April 03, 2008
Holocaust scholar to discuss ‘Terezín Album of Mariánka Zadikow’
Talk at Clark U will relate moving story of unique concentration-camp keepsake
Wednesday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
Debórah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and Director of the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, will share the fascinating and moving story of concentration camp survivor Mariánka Zadikow
Professor Dwork will present "The Terezín Album of Mariánka Zadikow," an annotated facsimile edition of poignant notes and pictures that were collected by Zadikow in a small book, clandestinely crafted at her request by a fellow inmate of the Terezín (Theresienstadt) concentration camp in September 1944.
"Luck and fortuitous circumstances saved Mariánka Zadikow’s life. Music saved her soul," Dwork writes in her comprehensive introduction to "The Terezín Album of Mariánka Zadikow." The album is a moving document of the Holocaust, a poignant reminder of the astonishing resilience of hope and care. The passages of verse, staves of music, and sketches and drawings in the album are the work of children, grandparents, artists, workers, and intellectuals. The album's facing-page translations were prepared by Zadikow with assistance from Tatyana Macaulay, program manager for the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Dwork's historical and biographical details also accompany the entries.
"The Terezín Album of Mariánka Zadikow" offers an intimate, multi-vocal portrait of some of the victims—and survivors—of the Holocaust and a bracing reminder of the sustaining power of love and community amid darkness.
This free, public lecture at Clark is made possible by the Asher Family Fund. For more information, contact 503-793-8897.
To learn more online about "The Terezín Album of Mariánka Zadikow," visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/251056.ctl .
Professor Dwork is also scheduled to speak at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan on April 30.
Professor Dwork's now classic "Children With A Star" gave voice to the silenced children of the Holocaust; it was the first history of the daily lives of those young people caught in the net of Nazism. "Children with a Star" received international critical acclaim and was translated into German, Italian, Dutch and Japanese. It was the subject of a documentary, also called "Children With A Star," by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and was the central source for special after-school television network programs for school-aged youngsters. "Auschwitz," co-authored with Robert Jan van Pelt, received the National Jewish Book Award in 1996 and the Spiro Kostoff Award for 1997. One aspect of the book was the basis for the Emmy-nominated documentary, "Auschwitz: The Blueprints of Genocide," produced by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and aired in the US as "Nazi Designers of Death" on the "Nova" program. It too has been published in Dutch and German, and was voted Best Book by the German Book Critics in 1998.
Dwork's "Holocaust: A History"(2002), also co-authored with Professor van Pelt, has also been translated into many languages and was a National Jewish Book Award finalist.
As the founding Director of the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, Professor Dwork has given shape to an exciting forum for education and scholarship about the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and other genocides around the world. Dedicated to teaching, research, and public service, the Center trains the Holocaust historians and genocide studies scholars of the future – the next cadre of professors, teachers, Holocaust museum directors and curators, and non-government organization and government agency experts about genocide and genocidal situations. The mission of the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies reaches beyond the boundaries of the university: to educate professionals of many fields about genocide and the Holocaust, to provide a lecture series free of charge and open to the public, to use scholarship to address current problems stemming from the murderous past, and to engage the world by providing an educated voice in the public arena.
Professor Dwork has received many academic awards and honors. She has been, inter alia, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. But she remains a staunch educator. In addition to university lecturing, she is a guest teacher throughout the United States at every level of the American education system: nursery schools, kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools, and at teacher workshops to further the Holocaust education of those who were not trained in this period of history, and want to learn now. Indeed, her book "Voices and Views: A History of the Holocaust," an edited, annotated, and illustrated collection, with introductions, is a scholarly project undertaken for public service. It serves as the cornerstone text for the national Holocaust education program of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, as well as for a number of local teacher education programs throughout the country and high school and college courses on Holocaust history.
Debórah Dwork lectures extensively at academic conferences as well as to philanthropic organizations and the general public, and is as likely to be seen at a community center as at a professional meeting.
To learn more online about the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, visit http://www.clarku.edu/departments/holocaust/index.cfm.