Lessons in Resilience from the Holocaust and Genocide with Tali Nates and Asya Darbinyan

Join us on this transformative journey; let this series serve as your source of empowerment, inspiring our community to find their own light within the encompassing shadows.

Asya Darbinyan:
Executive Director of Chhange, the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education
Date: September 25, 2024

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. Asya Darbinyan 

Dr. Asya Darbinyan is the Executive Director of Chhange (Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education) at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, Worcester, MA. Darbinyan’s research and teaching expertise stand at the intersection of genocide, refugees, and humanitarian interventions, with a focus on the agency and actions of refugees in addressing their suffering and plight. Prior to joining Chhange, Darbinyan worked as a Visiting Professor at the Strassler Center at Clark, where she taught courses on Genocide and Women, the Armenian Genocide, and the History of Genocide. Darbinyan has also served as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University (NAU), and a Fellow in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University. She was the Deputy Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, prior to pursuing her doctoral degree in the USA.

The Remarkable Resilience of the Armenian Genocide Refugees

The Armenian genocide—orchestrated and systematically implemented by the Ottoman government against its Armenian subjects under the cover of the First World War—was a disaster that inflicted tremendous suffering and pain upon a people. The genocide took over 1.5 million lives, triggered huge population movements, and left hundreds of thousands of Armenians, as well as Assyrians and Greeks, without home and hope. In her talk, Dr. Darbinyan reflects on the successful attempt of refugee-survivors, including women and children, to self-organize and help each other during the Armenian Genocide. The tremendous operations of Armenian volunteers to liberate abducted Armenian women and children from Muslim captivity, the willingness and strength of exhausted and famished children to overcome endless obstacles and even find their way back home, the efforts of refugees in classrooms and workshops to teach and train children survivors are testimony to the remarkable resilience in a time of catastrophe. The decisions made and the actions taken by those individuals constitute critical examples of agency, self-help, and self-organization.

In the midst of uncertainty and shadows, our series on resistance stands as a beacon of hope.

Over the course of our 8-part series, we aim to shed light on the stories of individuals and communities courageously facing prevailing challenges. Our mission is to create a space where narratives of resilience take center stage, unveiling the indomitable strength of the human spirit in adversity.

Thank you to our Partner:

Future Events in this Series:

• October 23, 2024 – Paul Lowe: Capturing the Siege of Sarajevo (Tentative)
• November 20, 2024 – Sarah Brown, PhD: Women as Perpetrators and Rescuers (Tentative)