WSU Plans “A Week of Remembrance” to Commemorate Holocaust Victims

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University has planned “A Week of Remembrance: The Holocaust, New Beginnings” March 5-10 to commemorate the victims of Nazi death and concentration camps in Europe during World War II.

This year’s event, which marks the third annual commemoration of the Holocaust at WSU, will emphasize the continuing struggle of camp survivors following their liberation in 1945, said Raymond Sun, a professor with the WSU Department of History.

“Many have the impression that the ordeal of victims of the Holocaust ended with the end of World War II,” said Sun, “The focus of our commemoration this year is on giving recognition to the true extent of the Holocaust. In fact, the lives of many of those who survived the Nazis remained in limbo until well after the end of the war. As our speakers will discuss, a significant number were liberated from the Nazi camps only to end up in displaced persons camps, some until as late as 1957.”

The commemoration will begin at 7 p.m. March 5 in room 203 of the Center for Undergraduate Education (CUE) with a screening of the film “Der Untergang” (The Downfall, 2005), which will be introduced by Sun. The film, which depicts the final days of Hitler and the fall of Nazi Berlin, won numerous awards and was nominated for an Oscar for the year’s Best Foreign Film. 

On March 6, Stanley Weintraub, retired Penn State University Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities, author of numerous histories and biographies, and father of WSU Professor. Erica Austin, will present “Götterdämmerung and Beyond,” a discussion of conditions in Germany in the wake of WWII, at 7p.m. in CUE 203.

“No Ecstasy, No Joy’: Liberation and the Displaced Person Camps in Germany: 1945-1957” will be the title of a lecture to be given by Laurie Whitcomb, doctoral candidate in the WSU Department of History, at 4:10 p.m. March 7 in the WSU Honor’s Hall Lounge.

With a short introduction by Rachel Halverson, a professor in the WSU Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures, the film “Rosenstraße” (2003), depicting events surrounding a 1943 Berlin demonstration in which the non-Jewish wives of Jewish deportees successfully defied the Gestapo and halted the deportation of their husbands, will be shown at 7 p.m. March 7 in CUE 203.

The week of commemoration will conclude March 10 at 12:10 p.m. in New Holland Library Atrium with a performance entitled “Musical Responses to the Holocaust” by the faculty of the WSU School of Music.

The week’s events are sponsored by the WSU Honors College, Department of History and the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures.