As the generation that lived through the Holocaust vanishes, some deniers are trying to erase the systematic murders of 11 million people from our history books.
On April 18, The Osher Life-long Learning Institute (Olli) and the Nevada Governor’s Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust will present its annual Day of Remembrance program at the Atlantis Casino Resort Hotel from 7 to 9 p.m.
The program, Denial: How Activists, Politicians, and Educators Are Trying to Rewrite the History of the Holocaust, debunks the lies of deniers who falsely claim that the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews and millions of others Hitler deemed “unworthy of life” is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. A survey in 2020 indicated few young Nevadans know about the genocide.
Jan Grabowski, the keynote speaker, is a Polish-Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa who specializes in Jewish-Polish relations in German-occupied Poland during WWll and the Holocaust in Poland.
The event will begin with a welcome and introduction to the evening by Judith Schumer, past chairperson of the governor’s advisory council. Schumer’s immediate family escaped the genocide and immigrated to the U.S. after the war.
The event, she said, “will honor the past and explore the current anti-Semitic threats in our nation and the world.”
Admission is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30. Limited seating: RSVP at https://bit.ly/holocaust 23
Grabowski is a co-founder of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, Poland, and is best known for his book Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (2013), which won the Yad Vashem International Book Prize.
Other upcoming related programs include: July 7 to August 18: “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibit at the Northwest Reno Library, 2325 Robb Drive, sponsored by the American Library Association and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. An opening reception at the library is scheduled on July 12 at 5 p.m. A lecture, The History of Anti-Semitism is scheduled on July 18.