Holocaust Remembrance Week at URI Hillel

Hillel at the University of Rhode Island is hosting a series of events from March 30 to April 4 in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Week. All events are open to the public. Jaclyn Rubin, a second-year student from No. Brunswick, N.J., is the Student Chair for the series.

Each year since 2006, Hillel students have planted a “Field of Flags” on the Hammerschlag Mall, a public thoroughfare between the URI Multicultural Center and the library, in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Each flag represents 5,000 of the 11,000,000 victims of the Holocaust. Altogether, 2,400 flags are put in the ground and visually capture the enormity of the devastation. The flags will be planted on Sunday, March 30, at 11:00 a.m. and will remain in place until Friday, April 4.

On Monday, March 31, at 4:00 p.m., JoAnna Wasserman, Director of Education at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., will speak on the topic “Reflecting on History to Inspire Critical Thinking Today” in the Galanti Lounge of the Robert L. Corothers Library (15 Lippitt Rd., Kingston). This session, co-sponsored by the Harrington School of Communication and Media, will discuss the museum’s exhibition “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda” and explore strategies for engaging with historical and contemporary propaganda, and ways to connect historical exploration with the challenges we face in the present.

On Tuesday, April 1, at 12:15 p.m., there will be a Holocaust Memorial Vigil in front of the URI Multicultural Center (74 Lower College Rd.). This student-led ceremony will include prayers, poetry and songs to honor the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and will serve as inspiration to recommit ourselves to preventing future atrocities. URI President David Dooley and URI Vice President for Community Equity and Diversity Naomi Thompson will speak.

On Tuesday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m., there will be a free screening of the film “Numbered” in the Swan Hall Auditorium, 60 Upper College Rd., Kingston. “Numbered,” a 2012 Israeli documentary, is an explosive, highly visual and emotionally cinematic journey, guided by testimonies and portraits of Auschwitz survivors who were tattooed with serial numbers.  The film documents the dark time and setting during which these tattoos were assigned as well as the meaning they took on in the years following the war. The film is co-sponsored by the Film Department and the URI Harrington School of Communication and Media.

On Friday, April 4, beginning at 5:30 p.m., Hillel will host a Shabbat service and dinner featuring remarks from Holocaust survivor Ruth Oppenheim. Ruth was a child in Nazi Germany and experienced the horrors of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, in 1938.

The event will take place at the Norman M. Fain Hillel Center, 6 Fraternity Cir., Kingston. Dinner is free for students and $15 for nonstudents. Reservations are required, and space is limited. Please contact Amy Olson at 401-874-2740 for more information.

Throughout the week, students will be conducting a food drive to benefit The Rhody Outpost (Campus Food Pantry) and the Louis and Goldie Chester Full Plate Food Pantry. An exhibit of Holocaust-related posters, books and artifacts will be on display at URI Hillel throughout the week.

FOR A COMPLETE list of Holocaust Remembrance Week events, visit the URI Hillel website at urihil-lel.org.