Lessons in Resilience from the Holocaust and Genocide with Tali Nates

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.

Testimonies of Light: Photography, Bearing Witness and the Siege of Sarajevo with Professor Paul Lowe

This talk will explore how Paul Lowe bore witness as a photojournalist to the crimes committed against humanity in the Yugoslav conflict, especially in Bosnia Herzegovina during the Siege of Sarajevo. He will relate his experiences and working methods in the field, documenting the resilience, courage and creativity of the citizens of the city under relentless shelling, sniping and privation. He will explore how he conceptualized his work and responded to larger questions about neutrality and moral responsibility. Moving beyond the end of the Yugoslav Wars in 2001, the talk  will also consider the therapeutic and validating potential of photography for survivors, and on memory and reconciliation.

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. Paul Lowe

Dr. Paul Lowe is a Professor of Conflcit, Peace and the Image at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London, UK. Paul is an award-winning photographer who has been published in TIME, Newsweek, Life, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer, and The Independent, amongst others. He has covered breaking news the world over, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s release, famine in Africa, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, and the destruction of Grozny. He is represented by VII Photo

His book, “Bosnians,” documenting 10 years of the war and post-war situation in Bosnia, was published in April 2005 by Saqi books. His research interest focuses on the photography of conflict, and he has contributed chapters to the books “Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis” (Reaktion, 2012) and “Photography and Conflict.” His most recent books include “Photography Masterclass”, “Understanding Photojournalism,” and ‘Reporting the Siege of Sarajevo”

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:

• November 20, 2024 – Sarah Brown, PhD: Women as Perpetrators and Rescuers (Tentative)