Lecture Series at FAU on Holocaust and Judaic Studies

FAU will present two lectures on Holocaust and Judaic Studies in January 2017. The lectures will take place in the Performing Arts Building, room 101, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. These lectures are free and open to the public. No reservations are required for any of the lectures and more information can be found by calling 561-297-2979.

On Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017 at 4 p.m., a lecture titled "Reflections of a Holocaust Survivor," will be presented by Norman Frajman. Frajman was born in the city of Warsaw, Poland, which was occupied by the Germans in 1939.  Norman was only 10 years old at that time. He experienced and witnessed the heroic Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943 and together with his mother, sister and other survivors, was taken to the extermination camp of Majdanek where his mother and only sister were murdered, along with extended family numbering more than 100 people.

From Majdanek, Norman was shipped to the Skarzysko Concentration Camp where he worked as a slave laborer in an ammunition factory. The next stop in his survival ordeal was the infamous extermination camp of Buchenwald. His suffering continued in the concentration camp Schlieben. As the Russians were getting closer, he was forced on a Death March. He was liberated at the age of 15 by the Russians and eventually was able to immigrate to the United States. After a long separation, Norman was reunited with his father who had survived the war for years in the Soviet Union.

The second lecture will take place on Sunday, Jan. 22 at 4 p.m. Professor Alvin H. Rosenfeld will present "The Longest Hated Renewed: Reflections on Today's Antisemitism." Rosenfeld, professor of English and Jewish Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, received his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1967 and has taught at Indiana University since 1968. He holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and is director of the university's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He founded Indiana University's Borns Jewish Studies Program and served as its director for 30 years.

Rosenfeld's books include "Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Wiesel," "A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature," "Imagining Hitler" and his most recent book is "The End of the Holocaust," which was published in April 2011. In recent years, he has also been writing about contemporary antisemitism, and some of his articles on this subject have evoked intense debate.    

Rosenfeld has served as an editorial board member of various scholarly journals, including Holocaust and Genocide Studies, as well as a board member and scholarly consultant to various Jewish institutions and organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League; the American Jewish Committee; the Lilly Endowment; the Wexner Heritage Foundation; and the Koret Foundation. He held a five-year U.S. presidential appointment on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (2002-07) and presently serves on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Executive Committee. Rosenfeld has lectured widely in America, Europe and Israel.