and Reflections, and the William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. The symposium faculty comes from across the U.S., Canada, Israel, Africa, and Europe.

In addition to educators, the symposium is also geared toward students and community members. It is free and many events are open to the public. Access information to the ZOOM-based event will be made available in late June/early July.

The purpose and goal of the Symposium is to provide public and private school teachers, university faculty, students, and community members information and insights about the victims, perpetrators, and consequences of the Nazi Holocaust.

The Symposium provides approximately 40 hours of lectures, workshops, discussions, films, and demonstrations. Teachers who complete all 40 hours receive four CEUs.

The symposium includes:

• workshops
• discussions
• lectures by internationally recognized speakers
• Nazi Holocaust survivor testimony
• four continuing education credits for teachers