Holocaust and Genocide Studies

West Chester University

409 Main Hall
West Chester, PA 19383
Call: (610) 436-2972
Email: jfriedman@wcupa.edu

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Calendar of Events

Upcoming Coure Offerings

Holocaust and Genocide Courses

Click here to view the Holocaust and Genocide graduate courses.

Future Holocaust and Genocide Studies Events

April 8, 2013--Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Ha-Shoah) Program

Main Hall 168, 7:30 pm

Fellow WCU colleague, Dr. Brenda Gaydosh, will give a presentation entitled:

“Outside, the synagogue is burning, and that too, is a house of God”
On May 22, 1942, Berlin priest, Father Bernhard Lichtenberg spoke at his main trial. The prosecution had had charged Lichtenberg with “misuse of the pulpit and offending the malice law.” He had been in prison since October 1941. When the chairman asked Lichtenberg to clarify how his prayers for the Jews came about, Lichtenberg explained what he saw the morning of November 10, 1938: “It was in November 1938 when the windows of Jewish-owned shops were smashed and the synagogues burned; there I walked through the streets of my parish before I celebrated Mass between 5 and 6 in the morning. As I witnessed the destruction, I saw the police standing by passively. I was outraged by the vandalism and asked myself what could be done to help and how this could happen in an ordered nation. As I thought, I said to myself that help could come only through prayer. It was on this evening that I prayed for the first time, ‘Let us pray for the persecuted non-Aryan Christians and for the Jews.’” This presentation will consider the life of Bernhard Lichtenberg and his martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis.

Dr. Gaydosh graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1980. Following 15 years working as an actuarial analyst, she enrolled at West Chester University in the graduate history program. Dr. Gaydosh graduated with an M.A. degree in History in 1999, began teaching, and enrolled in the PhD program at American University in Washington D.C. in 2000. She continued to teach and take classes. In 2010, she earned her Ph.D. in history, writing a biographical dissertation about Father Bernhard Lichtenberg. Her manuscript is currently under review by Catholic University Press.

April 28, 2014 Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Ha-Shoah) Program

For the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day Program, Dr. Helene Sinnreich, Director of Jewish Studies at Youngstown State University, will be giving a lecture on her research on the ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Time: 7:30
Place: TBD

August 12-16, 2014 Field Studies—Jewish Los Angeles

HIS 460/660

This field studies will deal with the history of the Jewish community in Los Angeles, from the 19th century to the present. We will first visit the National Museum of American Jewish history in Philadelphia, and then have a 4 day trip to Los Angeles (from August 12-16, 2014), where we will visit synagogues and museums and important sites of Jewish activity in the city, including the Breed Street Shul, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Beit Chaim Chadashim (the first openly gay synagogue), The Museum of Tolerance, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, the Skirball Museum, Villa Aurora (home to German-Jewish exiles in the 1930s), the Hollywood Jewish Cemetery, and Universal Studios (founded by the German-Jewish mogul, Carl Laemmle).

For additional information, contact: Dr. Jonathan Friedman, jfriedman@wcupa.edu

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