Compelling online presentations, including a discussion featuring a first-generation Holocaust survivor, and a moving concert highlighting music composed by a prisoner-of-war while captive in a horrific German camp during World War II — these are among the final accompanying events to be held as part of “Americans and the Holocaust,” a traveling exhibition on display through March 9 at the James & Abigail Campbell Library at the University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu.
The James & Abigail Campbell Library was one of 50 U.S. libraries selected to host the exhibit, which addresses important themes in American history, including Americans’ responses to refugees, war, and genocide in the 1930s and 1940s.
In conjunction with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association’s “Americans and the Holocaust: A Traveling Exhibition for Libraries,” the James & Abigail Campbell Library planned an accompanying event series to explore important themes related to the exhibition.
The first three events, which took place earlier this month, were the online presentations, “The Ben Hecht Story: Lessons of the Holocaust for Today,” “The Nazis’ Genocidal Policy and Its Enduring Legacy,“ and “Women Breaking the Silence: Memoirs of Second-Generation Holocaust Survivors.”
The series continues with a second set of three programs (details below), “Witness to Horror!: A Holocaust Conversation with Seymour Kazimirski” on Feb. 24, “Roma and Sinti Resistance in Zigeunerlager” on March 2, and the culminating event, “Quatuor pour la fin du temps: A Concert Experience at UH West Oʻahu” on March 5.
“This second wave of programming is another opportunity for our wider local community to engage in contemplation on the very important lessons of the Holocaust, to ensure that society is able and willing to prevent current and future genocides,” said Carina Chernisky, public services librarian at the James & Abigail Campbell Library and co-project lead for “Americans and the Holocaust” at UH West Oʻahu.
“The Holocaust exhibit and programs challenge us to reflect upon the Jewish experience of survival, the Jewish quest for identity, and the Jewish response as our own,” Chernisky continued, with a reminder that this stop is its only visit to the islands on its current tour. “We encourage everyone to make it out before it closes on March 9.”
For more information or questions about any of the following events, email uhwolib@hawaii.edu.
Event: “Witness to Horror!: A Holocaust Conversation with Seymour Kazimirski”
Details: 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, via Zoom. Register here.
Seymour Kazimirski, a first-generation Holocaust survivor and a Holocaust lecturer, will address the lessons of the Holocaust. Kazimirski will discuss America’s role in the Holocaust, revisionist interpretations, and Holocaust denial. He will present actual photos and footage of Ann Kazimirski, his mother, amidst her attempt to live through the Holocaust.
“The most important part of this presentation is for people to be aware of how politics and the Holocaust got involved together,” Kazimirski said. “What happened in America during the Holocaust is critical so that we don’t repeat something like that in our future.”
This will be an interactive Zoom presentation open to the public and guests will be encouraged to submit questions for discussion. Discussion is encouraged to discredit myths, misconceptions, and fallacies associated with the Holocaust.
Event: “Roma and Sinti Resistance in Zigeunerlager”
Details: 7 to 8 p.m on Wednesday, March 2, via Zoom. Register here.
Dr. Justyna Matkowska will present and discuss Roma and Sinti’s acts of resistance in Zigeunerlager (Romani family camp) in KL Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp during the Second World War.
According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website, Matkowska received her Ph.D. from the University of Wroclaw in Poland. Her current research explores issues of race and ethnicity, identity, representation, literature, cultural memory, Roma and Sinti resistance, and genocide. Matkowska has presented undergraduate students lectures at the University of Wrocław, as well as Hawaiʻi Pacific University
Matkowska was awarded a 2021-2022 Fred and Maria Devinki Memorial Fellowship for her research project, “Roma and Sinti Resistance in Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Her project aims to establish evidence of the Roma and Sinti resistance actions in the camp, as well as present the fate of those Romani prisoners who resisted against Nazi oppression.
Event: “Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time): A Concert Experience at UH West Oʻahu”
Details: 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 5, at UH West Oʻahu’s James & Abigail Campbell Library. For event details or to register, click here.
This free performance, by professional musicians from Chamber Music Hawaiʻi, will feature French composer Olivier Messiaen’s “Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time).”
Concert-goers will be able to experience the power and indomitability of the human spirit through music that Messiaen composed and performed in the horrific conditions of a German camp, where the French Army soldier was a prisoner-of-war during WWII.
The work that Messiaen composed while imprisoned by the Germans will give guests great insight into his frame of mind at the time, and how he used his passion for music to maintain hope despite the current conditions in the world.
Concert-goers will be welcome to tour the “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition, which will be open from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. that day, March 5. Reservations must be made for visitors hoping to see the exhibition between 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. After 4:30 p.m., walk-ins are acceptable.