Spring Break
Existing genocide, racism examined at Holocaust luncheon
Kimberly Lien
Issue date: 4/24/07 Section: News
Silver was also the founder of the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project.
The Bay Area Oral History Project conducted over 1,700 interviews with Holocaust survivors from 1981 to 1996.
In 1993, after Steven Spielberg released "Schindler's List" and discovered that most survivors had not written down or recorded their personal oral histories, he created the Shoah Foundation for Visual History and Education.
Spielberg reached out to Silver after learning of the Bay Area Oral History Project, and asked for her guidance and assistance as a consultant for the Shoah Foundation.
As a result, the Shoah Foundation has been able to record and archive more than 53,000 oral histories all over the world, Silver said.
"Too many people don't know about the Holocaust or what it was about," Silver said, "or Cambodia or Rwanda, even in my own family."
When Silver asked her 16-year-old niece what the Holocaust was and how many people died as a result of it, she had no idea.
After asking her niece to guess how many people lost their lives in the Holocaust, her niece replied, "I don't know, 3,000?"
"If we understood the lessons of the Holocaust," Silver said, "we wouldn't let Darfur happen."
Nearing the end of her speech, Silver asked the audience why they thought there were continued acts of war and genocide that have occurred since after the end of the Holocaust.
Answers from the audience included: lack of education, need for power, fear and religious extremism.
Roth was the second speaker of the luncheon. In addition to being the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights, he is also an Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy.
"If you stop laughing now," Roth said, "then you help reduce the next genocide."
Roth said he believes that one of the ways people can help to educate others about racism and genocide is to stand up to those who might think discriminatory statements are comedic or acceptable banter.
"The Holocaust was not only genocide," Roth said, "but a form of genocide that was unprecedented."
The systematic and methodological extermination of the Jewish people should have been an event that taught us something about the horror and tragedy of genocide, Roth said.
The Bay Area Oral History Project conducted over 1,700 interviews with Holocaust survivors from 1981 to 1996.
In 1993, after Steven Spielberg released "Schindler's List" and discovered that most survivors had not written down or recorded their personal oral histories, he created the Shoah Foundation for Visual History and Education.
Spielberg reached out to Silver after learning of the Bay Area Oral History Project, and asked for her guidance and assistance as a consultant for the Shoah Foundation.
As a result, the Shoah Foundation has been able to record and archive more than 53,000 oral histories all over the world, Silver said.
"Too many people don't know about the Holocaust or what it was about," Silver said, "or Cambodia or Rwanda, even in my own family."
When Silver asked her 16-year-old niece what the Holocaust was and how many people died as a result of it, she had no idea.
After asking her niece to guess how many people lost their lives in the Holocaust, her niece replied, "I don't know, 3,000?"
"If we understood the lessons of the Holocaust," Silver said, "we wouldn't let Darfur happen."
Nearing the end of her speech, Silver asked the audience why they thought there were continued acts of war and genocide that have occurred since after the end of the Holocaust.
Answers from the audience included: lack of education, need for power, fear and religious extremism.
Roth was the second speaker of the luncheon. In addition to being the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights, he is also an Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy.
"If you stop laughing now," Roth said, "then you help reduce the next genocide."
Roth said he believes that one of the ways people can help to educate others about racism and genocide is to stand up to those who might think discriminatory statements are comedic or acceptable banter.
"The Holocaust was not only genocide," Roth said, "but a form of genocide that was unprecedented."
The systematic and methodological extermination of the Jewish people should have been an event that taught us something about the horror and tragedy of genocide, Roth said.
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