The Regional Holocaust and Genocide Initiative: Resistance, Resilience and Responsibility, a Chancellor’s Leadership Project, will recognize the month of April as a period of remembrance and reflection on current and past genocides around the world. A robust slate of events kicks off with a lecture and book signing by Anne Nelson, author of “Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends who Resisted Hitler” (Random House, 2009), on Monday, April 5, at 4 p.m. at Watson Theater. The event is free and open to the public. Copies of Nelson’s book will be on sale at the lecture.
The “Red Orchestra” was the Gestapo’s name for a consortium of German artists, intellectuals and bureaucrats who actively opposed the Nazi regime to unveil the brutal secrets of their fascist employers and oppressors. The brave acts of the Red Orchestra led many of its members to a tragic end.
“As a reader, I could not put the book down,” says Syracuse University School of Education Assistant Dean Victoria Kohl, a member of the Regional Holocaust and Genocide Education Initiative committee. “My impressions of the resistance movement in Germany during the Nazi regime have been completely changed with the story of the Red Orchestra and the account of their repression and murder during and after the Holocaust.”
Nelson is an author and playwright, and teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She specializes in international affairs, human rights and the media. Her first book, “Murder Under Two Flags” (Tickor & Fields, 1986), about the Puerto Rican Senate’s revelation of an elaborate coverup by island and U.S. officials of the 1978 deaths of two young dissidents atop the mountain Cerro Maravilla, was made into the 1990 Paramount feature film “A Show of Force.” Nelson’s play “The Guys,” about her experiences during the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, has been produced around the world.
In addition to Nelson’s lecture and book signing, the Regional Holocaust and Genocide Education Initiative will be co-sponsoring lectures, film screenings and receptions during Genocide Awareness Week, April 12-16.
For more information about these and upcoming Holocaust and Genocide education events, visit the School of Education website.
