Experts On Remembrance Day

The following UVic researchers are available to discuss the suppression and impacts of the Nazi regime and the lessons relevant to Remembrance Day ceremonies:

Charlotte Schallié (Germanic and Slavic Studies) is an expert in post-1945 German, Swiss and Austrian literature and film, and teaches a course on the after-images of the Holocaust in literature and film. She led the second annual I-witness Holocaust Field School this spring; it is the first course of its kind at a Canadian university exploring ways in which the Holocaust has become memorialized in Central Europe. She has also examined how Swiss writers and public intellectuals have revisited Switzerland’s role and attitude toward the Second World War. (Dr. Schallié is available at 250-721-7321 or by email schallie@uvic.ca throughout this week.)

Helga Thorson (Germanic and Slavic Studies) co-founded UVic’s I-witness Holocaust Field School in May 2011 and this year, she and two former field school participants launched a “Local Stories of the Holocaust” archive, a collection point for local life stories of individuals who experienced the Holocaust directly. Her research spans various fields including modernist literature, Holocaust and memory studies, history of medicine, gender studies, and foreign language teaching. (Dr. Thorson is available at 250-721-7320 or by email at helgat@uvic.ca throughout this week.)

Suzanne Snizek (Music) is an expert in researching and performing music from a lost generation of composers. “Most often these composers were ‘suppressed’ or outright murdered for being Jewish,” explains Snizek. “My awareness and deep concern over the practice of indefinite detention—as in the current case of Guantanamo—was what led me to stumble on the history of internment.” (Snizek is available by cell at 778-676-2555 and email at suzanne.snizek@gmail.com the afternoon of Nov. 6, Nov. 7 and 9 in the mornings, or Nov. 10 and 11 by arrangement.)

Media advisory: Dr. Schallié will moderate a Nov. 28 evening reading “Speaking our Loss, Sharing our Journeys” by Jacquie Buncel and Isa Milman, second-generation writers on the Holocaust. Event details will follow in next week’s calendar notice.

To see Dr. Thorson on camera, view Faces of UVic Research video, here: http://bit.ly/UuwL2q

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