Sarah Wildman is a journalist and the author of "Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind." In her book, Wildman documents a journey to find her grandfather’s girlfriend Valy Scheftel, who stayed behind in Vienna in 1938 when he immigrated to America. The book is a detailed portrait of one young woman’s experience during the Holocaust, but also a deliberation about this generation’s role in preserving memory.
James Loeffler is an associate professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Virginia. He is a trained pianist, musicologist, and specialist on Jewish classical music. He serves as scholar-in-residence at Pro Musica Hebraica in Washington, DC, and has curated concerts at the Kennedy Center.
Erica Lehrer founded the Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence at Concordia University. In 2013, she curated “Souvenir, Talisman, Toy,” an exhibition of Polish-made figurines depicting Jews. And she is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places.
Miriam Isaacs was born to Holocaust survivors in a displaced persons camp in Germany. Trained as a linguist, she taught Yiddish for many years at the University of Maryland. More recently, she has been translating the Stonehill Jewish Song Collection, housed here at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Iván Fischer has received a lot of attention around the world for his recent opera "The Red Heifer," based on a 19th-century blood libel case. The opera has been polarizing in Hungary, where antisemitism and anti-Roma sentiments are on the rise.
Robert Edsel's book The Monuments Men is about a group of Allied men and women tasked with saving the cultural and artistic treasures of Europe. Now a Hollywood film, Edsel's book details the extraordinary scale of Hitler's theft, alongside the calculated destruction of Jewish art and culture.
After his grandmother’s death, Arnon Goldfinger stumbled upon evidence of a long-term friendship between his Jewish grandparents and a Nazi officer. In his documentary The Flat, he tries to make sense of this relationship, exploring how silence resides in both victims and perpetrators, and how, sometimes, it can shape a family history.
In 2005, Stephen Mills created a dance based on the life of Holocaust survivor Naomi Warren. The work would grow into a community-wide endeavor known as Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project. A collaboration of artists, institutions, and educators, the work has had far-reaching effects on both audiences and creators.
Hasan Sarbakhshian and Parvaneh Vahidmanesh gathered stories and photographs from Iran's dwindling Jewish population for their book Iranian Jews. The effort would eventually cause them to flee Iran, their homeland, for the United States.
Iranian-born Rita Jahanforuz is one of the biggest pop stars in Israel. With the release of her recent album, sung almost entirely in her native Farsi, Rita is developing a fan base in Iran as well, despite the fact that her music is banned there. Although she does not consider herself a political person, Rita is proof that individuals can challenge a system of state-sponsored antisemitism by reaching across cultural boundaries.
Watch videos and read articles about the Holocaust and the conditions that made it possible.
