ϳԹ's Holocaust Remembrance Committee, chaired by Shannon Phillips-Shyrock, will welcome Holocaust scholars and survivors for programming at IUP and in the community on October 7, 2019.
“Holocaust Survivors Panel” will be presented at 6:00 p.m. in the Hadley Union Building Ohio Room. This event is organized by the IUP Holocaust Remembrance Committee, as part of and partially funded by the Six O'Clock Series and IUP crowdfunding. This program, free and open to the community, will include:
Holocaust survivor Moshe Baran of Pittsburgh. During World War II he escaped from a forced labor camp and joined the Russian resistance and was able to save most of his family. After serving in the Russian army for a year, he was in a displaced persons camp in Austria; he and his late wife, Malka, came to the United States in 1950. He will talk about his experiences during his 20's escaping from a forced labor camp into the Belorussian forest, to join a partisan fighting unit. His discussion will follow his documentary film, A Look into the Eyes of Resistance. His story of survival and resistance focuses on how people can create a more peaceful world.
Shulamit Bastacky, a hidden child Holocaust survivor, was born in the Vilna Ghetto, operated by Nazi Germany. She was hidden in a convent by a nun from age one to four, and then placed in an orphanage where her father found her after World War II ended. She was reunited with her parents, immigrated to Israel, and came to the United States in 1963.
Harry Schneider, a child Holocaust survivor who hid in the forests of Poland and Russia, will discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. His discussion will follow his documentary film, On the Run: One Man's Struggle for Survival.
Holocaust survivor Oscar Singer will discuss how he survived the Holocaust during his 20's at Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, as well as several other forced labor and concentration camps. After the war, he moved to Colorado, married, and had two children. Three years ago he moved to Pittsburgh to live with his daughter Lee.
The leader of the local mosque, Waleed Farag, Altoona Chabad Rabbi Horowitz, and Simon Stuchlik, grandson of German bystanders during the Holocaust, will offer introductory remarks during the evening event.
The survivors also will speak at local schools, and at IUP to two Catholic high school groups during the day from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.
From 9:00 a.m. to noon at the IUP Criminal Justice Training Center, Holocaust scholars Peter Black and Martin Dean will present a program especially designed for current or retired law enforcement officers on the theme of “Why is it Important to Learn About Police During the Nazi Era?” Black will speak on “German Police and the Annihilation of European Jews Under Nazi Rule,” and Dean will speak on “The Holocaust by Bullets, Nazi Local Police Collaboration and Postwar Justice.”
Black was the senior historian and director of the Division of the Senior Historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from 1997 until his retirement from federal service on January 2, 2016. During his tenure as senior historian at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, he was involved in developing training materials and presenting training sessions for law enforcement agencies and agencies, agencies of the federal civil service, and high school and middle school teachers. From 1978 until 1997, he served as a staff historian and (after 1986) as chief historian for the Office of Special Investigations, Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice. The OSI was charged with the investigation of and, if appropriate, litigation against alleged Nazi offenders living in the United States. He is now active as an unaffiliated historian and consultant. Educated at the University of Wisconsin (bachelor's degree in 1972) and Columbia University (PhD in 1981), Black has held various teaching positions at George Mason University, Catholic University, American University, and Columbia University. He is the author of Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich, published by Princeton University Press in 1984, as well as many articles.
Dean, born in London in 1962, received a PhD in European History from Queens' College, Cambridge. He has worked as a researcher for the Special Investigations Unit in Sydney, Australia, and as the senior historian for the Metropolitan Police War Crimes Unit in London. As an applied research scholar at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, he was a volume editor for The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. His publications include Collaboration in the Holocaust (2000) and Robbing the Jews (2008), which won a National Jewish Book Award in 2009. He is based in Washington, DC and currently works as a historical consultant for the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kiev Ukraine and as an advisor on film documentaries.
To register or for more information on the police training event, persons should contact the IUP Criminal Justice Training Center at dmarsili@iup.edu. A certificate of attendance will be provided by the IUP Criminal Justice Training Center.
In addition to the community presentations, the Holocaust Remembrance Committee is collecting nonperishable food, school supplies, and umbrellas for the IUP Student Food Pantry, a program of the Frederick Douglas Institute in collaboration with Each One Reach One. Items can be brought to the program, or can be dropped off at the collection box in Uhler Hall lobby through December 1.
Members of the IUP Holocaust Remembrance Committee include:
- Shannon Phillips-Shyrock, chair
- Peter Black, historian
- Martin Dean, historical consultant and member of the Research Committee Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center
- Paul Kopperman, Oregon State University Holocaust Memorial Program chair; professor at Oregon State University–School of History, Philosophy, and Religion
- James Paharik, National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill University
- Dennis Marsili, director of the IUP Criminal Justice Training Center
- Marci Cole, IUP Criminal Justice Training Center coordinator
- Joseph Shyrock, IUP senior systems analyst
- Pearl Berman, IUP Psychology Department chair
- Simon Stuchlik, executive director of Brand Management IUP
- Harry Schneider, co-chair of the Pittsburgh Holocaust Survivors Organization, Holocaust survivor
For more information about the daylong Holocaust Remembrance Program or about IUP's Holocaust Remembrance Committee, contact Shannon Phillips-Shyrock at s.shyrock@iup.edu. To make a gift to support programming, visit .