Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh

Presentation by Boaz Munro
2025-05-02 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Boaz Munro is a Squirrel Hill, PA native and web designer now living in California with his wife and two daughters. He’s the grandson of Holocaust survivors. In college and graduate school, Boaz studied Modern Middle East History, Hebrew, and Arabic, with time abroad in Israel, Egypt, and Morocco.
Boaz will be speaking about his grandparents, Moshe and Malka Baran, both of whom survived the Holocaust in Poland. Moshe and Malka’s stories embody physical and spiritual resistance respectively; Moshe was a partisan who escaped the ghetto and rescued most of his family, while Malka found herself orphaned by the Nazis and faced the task of finding renewed hope amid uncertainty and loss.

Register here.

Waldman Arts and Writing Competition Awards Ceremony
2025-05-14 19:00 | Chatham University Shadyside Campus, 1 Woodland Road, Pittsburgh, PA, 15232, United States
Join us as we celebrate the participants and winners of the 2025 Waldman Arts & Writing Competition. The event is open to the public and all students are strongly encouraged to attend along with their families, friends, and teachers. Winners will be honored and receive their award certificates; the grand prize winner will be announced; and a reception with light treats will follow.

Learn more and register.

Generations Speaker Clare Drobot at Connellsville Canteen
2025-05-21 17:00 - 19:30 | Connellsville Canteen Café and Museum, 131 West Crawford Avenue, Connellsville, PA, 15425, United States

A Night of Hope and Hops with Generations Speaker Debbie Leuchter Stueber
2025-06-03 19:00 | Acrospire Brewing Company, 1702 Mt. Royal Blvd., Glenshaw, PA, 15116, United States
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“Perseverance” Screening
2025-06-04 18:30 - 19:30 | Eddy Theatre at Chatham University, Woodland Rd, Pittsburgh, 15232, United States
Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh for a 20 minute screening of “Perseverance,” the newest edition in PA Cyber’s Emmy-nominated Moments in History series that tells the story of local Holocaust survivor Melvin Goldman (z”l). The screening will be followed by a conversation Melvin’s daughter and author of Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America, Lee Goldman Kikel, and filmmaker Scot Rutledge. Register here.

About the Film:

Melvin Goldman spent five years in the Jewish ghetto and concentration camps. He was 21 years old when Allied Forces liberated the concentration camps in 1945. He weighed 85 pounds and could not walk. He recovered for several years in Germany, and then a kind stranger sponsored his move to the United States where he eventually raised a family and owned a jewelry store in Squirrel Hill.
Goldman’s story is captured in the video “Perseverance,” the newest edition in PA Cyber’s Emmy-nominated Moments in History series, which captures first-hand accounts of chapters in time.
Goldman recorded his memories on cassette tapes in the late 1970s. In them, he had stated he wanted his story preserved in a book. His daughter honored his request, and she frequently tells his story at events. Her book was adapted into a play and performed at New Hazlett Theater Center for Performing Arts in Pittsburgh in 2023.
About Lee Goldman Kikel:

Lee Goldman Kikel grew up in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where her early years revolved around school— Wightman School and Taylor Allderdice High School—and the family jewelry business.

Lee recalls her time in the store with great fondness, and she can measure her life’s progress through those happy memories. As a little girl she played jacks on the floor while her father crafted jewelry and waited on customers, and her mother handled the books, sold merchandise, and helped with day-to-day business operations. Soon she matured from playing to helping, then to a more regular job, continuing through her college years at the University of Pittsburgh. She remembers earning her father’s hard-won approval to wait on customers as an exciting milestone in her life. Even as an adult, she would help out after her day job or on weekends during the busiest times.

Lee earned a BS in psychology and a master’s degree in education, then worked in the mental health field as a rehabilitation counselor. Now retired from that career, she is involved in a variety of interests and activities. Lee is an avid traveler, gardener, and muscle car enthusiast. She is also a member of the Holocaust Center’s Generations Speakers Bureau.

Edith and Kurt Leuchter: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resilience
2025-06-17 19:00 - 20:00 | Castle Shannon Library, 3677 Myrtle Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15234, United States
As hidden children, Kurt and Edith crossed paths briefly in a French orphanage after their parents were taken by Nazis. Their daughter, Deborah Stueber, will be here to tell their amazing story, from fighting Nazis in the French Resistance to making a new life in America.

Register here.

Generations Speakers Series: Lee Goldman Kikel
2025-07-24 16:00 - 17:00 | Community Library of the Shenango Valley, 11 N Sharpsville Ave, Sharon, PA, 16146, United States
In middle age, Melvin Goldman (z”l) recorded a series of cassette tapes telling his life story, leaving them to be found decades later after his passing. His daughter, Lee Goldman Kikel, discovered the recordings—a priceless family heirloom conveying memory and the history of a Polish Jewish family which became the basis of a 2019 Holocaust memoir. Lee’s presentation focuses on her father’s recounting: his pre-war childhood, ability to survive the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and a miraculous recovery while knowing most of his family perished.

Lee tells how hope, tenacity, and perseverance amid major losses guided her father to become a United States citizen and start a new life in Pittsburgh. Her presentation also describes his journey to becoming a well-respected Squirrel Hill jeweler who created joy for others.

For questions, please visit the library’s website: CLSV Community Library of the Shenango Valley

"Camera as Passport" Exhibit
2025-08-20 - 2026-01-30 | American Jewish Museum, JCC Squirrel Hill, 5738 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15217, United States
Register here.

Carnegie Library Family & Local History Book Club - Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America
2025-08-28 18:00 - 19:00 | Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 4400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, United States
“Join us for a lively discussion on Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America by Melvin Goldman & Lee Goldman Kikel.

This title is available for checkout in our Catalog.

Co-author Lee Goldman Kikel will be joining us for this discussion

This discussion will take place in the Family& Local History Department (3rd floor).”
RSVP here: https://www.carnegielibrary.org/event/family-local-history-book-club-2/

Inseparable: A Presentation by Holocaust Survivor Marion Lewin
2025-09-10 18:30 - 19:30 | Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, United States
Marion Ein Lewin, born in Holland, survived the concentration camp Bergen Belsen together with her parents and her twin brother. One of a handful of families who survived the Holocaust intact, they arrived in New York City in 1947. Marion and Steven, then age 9, had never been to school and were placed in kindergarten. Every few weeks the twins proceeded to the next grade until they finally caught up with their proper class. Today Marion and her brother, according to all available data, are the only surviving twins of the Holocaust.
Marion Lewin’s professional career focused on health policy and health care economics. For 15 years she was Senior Staff Officer at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and headed its Office of Health Policy Programs and Fellowships. She headed several distinguished studies at IOM and has written extensively on a wide range of health care topics. Marion received her undergraduate and graduate education at Barnard College and Columbia University.
In recent years she has pursued her deep interest in theater, co-chairing the Council of Theater J, serving on its Board, and serving on the Board of Round House Theatre. In the last two years, Marion and her brother have helped Faris Cassell in the research and writing of INSEPARABLE, the book about the Hess family’s impossible odds of surviving the Holocaust.
Register here.

If you would like to support the work of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, we would greatly appreciate your generosity! Even a gift of $18 helps us with our mission to preserve the stories of the Holocaust and to educate future generations. You can make your gift when you reserve your ticket or by clicking this link.

Presentation by Holocaust Survivor Howard Chandler
2025-10-09 18:30 | Community Day School, 6424 Forward Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15217, United States
Join Classrooms Without Borders, the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, and Community Day School on October 9th for a presentation by Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler.
Howard Chandler was born in December 1928 in Wierzbnik, Poland (now Starachowice). Nearly eleven when the Nazis invaded, he was forced into the ghetto and later witnessed its liquidation, when his mother, sister, and youngest brother were deported to Treblinka and murdered. Howard, his father, and brother endured years of forced labor, deportation to Auschwitz, and the death march to Buchenwald before liberation at Theresienstadt in 1945; only Howard and his brother survived, while his father was killed at Stutthof. After the war, Howard lived in England before immigrating to Canada, where he married Elsa and raised four children. In the 1970s he testified at war crime trials, and since 2011 he has returned annually with Classrooms Without Borders to share his story of survival and resilience, inspiring educators and students to confront hatred and preserve memory.
Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1757544696499?aff=oddtdtcreator

"Camera as Passport" Special Reception and Curator Presentation
2025-10-23 17:30 - 19:30 | American Jewish Museum, JCC Squirrel Hill, 5738 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15217, United States

Voices from the Shadows—LGBTQ+ Experiences During the Nazi Era
2025-10-29 18:00 - 19:30 | Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, United States
Eric Marcus introduces Making Gay History’s podcast series on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people during the rise of the Nazi regime, World War II, and the Holocaust. Drawing on extensive research conducted for this first-of-its-kind audio documentary, Eric shares archival clips during a 45-minute presentation (+ 15-minute Q&A) that brings this painful, often hidden history to life through the voices of the people who lived it.
About Eric:
Journalist and author Eric Marcus is the founder and host of the award-winning Making Gay History podcast, which brings LGBTQ+ history to life through the voices of the people who lived it. Eric is also executive director of the Making Gay History educational non-profit organization, which works in partnership with the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the United States, to provide LGBTQ+-inclusive American history lessons to middle and high school educators. In addition, Eric is co-producer of Those Who Were There, a podcast drawn from Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Eric is the author and co-author of a dozen books, including the #1 NY Times bestselling autobiography of Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, and he was a founding board member of the American LGBTQ+ Museum. (For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Marcus.)
Dr. Anika Walke, Askwith Family Associate Professor of Holocaust Studies at CMU, will join the Q&A after the program.
Register here.
Thank you to our event sponsors:
Randi Cost
Michael and Debbie Gordon
Pam and David Haber
Howard Loevner
Steve Zupcic and Mojoe Klements

If you would like to support the work of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, we would greatly appreciate your generosity! Even a gift of $18 helps us with our mission to preserve the stories of the Holocaust and to educate future generations. You can make your gift when you reserve your ticket or by clicking this link.

Harbor from the Holocaust and the Shanghai Ghetto
2025-11-10 18:30 | Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, United States
Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, a program of The Tree of Life, for our annual Kristallnacht commemoration featuring a 20 minute film screening of Harbor from the Holocaust, which tells the story of nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II to the Chinese port city of Shanghai. This documentary explores the extraordinary relationship of these Jews and their adopted city of Shanghai, even through the bitter years of Japanese occupation 1937-1945 and the Chinese civil war that followed.
The film will be followed by a discussion with Iris Samson, co-producer of Harbor from the Holocaust, and Cindy Berg Vayonis, a descendant of Holocaust survivors whose parents and grandparents found refuge in the Shanghai Ghetto.
The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s annual Kristallnacht program is generously supported by Edgar Snyder.
Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1758226174819?aff=oddtdtcreator
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More About the Film:
It was a relationship that produced some exceptional artists, statesmen and authors, as well as “ordinary” people who survived to carry on their Jewish religion and traditions that would have otherwise been consigned to oblivion.
This documentary takes a captivating look at why Shanghai was uniquely positioned, through geo-political, cultural and historical influences, to allow this remarkable influx to happen, due to those past relations with Jews predominantly from the Middle East, the Iberian Peninsula and Russia, and because of its centuries of control by and openness to foreigners as a vigorous center of trade and commerce.
This story cannot be viewed in black and white, good vs. evil, suffering vs. thriving, wealthy vs. poor. The story, much like the city itself, is nuanced and complex, incorporating many kinds of foreigners, many classes of Chinese, many kinds of Jews, and many layers. Shanghai was not a place of tolerance and openness, so much as it was a place of fractionalized, disparate forces which were sometimes competitive and sometimes complimentary, but always existed within tenuous and often difficult transactional alliances. Even the people whose stories will be shared have very different tales of how they lived in Shanghai, what their families experienced, and how they were able to function on a day-to-day basis.
Rivaling all elements and in tragic contrast to those who could not escape, this is a Holocaust story of life.
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If you would like to support the work of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, we would greatly appreciate your generosity! Even a gift of $18 helps us with our mission to preserve the stories of the Holocaust and to educate future generations. You can make your gift when you reserve your ticket or by clicking this link.

Voices for Change
2025-11-13 18:00 | August Wilson African American Cultural Center, 980 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15222, United States

Teaching Jewish Life and Antisemitism in the Classroom
2025-11-20 08:30 - 15:30 | Chatham University Shadyside Campus, 1 Woodland Road, Pittsburgh, PA, 15232, United States
This training will provide resources for educators to teach two key topics: Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust and in Western PA, and the history and dynamics of antisemitism.
In the morning we will learn from visiting Dr. Lauren Granite Centropa Archive, which interviewed over 1,000 European Jews between 2000-2019 about their memories of the 20th century. You’ll experience a lesson about the diversity of European Jews and leave with materials to teach it in your classroom.
In the afternoon we will provide practical resources that will help you teach the complex topic of antisemitism to students. In partnership with the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives, we’ll also offer resources to teach students about historic and present-day Jewish life in Western PA.
Featured educators include:
Dr. Lauren Granite, U.S. Education Director of the Centropa Archive
Noah Schoen, Manager of Community Outreach at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh
Eric Lidji, Director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives
Register here.

Teaching the Holocaust Through Literature
2025-12-11 08:30 - 14:30 | Allegheny Intermediate Unit, 475 E Waterfront Dr, Homestead, 15120, United States
In this program, educators will learn instructional strategies for teaching the Holocaust through literary selections from veteran educator Lynne Ravas. Shared approaches will help build historical understanding, create empathy, and provoke compassion with students. Educators are encouraged to bring your own books (BYOB) to pair these specific text(s) with their exploration of Echoes & Reflections resources.
Register here.
