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Revolving Doors
Revolving Doors

Our exhibit at Chatham University. Read more for hours and information on scheduling a tour.

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Giving to the Center
Giving to the Center

Learn more about donating money and/or materials to support our mission.

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Events
Events

Throughout the year, the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh holds numerous events. While physically closed, we continue to host events online. Here's what we have coming up.

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CHUTZ-POW!
CHUTZ-POW!

CHUTZ-POW! is our ongoing acclaimed comic-book series that places stories of courage, resilience, and sacrifice at the forefront of Holocaust awareness.

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2021-2022 Annual Report
2021-2022 Annual Report

Find out what we accomplished this year with your support.

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Jews of the Somme
Jews of the Somme

A Pittsburgh-based, international initiative by Dr. David Rosenberg.

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Upcoming Events

Full event descriptions, details on our events page.

Perseverance

Based on Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America
Performances April 15 and 16, 2023 at New Hazlett Theater Center for Performing Arts
Streaming April 24-May 7, 2023
See our Events Page for details on student trips/streaming

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Yom HaShoah 2023

Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 7pm
Chatham University+Virtual Option

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Past Programs and Uploads

Holocaust Center Pittsburgh

The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh connects the horrors of the Holocaust and antisemitism with injustices of today.

Holocaust Center Pittsburgh
Recording of program conducted with CC Mellor Memorial Library on October 12, 2022. Original event description: Join us to learn more about the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, how they’re connecting the Holocaust and antisemitism to the injustices of today, and how you can be involved! Dr. Lauren Apter Bairnsfather, Executive Director, will speak about the various community partnerships and offerings the Center has and ways to get involved. Marcel L. Walker, Project Coordinator of CHUTZ-POW!, will introduce the Center’s original comic book series that brings local survivor testimony to life. Attendees will learn more about the CHUTZ-POW! Superheroes of the Holocaust series and how they can get copies for themselves and into their local schools.
Starting in 2004, the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition (PDEC) actively promoted awareness of war and genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. At the height of the advocacy effort, in partnership with national organizations like "Save Darfur" and other local organizations, PDEC coordinated petition drives, marches, and informational installations intended to educate the public about the War in Darfur and resulting genocide of non-Arabic Darfuris in western Sudan. One of the leaders of these local efforts was Ismail Omar, an immigrant from Darfur who never stopped fighting to make a positive change in his home country. His vision of peace in Darfur inspired the Pittsburgh community, and he once described the Jebel Marra region of his homeland as "like the Garden of Eden.” He passed away on November 17, 2021. One year after his passing, we hold this program to honor his legacy. We invite the community to join us to learn about the extraordinary work of Ismail Omar and the current situation in Sudan and what is needed now.
This program aired live on Zoom Thursday, October 13, 2022. Hosted by WQED and WQED Education. Moderated by Daniel Shaner, teacher at Baldwin - Whitehall School District and Holocaust Center's 2021-2022 Holocaust Educator of the Year. Panelist discussion followed by a Q&A session with participants. Panelists include: Lauren A. Bairnsfather, Ph.D., Director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. While writing her senior honors thesis at the University of Texas, she became acquainted with two Sephardic Holocaust survivors. Inspired by these women, she took an internship in the Photo Archives of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and quickly became full-time staff. She earned an MA at the University of Chicago and a PhD at the University of Texas. In July 2015, after working in Dallas and Austin, Lauren returned home to Southwestern PA to become head of the Holocaust Center. She is an Adjunct Professor of History at Chatham University and has been invited to lecture at Baylor University, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of South Carolina. Barbara Burstin, Ph.D. has been on the history faculty of both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh for many years. At the current time she is teaching at Pitt and Chatham University as well. Her many classes have included the US and the Holocaust, Pride and Prejudice in American History, and the History of Pittsburgh. She has recently published a graphic booklet entitled America and the Holocaust targeted particularly for Junior and Senior High School students. In addition, she has written five books including After the Holocaust: The Migration of Polish Jews and Christians to Pittsburgh; Steel City Jews 1840-1915; Steel City Jews in Prosperity, Depression and War 1915-1950 and Sophie: The Incomparable Mayor Masloff. She has also served on the Pittsburgh Human Relations Commission and assumed leadership roles in other local non-profits. She has led teacher training workshops, spoken extensively in the community and taught a number of wide-ranging courses for both the CMU and Pitt Osher senior citizen programs. Rebecca Erbelding has been a historian, curator, and archivist at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum since 2003 and served as the lead historian on the Museum’s special exhibition, Americans and the Holocaust . She holds a PhD in American history from George Mason University and is the author of Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (Doubleday, 2018), which won the National Jewish Book Award for excellence in writing based on archival research. She and her work are featured in the 2022 PBS documentary "The U.S. and the Holocaust," directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein, a film for which she served as a historical advisor. John Spurlock, Ph.D., Professor of History Emeritus, Seton Hill University. Dr. Spurlock has been involved in Holocaust education since the 1980s, when he was teaching high school in his home city, Riverside, California. At Seton Hill University he was a member of one of the first faculty groups to study the Holocaust at Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem. In collaboration with the Yad Vashem archivist, he helped document Holocaust denial in the United States. He participated in the development of Seton Hill’s graduate certificate in Genocide and Holocaust Studies and served as coordinator of the program for several years. Since 2012 he has taught courses on World War II, Comparative Genocide, and Theories of Genocide. In 2022 he served as Co-Director of Grappling with Genocide, an NEH funded summer institute for middle and high school teachers.
Recorded at Chatham University on September 28, 2022. In the decade before his arrival in the United States in 1950, Mieczyslaw (Melvin) Goldman saw his home destroyed, his family torn apart, his health ruined, and nearly everyone he had ever known murdered in the death camps of the Third Reich. His survival of the years in the ghetto and Auschwitz, his long and slow recovery, and his attainment of a somewhat normal life were miraculous. Perhaps even more miraculous was his refusal to let his experience destroy his faith in God or his love for humanity. Over five years, his daughter, Lee Goldman Kikel, worked to turn her father’s story--a telling of his life through a series of recorded audio tapes--into a book recounting the tragedy and hope of one survivor’s experience. The book, Perseverance, was published in 2019. Lee will share her father’s story during this new installment in our Generations Speaker Series. Lee grew up in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where she spent her early years at Wightman School, Taylor Allderdice High School, and her parents’ jewelry business. She later earned her BS in Psychology and master’s in Education from the University of Pittsburgh and worked in the mental health field as a rehabilitation counselor. A lifelong Pittsburgher, she resides in Hampton Township with her family. This event is part of the 2022 RADical Days, an annual program of the Allegheny Regional Asset District (RAD). The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh is proud to receive RAD funding. Funding for the Generations Program is generously provided by the Sylvia & Martin Snow Family Fund
Content Warning: Please note that this interview contains some disturbing imagery of concentration camp conditions. Viewer discretion is advised. Students from Shaler Area High School interview Dr. Jessie Ramey, daughter of Robert Ramey, liberator of Ohrdruf concentration camp. Additional Resources: About the 89th infantry division: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-89th-infantry-division [CONTENT WARNING- GRAPHIC IMAGERY] Ohrdruf Camp: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ohrdruf About Alan Newell: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allen-Newell
Content Warning: Please note that this interview contains verbal descriptions of concentration camp conditions and suicide. Viewer discretion is advised. Students from Riverside High School interview Guy Prestia, liberator of Dachau concentration camp. Additional Resources: About the 45th Infantry Division: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-45th-infantry-division About Dachau: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/dachau About the Purple Heart: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/history-of-the-purple-heart
Content Warning: Please note that this interview features graphic imagery and descriptions that are not appropriate for younger audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. Students from Woodland Hills Senior High School interview Dan Ottenheimer, son of Fritz Ottenheimer, German-Jewish refugee and liberator. Additional Resources More sources related to Thekla Labor Camp: https://portal.ehri-project.eu/keywords/ehri_camps-121 Fritz Ottenheimer’s autobiography: https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Return-Memories-Nazi-Germany-dp-0970427700/dp/0970427700/ Short testimony from Fritz Ottenheimer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ2bGHFtZbc Fritz Ottenheimer’s story is in CHUTZ-POW! Volume I: https://www.amazon.com/CHUTZ-POW-Volumes-Holocaust-Center-Pittsburgh/dp/0578499428/ Photograph of Fritz as a baby with his sister and mother: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1165370 “Twinning” program (currently paused as we restructure, details when resumed will be available at this link)- https://hcofpgh.org/bnei-mitzvah/
About this interview: Students from Dorseyville Middle School interviewed Eugene Khorey, liberator of Attendorn forced labor camp. Supplemental Links: About Liberators: https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/liberators About Nazi Forced Labor: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/forced-labor-an-overview About Displaced Persons: ​​https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/displaced-persons General Patton: https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Smith-Patton Atom bomb: https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki Last Japanese soldier to surrender https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53763059 About the GI Bill: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/servicemens-readjustment-act Eugene Khorey as a teacher at Heron Hill, featured in Teenie Harris photography: https://collection.cmoa.org/objects/697e8ee8-e89c-4a83-8edf-aee7ffe5a8d8 https://collection.cmoa.org/objects/32b8d017-9771-4d40-b0fc-8307cef28823
Event took place on June 12, 2022 at Chatham University Event Description: Father John Neiman first read Anne Frank's diary in 1963 when he was 10 years old. In 1974, as a college student, he wrote to Otto Frank, Anne's father, to let him know how the diary had changed his life. This letter initiated a correspondence that resulted in Frank becoming one of his dearest friends. He also formed a close 30-year friendship with Miep Gies, one of the upstanders who helped to hide the Frank family during the Holocaust. During this public talk, Father Neiman will share the story of his relationships with Mr. Frank and Ms. Gies, as well as his larger studies about the topic of the Holocaust. Q&A will follow. This event will coincide with what would’ve been Anne’s 93rd birthday.
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