Adress: 115035, Russia, Moscow,
Sadovnicheskaya St. 52/45
The Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center and the Holocaust Foundation
(map). Phone/fax: Secretary: +7 (495) 951-58-76 Archive: +7 (495) 951 67 97 (no Fax),
Library +7 (495) 953-33-62 E-mail:center@holofond.ru
The international Media-Club “Impressum” organized a meeting in Tallinn on July 27th. The topic of the meeting was the remembrance of Simon Wiesenthal and his work of legal persecuting Nazi-Perpetrators.
The meeting included the presentation of the Russian version of the book “Anti-Semitism: The Generic of Hatred. Essays in remembrance of Simon Wiesenthal”, which was published by the initiative of the UNESCO. The Co-Chairman of the Russian Holocaust Center, Dr. Ilya Altman contributed Simon Wiesenthal’s historical fairness during his speech in Tallinn.
Due to that, Ilya Altman talked about the lessons of the Holocaust. He underlined the danger of the repeating of history and the importance of fighting Xenophobia and Racism.
Next to Dr. Ilya Altman, Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel took part in the meeting. He talked about the different working fields of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and about the succeeds of the last years of fighting racist activities in different countries. Zuroff criticized the position of the Baltic stated, which have not condemned even one single person who had committed crimes during the time of WWII, during the time of there independence. He even criticized the equalizing of the national socialist and the communist regimes, what some politicians of the Baltic States are doing. “This puts the attention away from the collaboration with the Nazis of the people during the time of the war”, did he say.
The meeting got a lot of attention from the mass media, a lot of reporters listened to the conference in the Tallinn “Olümpia” Hotel.
UNESCO, together with the French educational foundation Verbe et Lumière – Vigilance (VetL), co-sponsored the Fifth Annual Russian University Holocaust Essay Competition at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
The winners are, each year, invited to Paris to present their papers. This year, over 700 submissions arrived from all over the former Soviet Union, to be judged by the competition coordinator, the Russian Holocaust Centre (RHC) in Moscow. The session was co-chaired by RHC Director, Dr Ilya Altman, and, on behalf of VetL, Dr Shimon Samuels. UNESCO Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, spoke of the 2007 Resolution 61 as the basis for the Organization's global promotion of Holocaust education. He committed UNESCO's continued support under future administrations. War criminal investigator, Beate Klarsfeld, responded with a description of her German childhood visit to 1943 Nazi-occupied Poland, as formative in her career, adding the importance of transmission of such memories with the endorsement of UNESCO. The student laureates presented abstracts of their work:
-Yekaterina Zamarina, a blind student at Sillamae University, Estonia, Institute of Economics and Management, on "The History of the Holocaust in Estonia"; - Anna Mitrushina, of St. Petersburg Herzen University, Faculty of Social Sciences, on "Teaching the Holocaust in Russian High Schools" - Alena Samsonova, of Gubkin University of Oil and Gas, Faculty of Engineering Mechanics, on "Holocaust Denial in Russia" - Bella Khayzens, of Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, on "Holocaut Semiotics in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" Photo 1 – Pictured at the ceremony are, from left to right: Front row: Dr Graciela Vaserman Samuels (UNESCO), Director-General Koichiro Matsuura, Beate Klarsfeld. Back row: The four Russian laureates, Dr Ilya Altman, Alexander Kaplan, Dr Shimon Samuels, UNESCO Education Director Dr Quian Tang, Simon Kaplan, Anna Kaplan. Present but not visible were Tania Klarsfeld and Dr Eliane Corrin; Photo 2 – The Russian edition of the book, "Antisemitism – The Generic Hatred. Essays in Memory of Simon Wiesenthal", was given to US Delegation member, Esther Coopersmith, for First Lady Michele Obama. Also in the picture: US Charge at UNESCO Stephen Engelken, Dr Graciela Vaserman Samuels, Dr Shimon Samuels
June 26th – 30th. International Conference about proprietary aspects of the Holocaust in Prague
The international conference took place in Prague and there took part more than 550 people from 49 countries. There participants were diplomats, directors of different Holocaust-museums in Europe and the USA and different historians.
The russian delegation amongst others consisted of the president of the Russian Holocaust-Fond, Alla Gerber, the co-chairman of the russian Holocaustcenter, Dr. Ilya Altman and the president of the international cultural cooparation, Michail Shvydkoj.
Michail Shvydkov talked in his lecture about the importance of the Sovjet Union during the second Worldwar and that this role is often forgotten in these days.
Dr. Ilya Altman said, that this is a reason, why the Holocaustcenter is working on an Encyclopedia about the Holocaust on the territory of the USSR.
In Brest (Belarus), at the 9th International Annual Conference for Schoolchildren “Holocaust: Remembrance and Warning”, 16 school students from large and small cities of Russia (Moscow, Moscow Region, Samara and Tobolsk), Ukraine (Kremenets and Donetsk), Moldova (Beltsy) and Belarus (Mir, Smilovichi, Pinsk, Kalinkovichi and Brest) made presentations and visited the Brest Fortress at dawn on June 22, the State Archive of Brest Region and Holocaust sites.
The organizer and head of all nine conferences, Ilya Altman, co-chair of the Holocaust Center, noted the much higher technical level of the presentations and films. Participants from Moldova were attending the conference for the first time. Prominent scholars were present at the opening of the conference: the head of the Ukrainian Center for the Study of the History of the Holocaust, Anatoly Podolsky, and director of the Jewish Resistance Museum in Novogrudka, Tamara Vershitskaya. As always, the meeting with the only surviving former minor prisoner of the Brest Ghetto, writer Roman Levin, made a very strong impression on the participants in the conference.
Alexander Sidorkin, a 10th grade student from Tobolsk (Russia), who devoted his presentation to the antifascist struggle in Germany and whose trip to Brest took three days, admitted that before the conference he “only had a general idea about the Holocaust”.
- I became acquainted with Roman Levin, the “boy from the ghetto”. The atmosphere at the conference was very well-wishing. I was deeply moved by the ceremony at the Brest Fortress on June 22. I learned a lot at the conference. That is why we have to speak at conferences and compete for a chance to come to Brest!”
Dr.Altman pointed out that the next 10th Conference will take place during the year of the 65th Victory Anniversary and that the number of participating countries will hopefully be expanded.
June, 15th. The exhibition, coming from the Anne Frank house, Amsterdam, has had great success in different parts of Ukraine, as well as in some schools in Moscow. Now it is open for everyone in the Holocaustcenter until the middle of July.
On the opening, there were different guests, like members of the Dutch and German Embassy, as well as from the Embassy of Israel. Due to that, Dr Ilya Altman and the organizer of this exhibition, Ksenia Shiryaeva had a speech.
After the opening-ceremony, a student from one of the Moscow-schools guided the visitors through the exhibition. This is the plan of this pilot project. Students get qualified as guides to show their classmates the exhibition afterwards.
From May 18th
to 28th a seminar was organized in the international memorial Center
Yad Vashem, Jeruslem. The seminar was made for 13 Russian teachers and students
on the topic “teaching the topic of The Holocaust”.
The participants were accompanied by 19
pedagogues of Russian universities and members of well-known Russian publishing
houses from Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad
and others.
The
teachers had many talks and discussions with theses pedagogues and with
co-workers of Yad Vashem on different ways of teaching the topic of The Holocaust.
After the
seminar, all teachers said that the new methods they have learned on the
seminar, will help them a lot for teaching this topic in the future.
On May 24, a meeting in memory of Fyodor Sverdlov (1921-2002), the historian of Jewish heroism in World War II, for the first time ever took place in Israel in the conference hall of the The Museum of the Military History and Jewish Military Tradidtion "The Energy of Virility" This meeting was organized by the The Museum of the Military History and Jewish Military Tradidtion "The Energy of Virility" Israel, Handera (director – David Zelvensky) and the Research and Educational Holocaust Center (Russia, Moscow, co-chair Ilya Altman and regional representative in Israel Gregory Reikhman). Such events have become traditional in the Research and Educational Holocaust Center in Moscow.
The meeting was opened by the head of The Museum of the Military History and Jewish Military Tradidtion "The Energy of Virility" David Zelvensky.
Ilya Altman spoke about the important impact of Fyodor Sverdlov’s works on the research and publishing activities of the Holocaust Center and Foundation. The same idea was conveyed by Boris Wiesman, an activist of the museum and World War II veteran and author of books about the heroes of this war, including “I Must Tell You About This”; and also by other speakers.
On May 29, the second round of the International Tribute to Jewish Heroism and Resistance during the Holocaust in memory of Professor Fyodor Sverdlov took place.
War veteran Miron Manilov and Fyodor Sverdlov’s colleague at Frunze Academy, retired colonel Anatoly Vainer, and Alla Gerber, president of Holocaust Foundation, shared their memories about the life and work of Fyodor Sverdlov
Ilya Altman, co-chair of the Holocaust Center, examined the theme of the participation of Jews in WW II as presented in the works of Fyodor Sverdlov and described the tribute to his memory in Israel. The audience received the following reports with much interest: “Holocaust and the participation of Jews in the war in Soviet feature films” by Prof. Olga Gershenzon (USA). A professor from Massachusetts University; “Holocaust and resistance in the Transnistria Ghetto” by Prof. Alexander Trachtenberg, former ghetto prisoner; “The subject of the Jewish Resistance in museums and school curricula in Russia» by Leonid Pyatetsky, head of Holocaust Center’s Educational Programs; and “New documents about the participation of Jews in the war” by Leonid Terushkin, head of Holocaust Center’s Archive. S.D.Dodik described with much emotion his personal experience of participating in the partisan movement in the Ukraine. At this event, an exhibition of books by Fyodor Sverdlov was displayed.
On April, 24th, the Holocaust Center organized a “Marathon of remembrance” for the students of Moscow in the synagogue on the Poklonnaya Gora in the Victory Park. The students hat the possibility to talk and listen to a Survivor of the Minsk Ghetto, to a member of the Partisans and to a “Righteous among the Nations”. Due to that, the Co-Chairman of the Russian Research and Educational Center, Dr. Ilya Altman, gave guided tours through the museum and Alla Gerber talked about her own history as well as about the question “...how a whole nation could believe, that the reason for all evil was the Jewish people”. Many students were very touched by her words and by the choir that sang songs from different nations and countries. “We and our children have the duty to remember what happened in the past and to fight every kind of new Xenophobia, Anti-Semitism and Racism”, said Dr. Ilya Altman. On this day, nearly 300 students had the possibility
Deutsch
Русский
The meeting included the presentation of the Russian version of the book “Anti-Semitism: The Generic of Hatred. Essays in remembrance of Simon Wiesenthal”, which was published by the initiative of the UNESCO. The Co-Chairman of the Russian Holocaust Center, Dr. Ilya Altman contributed Simon Wiesenthal’s historical fairness during his speech in Tallinn. 
The student laureates presented abstracts of their work: 
June, 15th. The exhibition, coming from the Anne Frank house, Amsterdam, has had great success in different parts of Ukraine, as well as in some schools in Moscow. Now it is open for everyone in the Holocaustcenter until the middle of July.
On April, 24th, the Holocaust Center organized a “Marathon of remembrance” for the students of Moscow in the synagogue on the Poklonnaya Gora in the Victory Park.
