MSU’s Jewish Studies Program will remember the deaths of more than 6 million Jews by holding its annual Commemoration of the Holocaust.
The international memorial has been supported by MSU for the past eight years, Director of Jewish Studies, Steve Weiland said.
The commemoration includes lectures, a workshop for teachers and a newly adapted version of “The Diary of Anne Frank” by the MSU Theatre Department.
“It will help students learn about this particular time in history and the many dimensions of these events,” Weiland said.
Today David Roskies will give the 2001 David and Sarah Rabin Memorial Lecture at the Union. Roskies’ address “Catastrophe, Culture and the Jews,” begins at 7:30 p.m. in Parlor C of the Union.
Roskies is a professor of Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and author of “The Jewish Search for a Usable Past.”
Keely Stauter-Halsted, an assistant professor of history who is teaching a Holocaust course this semester, said she’s interested in hearing Roskies speak.
“He is looking at the Holocaust in a new way and challenging some of the literature written about it,” she said.
On Friday, there will be a forum for Michigan high school teachers and college professors to discuss how to prepare Holocaust materials and activities for the classroom.
“We have found that teachers want to learn how to teach the Holocaust in secondary schools and on up,” Weiland said.
Another part of the commemoration will be the “Third Annual Interfaith Program on the Holocaust.” Robert Skloot, professor of theater, drama and Jewish studies at the University of Wisconsin, will lecture on “A Multiplicity of Annes: Creating Anne Frank of Our Time.”
“My talk is going to discuss the way Anne Frank has been shown since the original play,” Skloot said. “Anne, who represents someone who was young and was killed, has taken on a symbolic weight.
“Betrayal, growing up, sexuality and hiding; all of the issues come to us on stage. I’m trying to explore them.”
Skloot said he hopes many students attend the commemoration.
“These several events which are attached to Holocaust day are concerned with the issues that the Holocaust raises like justice, violence, destructive governments and tyrannies,” he said.
“We should give some time to think about these issues.”
