Every other year the Harris Center organizes the Sommerhauser Symposium on Holocaust Education—a one-day conference that brings together Holocaust researchers, local educators, and the campus and broader community. The conference aims to make academic research findings more accessible and to foster dialogue and exchange between Holocaust researchers, educators at all levels, and the wider public. It focuses on contemporary issues related to the historical study of the Holocaust, such as antisemitism, racism, political extremism, and ethno-nationalism. The results are published in the series Contemporary Holocaust Studies with the University of Nebraska Press. The series is edited by Ari Kohen and Gerald J. Steinacher.
The Sommerhauser Symposium is supported by the Lou Sommerhauser Fund for Holocaust Education, named in memory of Lou Sommerhauser and in honor of his parents, who both perished in a Nazi concentration camp. The fund was established in the belief that only through a knowledgeable, informed public can intolerance be prevented.
The 2025 Sommerhauser Symposium on Holocaust Education will have four discussion panels focused on the Historical, Contemporary, and Teaching/Education Dimensions, as well as a Roundtable Discussion. They will feature speakers like John Q. Barrett, Peter Black, Michael J. Kelly, Roland Kostic, Julia Reilly, Dawne Curry, Doyle Stevick, Mark Gudgel and Goran Miljan.
The 2025 meeting will mark the fifth biennial Sommerhauser Workshop on Holocaust Education at UNL. The workshop is sponsored by the Lou Sommerhauser Fund for Holocaust Education, with additional support from the Forsythe Family Program on Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, the Harris Center for Judaic Studies, and the Department of History.
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