Holocaust Remembrance Week at W&L
Washington and Lee University will observe Holocaust Remembrance Week April 26 through May 3 with a variety of activities beginning with a vigil and featuring several films, a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and a talk by Holocaust survivor Jay M. Ipson.
The Holocaust Vigil will be observed at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 26, at the Hillel House. According to Brett M. Schwartz, director of W&L’s Hill, the vigil will feature music and readings “to help those in attendance remember the six million lost in the Holocaust and also the many lost through oppression in Darfur, Bosnia, Kashmir.”
On Saturday, April 28, Hillel will sponsor the visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Busses will leave Lexington at 9 a.m. There will be a three-hour, self-guided tour of the museum, including several hours to experience Washington. Busses will leave Washington around 8 p.m. to return to Lexington. To participate in the trip, which is free for W&L students, contact Schwartz at bschwartz@wlu.edu by Monday, April 23, to reserve space on a first come, first served basis.
“The Last Days,” winner of Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1998, will be shown on Tuesday, May 1, at 6 p.m. in Hillel. The film combines interviews with five Hungarian survivors of HItler’s “Final Solution” with stark historical footage to tell the story of the Nazi destruction of Hungarian Jews in the last year of the war.
On Wednesday, May 2, “Sarah’s Key” will be shown at 6 p.m. at Hillel. This 2011 film tells the story of 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski, who was among the Jewish families of Paris who were rounded up and deported by French police in June 1942.
Jay M. Ipson, a Holocaust survivor and executive director and founder of the Virginia Holocaust Museum, will share his experiences on Thursday, May 3, at 6 p.m. at Hillel. Born in Lithuania in 1935, Ipson was forced into a concentration camp with his family at age six. After escaping with his parents in 1943, he endured bleak post-war conditions until the family immigrated to Richmond when he was 12. In 1997 Ipson and two other Richmonders founded the Virginia Holocaust Museum in an effort to preserve and educate people on the atrocities of the Holocaust of World War II.
News Contact:
Julie Cline
News Writer
jcline@wlu.edu
540-458-8954
