As we continue to place the well-being of our patrons at the forefront by maintaining social distancing, we are proud to present a summer full of digital programming! All events are recorded and available after the program has concluded. We hope you can join us.
This summer, our programs fall into 3 categories: Generations Series, Conversations Series, and Education/Teacher Training. To see the most up-to-date, chronological list of our upcoming programs, please check out our events page.
Generations Series
Sponsored by: The Sylvia and Martin Snow Charitable Foundation; Additional support for our educators from Allegheny Regional Asset District; The Jack Buncher Foundation; Richard King Mellon Foundation.
In our ongoing Generations Speaker Series, children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors honor their family members and keep their stories alive by sharing with the public.
Deborah Leuchter Stueber featuring her parents, Kurt and Edith Leuchter
Watch the Recording on Facebook | On YouTube
Thursday, June 18, 2020, 3pm-4pm
She was born in Bruchsal, Germany. He was born in Vienna, Austria. As hidden children, their paths crossed briefly in a French orphanage. This is just a part of their story, separately and together: surviving the Holocaust, fighting Nazis in the French Resistance, and making a new life in America. This is the true story of Kurt and Edith Leuchter, as told by their daughter Deborah Stueber.
Generations Series: Chana Brody
Watch the Recording on Facebook | On YouTube
Thursday, July 30, 2020, 3pm-4pm
Born in the Czech Republic, Chana and her parents, Ann & William Jakubovic, immigrated to the United States in 1969. The shadow of the Holocaust was ever-present in their household, even when it was not discussed. Chana feels that there is no better way to honor her parents’ memory than to tell their story.
Generations Series: Lee Fischbach and Oscar Singer
Watch the Recording on Facebook | On YouTube
Thursday, August 6, 2020, 3pm
When Lee Fischbach was growing up, she didn’t realize that she was the only child to have a picture of her father in a prison uniform displayed in her house. It was only as she got older that she realized what an extraordinary life her father, Oscar Singer, had lived.
A Polish immigrant, Oscar was a Holocaust survivor who had endured several concentration camps and grueling slave labor under the Nazi regime and spent time in a displaced persons camp before starting a new life in the United States.
Lee and Oscar will tell his amazing story of survival in this new installment of the Generations Speaker Series.
Generations Series: Linda Hurwitz
Watch the Recording on Facebook | on YouTube
Thursday, August 13, 2020, 3pm
Linda Hurwitz is the former head of the Middle School at Community Day School and was the Director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2005. She is also the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, Irene Winograd Furst of Poland and Gilbert Furst of Latvia. Both her parents endured unfathomable loss during the Holocaust, surviving ghettos and concentration camps before meeting in a displaced persons house in Germany and immigrating to the United States. In this Generations talk, Linda will share their stories.
Conversations Series
Sponsored by: Allegheny Regional Asset District; Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh; Heinz Endowments; Richard King Mellon Foundation; The Jack Buncher Foundation, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Our ongoing “Conversations” series features community members having a dialogue with Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh director Dr. Lauren Apter Bairnsfather. This summer’s conversations will center around the theme of “The Power of the Individual”.
Conversations Series: Jessie Ramey and Amanda Neatrour
Watch the Recording on Facebook | On YouTube
Monday, July 6, 2020, 12pm-1pm
About Jessie Ramey: Jessie Ramey is the Founding Director of the Women’s Institute at Chatham University and Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies. She is also the Founding Chair of Pittsburgh’s Gender Equity Commission. She is a historian by training and has written extensively about gender, race, working families, and U.S. social policy. Dr. Ramey earned her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and also holds an MA in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College.
About Amanda Neatrour: Amanda is currently the Interim Director of the Women’s Leadership and Mentorship Program at Robert Morris University, where she supports and promotes mentorship and leadership programming to advance opportunities for women students. Amanda was previously the Diversity and Inclusion Employment Coordinator for the City of Pittsburgh, and continues that work independently as a diversity trainer and consultant. She served on the Lawrenceville Community Land Trust and Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council Learning and Research committees, and the board of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh. Amanda is an alum of the Baltimore School for the Arts, Howard University, and the Accademia Dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy.
Conversations Series: Reverend Tim Smith
Watch the Recording on Facebook | on YouTube
Monday, July 13, 2020, 12pm-1pm
About Tim Smith: Tim is the CEO of Center of Life and pastor of the Keystone Church of Hazelwood. He has been working with children and youth for over 25 years. Tim was born and raised in Pittsburgh and educated in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. He is a graduate of Westinghouse High School and holds degrees from Triangle Tech, The University of Pittsburgh, the Leadership Training Institute, the American Institute of Banking as well as a diploma from the Reformed Theological Seminary. Tim has dedicated his life to empowering families and youth everywhere.
Conversations Series: Marcel L. Walker
Watch the Recording on Facebook | on YouTube
Monday, July 20, 2020, 12pm-1pm
About Marcel Walker: Marcel Lamont (M.L.) Walker is an award-winning graphic-prose creator and expert in social applications for comic-book art. In 2017, he was voted Best Local Cartoonist by readers of The Pittsburgh City Paper in their annual Best of Pittsburgh poll. In 2018, he was awarded a BMe Community Genius Fellowship in recognition of his work in the arts and related community activity. He is the lead artist, book designer, and project coordinator for the acclaimed comic-book series CHUTZ-POW! SUPERHEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST, published by The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. He is also the president of the board of directors for the ToonSeum, Pittsburgh’s nonprofit Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art.
Conversations Series: Jason England
Watch the Recording on Facebook | on YouTube
Monday, July 27, 1pm
Our ongoing “Conversations” series features community members having a dialogue with Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh director Dr. Lauren Apter Bairnsfather. This summer’s conversations will center around the theme of “The Power of the Individual”.
About Jason England: Jason is an Assistant Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University who has written extensively on race, sports, and societal issues, and recently co-authored an essay criticizing the weakness of the university response to the killing of George Floyd that was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Jason was born and raised in New York City, where he spent his youth between a welfare hotel for the homeless in Times Square and a Harlem housing project. He has been a soda salesperson, a camp counselor, a parking lot attendant, a waiter, a bartender, a civil rights activist, a dean of college admissions, an adjunct professor, a visiting lecturer, and a distinguished lecturer. He graduated from Wesleyan University with high honors and three awards for fiction; got his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; and was the Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute.
Jason’s short fiction has been anthologized, and his essays on race, sports, and societal issues have appeared in various publications, including Sports Illustrated, The Root, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He is concurrently finishing his first novel and a collection of essays.
Conversations Series: Betty Cruz
Watch the Recording on Facebook | on YouTube
Monday, August 17, 12pm
About Betty Cruz: Betty Cruz assumed the role of President and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh in January of 2020. Prior to joining the Council, Betty served as the leader of Change Agency, a social enterprise which she founded in 2016, and Project Director for All for All, an immigrant inclusion initiative. Betty has extensive experience in community outreach, communications, partnership-building, and program management – spanning nearly 20 years. She has developed citywide initiatives for Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto, managed major accounts for a national nonprofit dedicated to building playgrounds across the U.S., and supported public relations for global brands representing a wide range of industries.
Originally from Miami, Florida, Betty is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and a first-generation college graduate. She holds a BA in History from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and an MPA from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) where she was selected for the Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership Portfolio Program and U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship in Portuguese. Betty is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
In recent years, Betty has received the following accolades: 25 Essential Pittsburghers by NEXTpittsburgh in 2019, Pittsburgh Magazine 40 Under 40, Global Pittsburgh Immigrant Champion, 2018 Women of Achievement, 2018 CLASS Community Heroes Award, Islamic Center of Pittsburgh for Humanity Day, The Incline as a Community Leader, Peace Islands Institute and Turkish Cultural Center for Public Service, 2014 YWCA Racial Justice Awardee in Government, and GSPIA 4 Under 40 Distinguished Alumnus. In 2015, Governor Tom Wolf appointed Betty to the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs.
Betty serves on several local boards including Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Global Minds Initiative. Betty is a member of the BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders Network and is a Next City Vanguard.
Teacher Training/Education
Sponsored by: Ed and Arlene Lipsman in memory of Charles and Hilda Lipsman; Allegheny Regional Asset District; Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh; The Jack Buncher Foundation, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Programming specifically related to teaching the Holocaust in the classroom. Most programs are professional development opportunities for educators. Act 48 credit is available for all trainings.
Educator of the Year Spotlight: Kathy Galecki
Watch the Recording on Facebook | On YouTube
Wednesday, June 24, 2020, 3pm-4pm
In this special one-off program, we will sit down with Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s 2019-2020 Holocaust Educator of the Year, Kathy Galecki. We will be discussing some insights into exemplary Holocaust education and her suggestions on making connections to the injustices of today.
Teacher Training: Teaching Partisan Resistance
Thursday, July 16, 2020, 1pm
Learn to engage and inspire students by teaching about the 30,000 Jews who fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators as Jewish partisans. During this unit, Teaching with the Motion Picture Defiance, teachers will learn to use the film Defiance starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, to explore History, Leadership, Ethics, and Values.
Teacher Training: Using Survivor Testimony*
Friday, July 24, 2020, 10am-12pm
In the early 1990s, renowned Holocaust testimony expert Lawrence Langer conducted over 80 hours of interviews with Holocaust survivors residing in Brookline, Masachusetts. For over 20 years, they sat in a metal closet, waiting to be edited and produced into something usable for education purposes. Finally, in 2016, experienced producer R. Harvey Bravman was tasked with digitizing and directing a feature length film out of the tapes. He painstakingly worked through the testimony to produce a film, Soul Witness, that eloquently spoke to their experiences. In this teacher training, Harvey will be talking with teachers about best practices for using survivor testimony to teach the Holocaust, drawing on specific examples from Soul Witness.
Teacher Training: Creating an Emotionally Honest Classroom*
Watch the recording on YouTube
Monday, July 27, 2020, 9am-12pm
2018 Holocaust Educator of the Year Nick Haberman will lead this training around creating an emotionally honest classroom. Educators will discuss best practices for developing a safe space to talk about Holocaust history and the connections to the difficult and necessary topics that 2020 has introduced into the conversation. Teachers will brainstorm ways to use this space to cultivate leadership opportunities for students, and Nick will introduce examples of his own from his work leading the Light Education Initiative. Part of the session will also build on the previous teacher training on using survivor testimony, thinking about best practices for ensuring students respect the experience and narratives of Holocaust survivors as they view it through their own lens.
*Additionally sponsored by SteelTree Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh