Schedule

REGISTRATION: 9:15 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. (Refreshments served)

Morning Keynote Address #1:   

Knowing -- and Not Knowing -- My Holocaust Survivor Parents 

Dr. Eva Fogelman was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Kassel, Germany, after World War II. She is a psychologist, writer, filmmaker and a pioneer in the treatment of psychological effects of the Holocaust on survivors and their descendants. She was one of the first psychotherapists to lead counselling groups for children of survivors She also did seminal research on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, and wrote the Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, illuminating the psychology and history of the people who defied German law during the Third Reich.

Afternoon Keynote Address #2:

Contested Memories: History in Dispute

Australian historian Paul R. Bartrop wrote, “We should be aware of who is telling the story and to whom it is intended the story be told”. Prof. Steven Jacobs will discuss how that story—the Holocaust/Shoah—is now ours as our parents’ and grandparents’ leave us; we are now their storytellers. This lecture will advise us that with our obligation to do so, telling their stories carries with it a whole host of complicated factors as we accept this legacy of responsibility.

Steven Leonard Jacobs is Professor of Religious Studies and Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair of Judaic Studies at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA.  He is the author, editor, and translator of many books and more than 50 articles. His primary fields of interest are the Hebrew Bible including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish-Christian Relations, the Holocaust/Shoah, and historical and contemporary genocides. Professor Jacobs is currently working on a book tentatively entitled Antisemitism: Exploring the Issues as well as a biography of a survivor of the Kovno Ghetto.

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Each workshop slot includes two types of sessions. After registering, attendees will be prompted to register for ONE choice for each slot.

SHARING SESSIONS

As children of Holocaust survivors, we realized at an early age that our families were “different”. What impact did our parents have on us? Attendees can share personal stories and memories of their parents and family lives in controlled and moderated sessions. (By pre-registration only; 25 attendees per session.)

LECTURES

At some of the lectures space is limited; pre-registration is required.

 MORNING PROGRAMS (11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.)

After registering, attendees will be prompted to select one of the following options.

Sharing Session #1:    Mourning Stages in the Lives of Children of Survivors - Moderator: Dr. Eva Fogelman

(see bio above)              

Lecture #1: The Next Generation’s Fight: Antisemitism Still Persists After the Holocaust - Co-presented with CIJA.

In recent years, there has been a dangerous rise in antisemitism in various countries. Canada is not immune from these alarming trends. What is the current state of antisemitism in Canada today, what is the Canadian Jewish community doing to combat it, and how can grassroots Jewish Canadians play a role?

As Director of Policy and Strategic Communications, Steve McDonald serves as a spokesperson for the Jewish community in the national media, prepares written advocacy materials and communications products, and plays a key role in CIJA’s policy development process. Prior to joining CIJA, he served in the office of a Member of Parliament, on various political campaigns, and as a consultant and federal lobbyist for a private sector firm, Crestview. His work includes drafting proposed ethics legislation, training Members of Parliament and their staff in communications, conducting polls for political parties and corporations, and advocating policies to government officials on behalf of clients.

Lecture #2: Recovering from Genocidal Trauma                      

As a social worker and daughter of Auschwitz survivors, Myra Giberovitch shares her family history and life’s work with Holocaust survivors. Using a strengths-based philosophy that acknowledges survivors’ internal strengths, coping abilities and achievements, despite their traumatic experiences, she has developed innovative programs that empower them to recover from genocidal trauma.

Myra is a consultant, educator, speaker and Adjunct Professor at the McGill School of Social Work. She is the author of Recovering from Genocidal Trauma: An Information and Practice Guide for Working with Holocaust Survivors (University of Toronto Press, 2014). In the 1980s, she started the first community-based social service program for Holocaust survivors in Canada and founded Services for Holocaust Survivors and their Families at the Cummings Centre in Montreal. She conducts training workshops for healthcare and social service providers and offers clinical consultation and supervision.

AFTERNOON PROGRAMS (2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.)

After registering, attendees will be prompted to select one of the following options.

Sharing Session #2: Positive Aspects: Transmission of Our Parents' Legacy - Moderator: Myra Giberovitch            

(see bio above)

Sharing Session #3: Parenting Our Children in the Shadow of the Holocaust - Moderator: Shoshana Yaakobi        

Shoshana Yaakobi is the Holocaust Resource Program Coordinator at Baycrest health sciences in Toronto, Ontario.

She was a social worker in the Community Day Centre and also worked on the in-patient Behavioural Neurology unit in the hospital. She has been working with aging Holocaust Survivors and their families, providing individual and family counselling, facilitating support groups and developing programs for survivors. She is also involved in developing and providing educational programs for care providers working with survivors.                           

Sharing Session #4: Caring for Our Aging Parents: Moral Dilemmas - Moderator: Dr. Eva Fogelman (see bio above)     

Lecture #3:  Restitution – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

 Over seventy years have passed since the end of World War II and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust, including the organized theft by the Nazis of movable and immovable property belonging to European Jewry. After the war, survivors were busy trying to rebuild their broken lives, and few had the opportunity or the means to reclaim their families’ properties that had been seized by the Nazis.  This lecture provides an overview of restitution efforts and will highlight how, since the fall of Communism in the 1990s, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) has been at the forefront of advocating in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for the return, and compensation of Jewish private, communal and heirless private property.

Elaine Schnall, a daughter of Holocaust survivors from the former Czechoslovakia, is Staff Attorney at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and World Jewish Restitution Organization. She created the Department of Survivor Services and served as its Director for seven years. After taking time off to raise her three daughters, Elaine returned to the Claims Conference and in 2016 began working on property restitution matters. 

Lecture #4: The Bargain That Broke Adolf Hitler - Co-presented with the ProssermanJCC.              

Stanley Goldman's mother survived Auschwitz and Ravensbrück as well as slave labor in BerlinSeven years after the death of his mother, Malka, Stanley A. Goldman traveled to Israel to visit her best friend during the Holocaust. The friend’s daughter showed Goldman a pamphlet she had acquired from the Israeli Holocaust Museum that documented activities of one man’s negotiations with the Nazi’s interior minister and SS head, Heinrich Himmler, for the release of the Jewish women from the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. While looking through the pamphlet, the two discovered a picture that could have been their mothers being released from the camp. Wanting to know the details of how they were saved, Goldman set out on a long and difficult path to unravel the mystery.

Stanley Goldman served as a Los Angeles County deputy public defender, and has appeared as counsel for indigent criminal defendants at every level of American trial and appellate court including in the United States Supreme Court. He published approximately 90 columns as Special Correspondent for the New York Daily News.  For a time he hosted an hour-long Saturday evening program on CNBC and for over 10 years he was a legal correspondent, occasional host and the sole Legal Editor of the Fox News Channel. Currently he is a full-time tenured Professor of Law teaching criminal law and evidence and is the founding director of the Loyola Center for the Study of Law & Genocide. He is the author of the recently published memoir: Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream – The bargain that broke Adolf Hitler and saved my mother.