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
"Joshua Rubinstein and Ilya Altman have edited a thoroughly engaging volume on the destruction of Jews in the German-controlled Soviet territories from 1941 to 1944. Neither a textbook nor a straight chronological account, The Unknown Black Book presents a rich history of the implementation of the “Final Solution” on Soviet soil. The core of the book is ninety three documents, almost half of them testimonies of Jewish survivors..."
("The Russian Review" is a major academic journal of Russian studies. It publishes scholarly articles and book reviews in the areas of history, literature, film, fine arts, culture, society, and politics of the peoples of Russia. The journal appears quarterly and is available by subscription through Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The editorial offices are located at The University of Kansas.)
On March 4th
Mr Evjenij Berkovich (Doctor of Physics and Mathematics) read a lecture in the
“Holocaust” Center. Dr Berkovich is working in Hannover
at the Moment and is co-editor of the Internet-Journal “notes about Jewish
history”.
During his
speech “unknown heroes”, he informed about the “Righteous among the Nations”
(individuals and peoples like the Danish and the Norwegians). Due to that he
showed a movie about people, hiding and saving Jews in the time of National
socialism.
January 29th-31st 2009. The Conference under this topic was organized in St. Petersburg by the Russian Research and Educational “Holocast” Center as by the State-Universitiy “Herzen” in St. Petersburg. On 29th the Conference was opened and during the event the new Russian version of the book “Anti-Semitism: reasons for hatred” was presented by a member of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the UNESCO. Alla Gerber, Dr Ilya Altman and members of the University took part on the opening as well.
On the conference, Russian students from Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as Members of the Russian Research and Educational “Holocaust” Center had speeches about the Holocaust and about the blockade of Leningrad.
After the conference the students visited the head of the Organization for Ghetto-Survivors in St. Petersburg, Pavel Rubinchik and the exhibition-room of the organization. On the following days they visited a school near St. Petersburg to take part on a conference on the topic “Holocaust”, which was a part of a project, the school worked on. Due to that the students talked to members of the Jewish community in St. Petersburg and visited the library of the community.
January, 27th 2009. Because of this event, there was a memorial evening in the House of Literature in Moscow. The Evening was organized by the Russian Research and Educational Center, the Embassy of the State of Israel and other Jewish organizations in Moscow.
Next to a deputy of the ministry of foreign affairs the head of the Russian Holocaust Center, Alla Gerber spoke about the tragedy of the 20th century, about the fact, that the world kept silent while millions of people lost their lives and that it should always be remembered.
The ambassador of Israel, Anna Asari read excerpts of the book of Lizzie Doron. In this book Doron writes about her mother, a survivor of the holocaust. Asari dedicated a special part of her speech to the Righteous among the Nations.
Furthermore, a deputy of the German Embassy held a speech and underlined the position of Germany. “We definitely stand against any kind of Anti-Semitism or Holocaust-denying. We will go on campaigning the aim, that every Jew should have the opportunity to live a life in peace in Israel. My country will go on speaking up against any kind of suppression or Racism.”
In the end of the event there was the award ceremony for the 7th international competition for pupils and students under the topic “lessons from the Holocaust – ways to tolerance”. The ceremony was accompanied by a member of the UNESCO as well as a member of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The winners of the competition will present their works in Paris at the UNESCO this year.
2008 was an important landmark for the effort of
preserving the memory of the Holocaust in Russia. The commemoration of the 70th
anniversary of the Crystal Night has evoked a broad public response in the
country.
Russia’s new
president, Dmitry Medvedev, addressed the memorial evening/requiem and
international conference devoted to this event - Lessons of the Holocaust and
Modern Russia - that was organized with the active participation of the
Holocaust Center. This was the first in the 21st century message from a head of
state devoted to the Holocaust and delivered not abroad but in Russia. The
government has been demonstrating its appreciation of our educational and
scientific programs: the Holocaust Center has been awarded the Russian
Federation President grant of $40,000 for two subsequent years; the government
Humanitarian Research Foundation has provided support for the publication of
the “Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in the USSR” (it will come out in the summer
of 2009); the Moscow City Government gave a grant for organizing a memorial
evening and conference for schoolchildren in the city of Brest; and the Website
of the Holocaust Center and Foundation became the winner of the National
Tolerance Contest. During this year, the greatest number of seminars and
documentary exhibitions were conducted during the entire history of the Center;
three groups of school and university teachers underwent training at leading
museums in Israel and the USA. The Fourth
Conference of Russian Students at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris was conducted on a very high level,
with the participation of the leadership of UNESCO, Simon Wiesenthal Centre and
the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah. Two new projects were launched: one
of identifying burial sites of Holocaust victims in Russia
and the other of sponsoring performances in Moscow schools jointly with the Hasidic
Cappella Chorus. The monograph and collection of documents prepared by our
Center were published in the USA
and Germany.
The planned publications of the Center include a book devoted to Simon
Wiesenthal and the memoirs of Avraam Sutskever.
These and
other resul ts of the Center ’s activities will be further discussed in this
issue.
The quarterly brochure of the Russian “Holocaust” Center is available now. In this edition the reader gets informed about the new project of the Center: “There is no genocide against one nation” and other projects like “Holocaust: Remembrance and admonition”. Due to information about new publications of the Center there are articles about seminars for teachers in the region of Moscow and a project of pupils from Volgograd, visiting places of the Holocaust in the region of the city.
Israel. On 15th of July the poet and person of Jewish cultural life Abraham Sutzkever reached 95 years. Mr. Sutzkever not only talked about his benefits for the Jewish culture, but also about his liberationof the Ghetto Vilniusand his resistance fight versus the National socialism. On 27th of February 1947 he declared a testimony against the main war criminals in the Nuremberg Trials.
Dr. Ilya Altman, Co-Chairman of the HolocaustCenter, and Gregory Reikhman, an Israeli journalist, met the living legend in Tel Aviv and congratulated to the special day.
This project became possible thanks to cooperation between the Holocaust Center and Foundation from Russia and the Verbe et Lumiere Foundation, one of whose leaders is a prominent researcher and fighter against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, director of International Programs of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Dr. Shimon Samuels.
Paris, 4 June 2008.
UNESCO Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, opened the 4th Annual Seminar of Laureates in the Russian Holocaust Essay Contest, co-sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre-Europe, its affiliated French educational foundation "Verbe et Lumière – Vigilance" and the Russian Holocaust Centre of Moscow.
This year's contest received over 700 submissions from universities across the Russian Federation. In the speech, entitled "Applying the Lessons of the Holocaust" (text attached), the Director-General stated, "The lives of many people in this room were shaped by their personal experiences of the Holocaust. While others were affected less directly, we are all united by a determination that the atrocities committed during that dark moment of human history must never be repeated." "Last November at our General Conference, UNESCO’s Member States unanimously adopted Resolution 61, requesting me to consult the Secretary-General of the United Nations regarding his outreach programme entitled 'the Holocaust and the United Nations' with a view to exploring, in consultation with Member States, what role UNESCO could play in promoting awareness of Holocaust remembrance through education and in combating all forms of Holocaust denial." "(...) we are considering developing activities to mainstream Holocaust Education through textbooks, as well as training conferences of coordinators of our Associated Schools Project Network from all regions of the world." He noted that "this morning’s exchange is therefore both timely and relevant. We must keep alive the memory of the Holocaust and use it as a rallying point for preventive action." The five winners were: - Igor Novikov of Moscow State Maimonides Academy, on "The Holocaust and the Law: Theoretical aspects"; - Evgenia Kaminskaya of Novgorod State University, Law Faculty, on "Holocaust-Denial Legislation in Russian and European Jurisdiction"; - Darya Gryazeva of Herzen State Pedagogical University of St. Petersburg, on "Causes of Interethnic Conflicts and Ways to Overcome Them"; - Alexander Svetlichny of Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics in Moscow, on "New Sources on Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: The Case of Musya Pinkenzon"; - Elizaveta Pashkova of Moscow State University of Culture and Arts in Kaliningrad, on "My Letters to Anne Frank". Their papers were debated by four students from the American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy in Paris (AGSP) - Patrick Clairzier, Jennifer Wright, Irina Massovets and Anthoula Parianos - led by their Research Director, David Wingeate Pike. The Russian Holocaust Centre was represented by its President (and only Jewish woman member of the Russian Duma), Alla Gerber, and its Director, Dr Ilya Altman. Also present were the Baron David de Rothschild, President of the French Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, and Richard Odier of Verbe et Lumière-Vigilance. The seminar was chaired by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr Shimon Samuels.
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On March 4th
Mr Evjenij Berkovich (Doctor of Physics and Mathematics) read a lecture in the
“Holocaust” Center. Dr Berkovich is working in 
January 29th-31st 2009. The Conference under this topic was organized in St. Petersburg by the Russian Research and Educational “Holocast” Center as by the State-Universitiy “Herzen” in St. Petersburg.
Because of this event, there was a memorial evening in the House of Literature in Moscow. The Evening was organized by the Russian Research and Educational Center, the Embassy of the State of Israel and other Jewish organizations in Moscow.
The quarterly brochure of the Russian “Holocaust” Center is available now.
