HEFNU's Virtual Speakers Bureau connects college and university professors who teach virtual, hybrid or in-person classes on the Holocaust with Holocaust scholars. The Virtual Speakers Bureau features scholars from an array of disciplines and from around the globe. Speakers will prepare a tailor-made lecture or classroom session in their area of expertise. The focus is on effective classroom engagement and learning.
Interested professors should contact potential speakers directly. We leave it to classroom professors and their invited speakers to discuss the visit: the goals of the course and how the speaker can enhance student learning.
HEFNU recommends an honorarium of $250 to recognize the time and effort of the “visiting” scholar.
Hosting professors may apply for a need-based Honorarium Grant by sending the following items at least two weeks before the event, to hef@northwestern.edu:
1) Lecture title, visiting professor, and date; 2) your name and insitutional affiliation; 3) a statement of need; and 4) "evidence" of need (eg, letter from chair or dean)
If you use the Virtual Speakers Bureau, we would love to hear about your experience! Please be in touch with us at hef@northwestern.edu.
Second and Third-Generation Holocaust Literature; Holocaust graphic narratives, Jewish women graphic novelists and comics artists; American Jewish literature from 1945-present; the Holocaust in post war American Jewish fiction
Jews in Hiding in Eastern Europe; Survivors Testimonies; Jewish-Gentile Relations during the Holocaust in Eastern Europe; Family networks during the Holocaust and in its aftermath
Climate Change and the ways in which it will increasingly heighten the risk for violent conflict, including genocide; Native American history and the varied ways in which genocide was carried out, including policies intended to carry out cultural genocide; Comparative approaches to understanding the etiology and dynamics of genocide; Anti-Semitism, both historical patterns and contemporary trends
Anne Frank; Holocaust in the Netherlands; German Occupation of the Netherlands; Collaboration; Memory & Monuments
The Dynamics of Decency: Why Righteous Gentiles Rescued Jews; Hollywood and the Holocaust: From Appeasement to Anti-Nazism, 1933–1945; Not in Kansas Anymore: Holocaust Movies for Children; Serious Humor: Holocaust Comedy Films; Statuettes of Limitations: The Oscars and the Holocaust, 1945-1960.
Wehrmacht and the Holocaust; Geography and Mapping; Perpetrators; The Holocaust as analogy in current times; The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv; Holocaust by Bullets; Sexual violence in the Holocaust; Comparative Genocide; Historical Sources of the Holocaust
Holocaust and the Law; Displaced Persons in the Holocaust Aftermath; Austria and the Holocaust; Reparations and Restitution for Holocaust Victims
Polenaktion – The first mass deportation of Jews from Germany in 1938; Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto – Learning from Survivors Testimonies; Berlin – Center of the „Final Solution“. An Introduction into the Nazi Past of Germany’s Capital; Jewish and Yiddish History of Berlin and the Weimar Republic; Digital Shoah History – Challenges and Limits of Shoah History Online
Childhood and Youth during and after the Holocaust; Child Survivors; Hachshara and non-Zionist Emigration Preparation; History of Social Work; Jewish Functionaries in Concentration Camps; History of Concentration Camps
The Accidental Holocaust Novelist; Ghosts of Auschwitz: hidden stories of my grandfather's past; Overlapping Triangles & Common Graves: Integrating non-Jewish victims of Nazism; Choose-Your-Own Holocaust WebQuest: careful gamification of Holocaust pedagogies; Holocaust Analogies: Exploring the limits and necessities of ‘Never Again.'
Gender and Rituals of Death and Mourning during the Shoah; War Orphans Find Home: Child Survivors Early Postwar Experiences; The Postwar Reception of Holocaust Survivors by the American Jewish Community; Reconstituted Survivor Families After the Holocaust; From Oral History to Testimony: Reconstructing Survivors’ First Years in America; Ultraorthodox Postwar Aid to Child Survivors: Gendered Efforts; The Current State of Holocaust Museums and Education;
Holocaust Restitution and Compensation: The Luxembourg Agreement; The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference): A Brief History (1952-present); History of Claims Conference Compensation Programs (one or more individual programs); Open Ghettos in Romania: A Compensation and Historiographical Exploration; The Fate of the Jews, Roma/Sinti, POWs, and Religious Minorities During the Holocaust in Romania (an individual or comparative perspective)
Post-World War II American Jews and the Holocaust; America, American Jews, and the Unfolding Crisis in Germany, 1933-1939.
Any aspect of Primo Levi: conceptualizations of the Gray Zone, Holocaust Shame; Holocaust Literature and Trauma Theory, from testimony to science fiction; Jean Améry-Forgiveness after Auschwitz?; Mothers and Daughters in Italian Holocaust Writing.
Nuremberg; War Crimes Trials; Einsatzgruppen; War on the eastern front; Perpetrator testimony; Holocaust tourism; Martin Sandberger; Otto Ohlendorf; Postwar integration; atrocity photography; Raphael Lemkin/genocide.
Intermarried Jews and their children during the Holocaust; Trials of Holocaust Perpetrators and Nazi collaborators; The Holocaust in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; “Ethnic cleansing” (forced migration)
Captives of a hidden Holocaust: Trains, train journeys, and their interpretations; Arrivals, Departures, and Absences reclaimed: train platforms and material dis/integration in European Holocaust memory culture; Children of the Stone Wilderness: David “Chim” Seymour’s European odyssey of 1948; Geo-histories and Holocaust mobilities: Digital curations and discovery with StoryMaps
Geographies of the Holocaust; Digital Humanities and the Holocaust: GIS and mapping; Digital Humanities and the Holocaust: Corpus linguistics and testimonies; The Holocaust in Italy; Place, space, scale and the Holocaust.
From Denmark to Theresienstadt: Experiences of everyday life in the ghetto; On a boat to Sweden: Stories about flight and rescue; The Danish King and the Jewish Star; Early Holocaust Testimonies collected by the World Jewish Congress in spring 1945; Young Jewish Refugees in Denmark; The Danish Jewish Exile in Sweden 1943-1945
Listening to Survivors: Beyond Testimony; Playwriting and the Holocaust; Teaching the Holocaust: Innovations in Practice.
Prisoner society and the Holocaust; Jewish Councils; Sexuality and the Holocaust; Queer History of the Holocaust; Medicine in camps and ghettos
Pop Culture and the Holocaust, The Holocaust and Social Media, Film Music and the Holocaust, Soundscapes of the Holocaust, Practices of Listening to Holocaust Testimony
Rescue during Holocaust; Resistance & the Holocaust; Displaced Persons in the Postwar Period; Statelessness; Foundational Elements in Holocaust Course Design (specific to courses aimed at teacher training).
State Power and Jewish Survival; Reassessing the Danish Rescue; The Final Solution in Bulgaria and Romania: A Comparative Perspective; Swords or Shields: Collaboration and Capitulation in Vichy France during the Holocaust
The Holocaust in Film (especially American); Holocaust Literature (novels and testimonies); the BBC and the Holocaust; Holocaust memory and representation
Holocaust Memory in Latin America; Uses of the past: History, Memory, Distortion and Denialism; Holocaust memory in Argentina; Holocaust, antisemitism and Dictatorships in the South Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil). Lectures given in SPANISH.
Gender and the Holocaust; Jewish life in Nazi Germany; Refugees from the Holocaust who flooded into Portugal between 1940 and 1943.
The Holocaust in the Soviet Union; The Holocaust in Ukraine; Babi Yar Massacre and its Commemoration; In the Shadow of Babi Yar: Betrayal and Rescue of Jews in Kiev; Commemoration and Memorialization of the Holocaust in Modern Ukraine.
The Holocaust in Italy, 1938-1945; Italians’ warped Holocaust memory, 1945-present; Jews and Fascism; Representing the Holocaust on Wikipedia
Memory and Family History in Post-War Germany; Hiding in Plain View: The Holocaust and Masculinities; The Rise of Antisemitism and Nazi Propaganda; Unsettling Empathy: Working With Groups in Conflict; The Arts as Mediator: Trauma, Art, and Dialogue.
Holocaust survivors in Poland and postwar Polish society; Property restitution in Poland in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust; Everyday life in Polish towns and villages during the Holocaust; Social history of the Holocaust in Poland; Postwar trials and transitional justice in Poland after the Holocaust
Film representation of the Holocaust in East Central Europe in the early Aftermath; The Holocaust as an Australian Story: Family connections and networks across continents; Sardines for the Ghettos: Humanitarian Aid for Jews during the War; Allies and the Holocaust
Remembering the Kindertransport; Women’s Holocaust Voices: Gisella Perl and Charlotte Delbo; Jewish Boyhood in Holocaust Film; The Art of Holocaust Lamentation”: Images of Memorialization; Holocaust Literature and Film for Young Adults; Representing the Holocaust in Popular Fiction: Sara Paretsky’s "Total Recall and Critical Mass"
European Holocaust Films; The Representation of Women as Victims in Holocaust Films; Women Filmmakers in Twenty-First-Century Holocaust Cinema; Cinematic Representations of Female Perpetrators; Gendering Heroism: The Role of Women in Filmic Discourses About Resistance; Holocaust Films in France: Between History and Cinematic Memory
Holocaust Studies; Comparative Genocide Studies; Human Rights; Modern Germany, Modern Ukraine; Women’s History.
The Holocaust and Photography; Holocaust Film; the Holocaust and mass culture
Social-psychological explanations of perpetrator behavior; Psychology of memory as it pertains to testimony; Clinical perspectives on National Socialism and its varying effects on adults and youth. Questions of normalcy and psychopathology in Germany during the Nazi era.
German agency and the Europe-wide Holocaust project; Nazi antisemitism-ideology and practice; German WWII photo-albums-violence and images of “the East”; Jewish perceptions of the “Final Solution;” Ideological indoctrination in the SS- and police corps. In lieu of honorarium, you may donate to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum at ushmm.org.
Holocaust literature; representation of Holocaust perpetrators; ethical issues in Holocaust representation; generational writing on the Holocaust; cognitive and affective approaches to the Holocaust; literary representation of Operation Reinhard; children in the Third Reich, the Holocaust and WWII; Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah;" Art Spiegelman's "Maus"; Ruth Klüger's "Still Alive"
What We Do Not Talk About: Jewish Survivors and their Polish Rescuers; Polish National Identity, Antisemitism, and Holocaust Memorialization in the Third Decade after the End of Communism; Ego Documents-an Important Source in Uncovering the History of Rescue; Child Holocaust Survivors and their Families; Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Jewish Children in Early Postwar Poland.
English-language theatre about the Holocaust; the use of empathy in Holocaust plays; adapting Holocaust texts for the stage; the use of theatre to educate about the Holocaust; the Holocaust and ‘non-traditional’ theatre
Lawyers and Law in Nazi Germany; Justice and Resistance in Nazi Germany; Ernst Fraenkel, Franz Neumann, Gustav Radbruch (important Social Democratic resisters); Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the famous Protestant theologian from the Confessing Church)
Moral Dilemmas in the Holocaust (“Grey Zone”); Propaganda (Verbal and Visual); Rescuers in the Holocaust and other Genocides. Holocaust Museums (Design, Content, Challenges).
“Facing” the Holocaust: Portraiture Made in Extremis; Art from the Internment Camps, Ghettos and Concentration Camps; Time and Time: Holocaust Reenactments; Lost and Found: Using Found Footage in Holocaust Commemoration; Exhibiting the Holocaust in the Immediate Postwar Period (1944-50): Histories, Practices and Politics.
Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto and the difficulty of listening to the voices of the victims; Gender-specific violence in the ghettos during the Holocaust; Jewish honor courts and the search for retribution in the postwar world; Early research on the Holocaust and the attempts at re-building of the Jewish community in Poland
Representations of Holocaust perpetrators; Children’s Holocaust literature; Nazism and the British Far-Right; Perpetrator descendants; Nazism in alternate histories
Holocaust film; Holocaust documentaries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and its outtakes; Holocaust feature films from Europe to Hollywood; German discourses of culpability and working through the past; film and literature; Holocaust graphic novels
To Capture the Fire: The Life and Works of Elie Wiesel; Literary Responses to the Holocaust; The History and Meaning of Interviewing Holocaust Survivors; Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy: The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars; Out of the Depths: Religious Jewish Life and Practice During and After the Holocaust.
Jewish and Holocaust Representation in Dance and Performance; Postmemory and Performance; Site-Specific Holocaust Performance; Staging Survivor Stories; Black Choreographers and Holocaust Dance
What insights do Holocaust scholars/survivors-Primo Levi and Charlotte Delbo, Raul Hilberg and Sarah Kofman, Elie Wiesel and Jean Améry-offer today? Why do we study the Holocaust in a world wracked by antisemitism, immigration and refugee crises, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and the COVID-19 pandemic? What happened to ethics during and after the Holocaust? What have we learned from the Holocaust? How do we understand the Holocaust if at the end of the day, the void, the abyss, nothingness (call it what you will) consume and prevail?
Lectures offered in French or English. French post-war Nazi camp testimonies; Literary aspects of Holocaust testimonies; Notion of the “unspeakable” (“indicible”); Intersections of testimony and fiction (Primo Levi and Romain Gary, Robert Antelme and Marguerite Duras)
Holocaust Trauma; Women in the Holocaust; Women prisoners in Nazi Camps; Auschwitz-Birkenau; Testimonies; Sexual Abuse During the Holocaust; Women in Holocaust Literature; Liberation; First years of 'returning' to life; lectures given in HEBREW or ENGLISH
Beyond Schindler: The Jews of the Krakow Ghetto; Food and Hunger in Ghettos; Gender and the Holocaust; Victim Experience in the ghettos; Rabbinical response and the Holocaust.
Romanian Nationalism and the Persecution of Jews; How Final was Romanian "Final Solution"?: Understanding Aims and Dynamics of Romanian Persecution of Jews; Were Perpetrators Moral Beings? Murder of Jews Through the Eyes of By-Standers; Popular Antisemitism and the Murder of Jews, or How Anti-Semitic Were the Local Perpetrators?; On the Legal Conscientiousness of Romanian Perpetrators, or How "Legal" Was the Holocaust?
European Jewish History on the Eve of the Nazi Holocaust; US Response to the Nazi Holocaust; Modern Yiddish Culture; Reception of Nazi Holocaust in post-war USA.
The ‘Dutch Paradox’ and the ‘French Paradox’; The Jewish Council (Judenrat) phenomenon; Jewish responses and the Holocaust; Photography and the Holocaust; Railways and the Holocaust
Holocaust fiction in the twenty-first century; Is it 'barbaric' to write poetry after Auschwitz?; The genre of Holocaust testimony: Primo Levi, Art Spiegelman and beyond; Holocaust documentary and fiction film: from Claude Lanzmann to JoJo Rabbit.
Perpetrator Studies; Comparative Genocide; Alcohol and Atrocity in the Holocaust; the SS and Police Complex; Rescue and debates on the Bombing of Auschwitz
Music in the Holocaust (diverse sites); Music and Terezín; Viktor Ullmann and Der Kaiser von Atlantis; Postwar Musical Representations of the Holocaust, especially Arnold Schoenberg’s Survivor from Warsaw and Steve Reich’s Different Trains
Ethnic Germans and the Holocaust; Nazism beyond Germany; Nazi ideology and its impact on society; Occupation, civil war, and the Holocaust in the Balkans; Nazi misuses of history
