Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Holocaust Survivor Forum at Everett Community College

Holocaust Survivor Forum Starts April 13 at Everett Community College

Forum Schedule and Details

With Everett Community College's 12th Holocaust Survivors forums scheduled to start April 13, founder and EvCC humanities instructor Joyce Walker shared why she started the forums and what she hopes students will learn.

In Spring 2000, Walker started the Humanities 150D class, Surviving the Holocaust, and she's taught it every year since. As director of EvCC's Humanities Center, she started the Holocaust forums at the same time as part of the class and has opened the forums to the campus and local community each year.

Walker has long been interested, both professionally and personally, in the history of the Holocaust.

"Stays in Germany in both high school and college caused me to wonder how such a great culture could fall so low in the Holocaust - from the apex to nadir of human civilization," said Walker, who said her Ph.D. in comparative literature includes a major focus on German language and literature.

Walker's class attempts to answer questions like "Why did the Nazis kill?" and "How did people survive such dehumanization?"

"My hope is that by studying the Holocaust, students will resolve to stand up for others in the face of hate speech and hateful acts," she said.

The Holocaust forums start April 13 with Survivor Fred H. Taucher's story. His father was seized during Kristallnacht, and his family was hidden by a high-ranking Nazi Party member until he was arrested and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Taucher will speak from 12:20-1:50 p.m. in Baker Hall 120.

The Holocaust Center is proud to have worked with Joyce Walker and Everett Community College for many years, providing speakers and professional development opportunities.


About the photo above:
Instructor Joyce Walker, founder of EvCC's Holocaust Forums, examines notes taken Jan. 20, 1942 at the Wannsee Conference, when top German Nazi officials formally announced the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," the decision to deport and murder the Jews of Europe. The minutes of that meeting, known as the Wannsee Protocol, are preserved in the room where the meeting took place near Berlin, now a Holocaust museum. Walker travelled to Berlin March 17-26 with study abroad students from Fullerton College, a community college in California, at the invitation of her brother, Western Civilization and German professor John Walker. Joyce Walker lectured the Fullerton students on the Holocaust during the trip.

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