Lunch & Learn: Holocaust Conspiracy Theories
Dr. Joseph Uscinski studies conspiracy theories and the people who believe them. Professor Uscinski will discuss the public’s beliefs in conspiracy theories, focusing on Holocaust related conspiracy theories, using polling data from the U.S. and elsewhere. He will also discuss instances of political violence related to such beliefs.
Educators Reflect: Powell Advanced Summer Institute
Calling all teachers: applications for this year's Powell Advanced Summer Institute are now open! This is a 4-day institute designed for teachers of grades 6-12 who have been actively teaching the Holocaust for more than three years.
In a collaborative environment, participants will explore topics related to America and the Holocaust, including presentations on American corporate complicity, the relationship between America’s system of segregation and the Nazi regime, and antisemitism in America in the 1930s and 1940s. Teachers will also explore how these underlying themes connect to today’s world, including practical applications for the classroom.
Learn more and apply here: https://holocaustcenterseattle.org/programs-events/powell-institute
Lunch & Learn: Truth, Justice and Intergenerational Healing
This presentation will focus on the advocacy, education and healing work of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS). Participants will learn about the impacts of the U.S. Indian Boarding School Policies in addition to the efforts that are currently underway to address the devastating effects of these historical and intergenerational traumas. Storytelling and healing will be integrated throughout the presentation to highlight the voices and resiliency of Native people.
Serene Thin Elk, LPC-MH, LAC is an enrolled member of the Ihanktonwan Oyate (Yankton Sioux Tribe) and is a mother to four beautiful children. She currently serves as the Director of Indigenous Mindfulness at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and is a licensed addiction and mental health clinician with 20 years of experience in the field. She holds a Masters Degree from Lesley University in Expressive Therapies and has helped to develop and facilitate cultural, clinical and community based programming within Native organizations throughout her career.
Lunch & Learn - Through My Mother's Eyes: Resilience and Survival
Basia Lemberger, was born in Lodz, Poland in 1925. Basia had a difficult childhood and was very aware of antisemitism and poverty in her life. She and her sister Laya registered for a forced labor camp in 1940 with the false promise that her parents would receive compensation. For three years she was in a labor camp working on construction projects for the Reich.
When the labor was completed, Basia was deported to Auschwitz. Against the odds, she managed to stay alive during two brutal years of labor and starvation. As the Allies closed in, the Nazis marched the remaining prisoners to another camp, but Basia was able to escape and eventually get to an orphanage in France. Basia came to the United States sponsored by an uncle in New York. Her remarkable story is told by her daughter, Beth Lippman. Beth is part of the Holocaust Center’s Speakers Bureau.
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Lunch & Learn: America and the Holocaust
During the twelve years that Nazis were in power, Americans disagreed vehemently about their responsibilities to admit refugees, to intervene in war, and to save Jews targeted for murder. This program examines Americans’ responsibilities in a global crisis by asking how all of American society—including the US government, the media, faith leaders, refugee organizations, celebrities, and others—responded to the dangers posed by Nazi Germany. It asks what Americans knew about the persecution and murder of Europe’s Jews as it was happening in order to consider the more difficult and, for some, haunting question: Why didn’t rescuing Europe’s Jews become an American priority?
Daniel Greene is Subject Matter Expert at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Adjunct Professor of History at Northwestern University. In 2018, he curated Americans and the Holocaust, an exhibition that opened at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, to commemorate its twenty-fifth anniversary. His first book The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Association and American Diversity (Indiana University Press, 2011) won the American Jewish Historical Society's Saul Viener Prize in 2012.
Teacher of Excellence Award 2024
At the Voices for Humanity Luncheon last month, we honored middle school teacher Kim Pesik with the inaugural Dee Simon Teacher of Excellence Award.
Kim is a member of Educators for Change, a Powell Fellow, and traveled on the Center's trip to Poland in 2022. Last year, she hosted an Anne Frank exhibit at her school and created an unforgettable community event attended by hundreds. Kim's work embodies the kind of partnership the Center aims to build with educators and district leaders across the state.
Witnessing History, Changing the Future
At our Voices for Humanity Luncheon a few weeks ago, we met Heritage High School teacher Robert Cozzi and his students. Watch the video to learn why their Holocaust and Genocide Studies class inspires them to take action.
Lunch & Learn - The Seattle Police Department and Responses to Antisemitism, Bias Incidents and Hate Crimes
When you report a hate crime or a bias crime, where does the information go and how is the incident handled? A conversation with Detective Elizabeth Waring, Bias Crimes Coordinator and Hostage Negotiator for the Seattle Police Department. Detective Wareing also works as a law enforcement trainer on issues of police legitimacy, civil rights, and trauma informed policing for the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG).
Detective Elizabeth Wareing has worked as a police officer since 1997. Currently, she is responsible for coordinating and conducting hate crime investigations, analyzing bias crime data, responding to media requests and conducting public outreach and training on hate crime response.
She was a member of the Washington State Attorney General’s Hate Crime Advisory Working Group and continues to advise on matters related to legislation and training for Washington State. She is a voting member of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Hate Crime Statistics Task Force (2023). She was awarded the Seattle Police Department’s Excellence Award in 2017 for hostage negotiation and in 2021 for her work as Bias Crimes Coordinator.
Detective Wareing earned a Master of Counseling Psychology in 2009 from City University of Seattle and worked as a master’s level counselor at a treatment center from 2009-2013, specializing in mental health needs related to trauma. She is an active Peer Support Team member at the Seattle Police Department and for the First Responder Support Network (FRSN). Detective Wareing is currently a doctoral student in the Leadership and Change program at Antioch University.
Honey Cake and Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz- Birkenau Survivors
Over 110 recipes comprise this unique cookbook, accompanied by survivors’ pre-war recollections and post-liberation memories. Author and editor Dr. Maria Zalewska will discuss the savory collection of recipes, the heartbreaking and inspirational stories, and the power of people today recreating these very dishes.
Dr. Maria Zalewska is the executive director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation, a New York-based non-profit organization.
Since 2020, Dr. Zalewska has served as the Honorary Consul of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in the United States of America. She is a member of the International Research Advisory Board of the Institute for Holocaust Research in Sweden.
In 2022, Zalewska edited a cookbook, "Honey Cake and Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz- Birkenau Survivors," which includes recipes and memories from the Survivors. It remained a number one bestseller on Amazon for nine weeks. Its publication has been covered and reviewed by forty-two newspapers and magazines in the United States, Poland, Australia, Israel, and the United Kingdom, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Forbes, Glamour Magazine, The Telegraph, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, US Weekly, Self Magazine, Bon Appetite, and others.
Sip & Learn 2024 at the Holocaust Center
Last month, our Ambassadors for Change cohort hosted a Sip & Learn event with a panel of experts discussing misinformation and the lessons we can learn from the Holocaust. We learned about misinformation vs. disinformation, methods of propaganda used during the Holocaust, and how social media algorithms today contribute to misinformation.
Ambassadors for Change (AFC) is a yearlong cohort for young adults, organized to raise awareness for the Holocaust Center and inspire change in our community.
Stay tuned for future AFC events like this one!
Lunch & Learn - Escaping Auschwitz: A True Story
The true story of Rudy Vrba and his planned successful escape from Auschwitz. Vrba was not the only prisoner to crack the system and risk his life to escape Auschwitz. How and why did Vrba do it? Why haven't we heard these stories?
Dr. Beth Griech-Polelle is the Kurt Mayer Chair of Holocaust Studies at Pacific Lutheran University. Her most recent publication is a revised and expanded edition of Antisemitism and the Holocaust: Language, Rhetoric and Traditions of Hatred. She has also published Bishop von Galen:German Catholicism and National Socialism, she has edited a revised and expanded second edition of The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial and Its Policy Consequences Today as well as editing, Trajectories of Memory, an examination of the Holocaust in History and in the Arts. She has published numerous articles, chapters in books and book reviews. Her most recent research involves examining the persecution of “Catholic non-Aryans” in Nazi Germany.
Inspiring people of all ages to confront bigotry, promote human dignity, and take action.
