By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
The horrors of the Holocaust will be remembered and victims honored through a series of events in Hays through April.
The commemoration includes educational programs and discussions offering opportunities for community members to learn and reflect on past atrocities and honor the memory of those lost.
The events mark the second year the Hays Holocaust Remembrance Committee has offered community programming during Hays Holocaust Remembrance and Education Month.
Committee chair Amber Nickell, FHSU assistant professor of history, said events like the ones planned are essential to keeping future atrocities from occurring.
“The thing that matters, I think the most, is that we understand how humanity has behaved in the past, not so that we can prevent the exact same thing from happening, but so that we can prevent something similar from happening,” Nickell said. “This is the first and foremost reason why we are so passionate about Holocaust education and remembrance.
The committee includes students and staff of the university and Hays Public Library staff, where some of the month’s events will be hosted.
“They are a very strong equal partner in this relationship,” Nickell said. “It's only been two years since we've been doing this, but we have conceived the community and the university to be one and the same.”
The FHSU History and English Department, Forsyth Library, Hays Public Library, the Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Committee, the American Democracy Project, the FHSU History Club, and the College of Arts, Humanities, and Socials Sciences also supported the committee to bring the events to the community.
. . .
The first event is scheduled for 6 p.m. April 11. It will feature Jake Newsome, Pink Triangle Legacies author, in the FHSU Forsyth Library and online via Zoom.
His work “looks at the legacy of anti-queer policy of the Nazis,” Nickell said. “In the wake of that, he looks at how they redeveloped their identities in the wake of the Holocaust.”
She said
he is a remarkable scholar and advocate, and with LGBTQ+ rights under fire from
the Kansas Legislature, his presentation is especially relevant.
. . .
“We have two events the following day on April 12,” Nickell said. “The first one is working directly with the American Democracy Project, which is very active on campus, will be giving a Times Talk called Encountering the Holocaust in Poland.”
The talk will feature a roundtable with Nickell and four of her students who recently returned from Poland, where they encountered "remnants of the Holocaust," she said.
It is scheduled for noon in the Forsyth Library.
"And then that evening, the History Club is hosting a film showing of JoJo Rabbit, which is kind of a satire in which a young boy has an imaginary friend that is none other than Adolf Hitler," Nickell said.
The movie showing is scheduled at 4 p.m. in Forsyth Library, with a discussion set for 6 p.m.
. . .
At 11 a.m. April 18, an online presentation featuring a presentation and question and answer session with Holocaust survivor Ilana Blum live from Tel Aviv, Israel, is planned.
“Her father actually died on the ship Struma, which was sunk outside of the coast of Romania,” Nickell said. “They represent a different experience. Most folks don't know about the Romanian experience during the Holocaust, nor about Romanian perpetration during the Holocaust. So I think this will be really thought-provoking.”
. . .
On April 19 and 20, two different book clubs will discuss Salt to the Sea by Ruda Sepetys.
"This is a young adult novel, really, but it's really thought-provoking," Nickell said. "And I think it would be easy for either young folks or older folks to consume. There's an in-person option, the Hays Public Library at 6 p.m. on April 19, and a virtual option at 5 p.m. on April 20."
. . .
At 6 p.m. April 25, Jessica Rockhold, executive director of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, will present an exploration of the history and evolution of false narratives that discount the events of the Holocaust in the Schmidt Gallery of the Hays Public Library.
"As we're moving into the modern period, we're seeing less and less denial where people are outright saying, the Holocaust didn't happen," Nickell said. "We all know better. But we are seeing distortion."
. . .
"And then the final event is on April 26," Nickell said. "This is the one that I'm the most excited about because we are having the director of the Yale Fortunoff Archive come to campus to speak with us."
His talk will discuss the music that people sang acapella in their oral histories, later set to a musical score.
The event will begin with a reception at 3:30 p.m. in the Forsyth Library. The presentation will begin at 4 p.m.
"I think it's this really beautiful example of how art was so important during the Holocaust for people to make sense of it, but also how those stories via music can live on," Nickell said.
While the memory of the Holocaust will likely continue through the ages, she said opportunities to hear directly from those affected directly are growing more rare.
"We are running into the point where most of our survivors were child survivors," Nickell said. "The survivor that's coming Ilana Blum, she actually was a child survivor as well."
"We're almost to the end of the survivor generation. And we'll be working mostly with second-generation or third-generation folks. So I would not miss this because we are running into once-in-a-lifetime experiences."
RSVPs are requested for each event and can be submitted via a QR code on their promotional materials or by visiting their signup page.