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“Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future” Session 2
Wednesday, March 19 @ 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm EDT
“Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future”
In collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre
As we stand on the cusp of history, the voices of Holocaust and genocide survivors grow more urgent, reminding us of the cost of silence, the value of empathy, and the power of resilience. “Echoes Across Time” invites audiences to explore the critical lessons these testimonies offer—on values, democracy, and the warning signs of oppression. Through monthly episodes, each centered around a survivor’s testimony about their life experiences, this series probes the question: Are we truly listening? Join us as we amplify stories from the Holocaust to Rwanda, Cambodia, and beyond, engaging with survivors, scholars, and advocates who work tirelessly to preserve these legacies and inspire a more compassionate future.
Memory as a Democratic Tool: Michael Berenbaum on Survivor Testimonies and the Future”
Featuring: Renowned Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum, who will delve into how survivor testimony serves as a vital instrument in preserving and promoting democratic values, especially within the U.S. Michael will discuss the power of these testimonies in exposing the dangers of authoritarianism, encouraging critical thinking, and reinforcing the importance of active citizenship. He will also explore how survivor stories help prevent future atrocities by fostering empathy, understanding, and a deep respect for human rights.
Tali Nates
Tali Nates is the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC) and Chair of the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation (SAHGF). She is a historian who lectures internationally on Holocaust and genocide education, memory, reconciliation, and human rights. Born to a family of Holocaust survivors, her father and uncle were saved by Oskar Schindler. Tali has been involved in the creation and production of dozens of documentary films, published many articles and contributed chapters to different books among them God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors (2015), Remembering The Holocaust in Educational Settings (2018), Conceptualizing Mass Violence, Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations (2021) and The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism (2023).
In 2021 she was part of the 12-member Expert Group of the Malmö Forum, serving in an advisory capacity to the Secretariat of the Malmö Forum on their programme on Holocaust remembrance, education and actions to combat antisemitism. Tali serves on many Advisory and Academic Boards including that of the Contested Histories Initiative, the Interdisciplinary Academic Journal of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and the Academic Advisory Group of the School of Social and Health Sciences, Monash University (IIEMSA), South Africa.
In 2010, Tali was chosen as one of the top 100 newsworthy and noteworthy women in
South Africa by the Mail & Guardian newspaper and won many awards including the Kia Community Service Award (South Africa, 2015), the Gratias Agit Award (2020, Czech Republic), the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (2021) and the Goethe Medal (2022, Germany).
Dr. Michael Berenbaum
Dr. Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University, where he is also a Professor of Jewish Studies.
He was the Executive Editor of the Second Edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica that reworked, transformed, improved, broadened and deepened, the now classic 1972 work and consists of 22 volumes, sixteen million words with 25,000 individual contributions to Jewish knowledge. For three years, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. He was the Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Hymen Goldman Adjunct Professor of Theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. From 1988–93 he served as Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, overseeing its creation. He also served as Deputy Director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, where he authored its Report to the President.
Berenbaum is the author and editor of twenty books, scores of scholarly articles, and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His most recent books include: Not Your Father’s Antisemitism, A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors and After the Passion Has Passed: American Religious Consequences, a collection of essays on Jews, Judaism and Christianity, Religious Tolerance and Pluralism occasioned by the controversy that swirled around Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion. He was the conceptual developer on the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center and played a similar function as conceptual developer and chief curator of the Belzec Memorial at the site of the Death Camp. He is currently at work on the Memorial Museum to Macedonian Jewry in Skopje, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, and the Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Upcoming Events in this series:
- April 2025: Generations of the Shoah: Passing the Torch
- May 2025: Legacy of the Ghetto Fighters: Research and Resilience of the Survivors Who Created the GFH
- June 2025: Resisting Rising Antisemitism: Lessons from the USC Shoah Foundation
- September 2025: Srebrenica: Capturing Memories in the Face of Denial
- October 2025: From Tragedy to Healing: Rwanda’s Path to Restorative Justice
- November 2025: After the Genocide in Cambodia: Rebuilding from Devastation
