Einspruch Lectures on the Holocaust
Each year, the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at UT Dallas invites eminent scholars and prominent figures in the field of Holocaust Studies to present the Einspruch Holocaust Lecture Series. Open to the public, this forum encourages both students and general audiences to gain insight into some of the ground-breaking research in the field, promoting a much-needed exchange of ideas revolving around the Shoah.
Among the internationally renowned speakers and prominent figures in Holocaust studies who have delivered lectures in this program are: Omer Bartov, Micheal Berenbaum, Randolph L. Braham, John Cornwell, Father Patrick Desbois, Saul Friedländer, Daniel Goldhagen, Jan Gross, Israel Gutman, Jürgen Habermas, Peter Hayes, Raul Hilberg, Steven Katz, Lawrence Langer, Vera Laska, Deborah Lipstadt, Wendy Lower, David Patterson, Dina Porat, Géza Röhrig, Alvin Rosenfeld, David Roskies, Timothy Snyder, István Szabó, Robert S. Wistrich, and David S. Wyman.
Previous Einspruch Lectures:
The below information is for some of our more recent Einspruch Lecture Series. The video of the lectures, when available, can be viewed by clicking on the lecture titles.
2024: Father Patrick Desbois
Father Patrick Desbois, founder of the international human rights organization Yahad-In Unum, is a prolific author, distinguished Professor at Georgetown University, historian, forensic detective, and world-renowned human-rights activist. He has committed himself to a life-long effort to fight the disease of Genocide and bring solace to its victims. He has worked tirelessly to collect testimonies of eyewitnesses and identify and document sites of mass crimes committed against European Jews and Roma by the Nazis and their collaborators during the so-called “Holocaust by Bullets.”
Sunday, February 4th | 4pm
Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center
“How to Teach Holocaust Crimes in a New Way to Fight Actual Antisemitism”
Monday, February 5th | 9am
Executive Dining Room, Jindal School of Management
“The Research Behind the Holocaust by Bullets”
Ackerman Center Podcast – Interview with Father Desbois
2022 Einspruch Lecture Series
Presented by Dina Porat, professor emerita of modern Jewish history at the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University and previous chief historian of Yad Vashem.
Presented by Dina Porat, Professor Emerita of modern Jewish history at the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University and previous chief historian of Yad Vashem.
Sunday, September 18, 2022 at 4pm
“‘To Me Belongeth Vengeance and Recompence’ – A Major Post-Holocaust Revenge Attempt”
A group of fifty young survivors, mostly partisans and ghetto fighters under the leadership of Abba Kovner, tried to kill six million Germans for the six million Jews they killed during the Holocaust. This lecture will discuss the context in which the group crystalized and acted, unfold their story and the reaction of the Zionist leadership, and deal with the ethical and national issues involved.
Monday, September 19, 2022 at 9am
“The Working Definition of Antisemitism and the Debate around its Evolution and Implications”
The Working Definition of Antisemitism (WDA) was first adopted in 2005 and was re-adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. While the adoption process continued, with up to 900 adopting entities worldwide today, criticism was not late in coming. The short text of the WDA was read and analyzed, and its implications were discussed.
2020 Einspruch Lectures
The 2020 Einspruch Lecture Series was presented in two parts. First was a pre-recorded interview with Mr. Ben Ferencz, the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg.
Sunday, October 25, 2020 | 2pm Central
“Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials”
The live panel event featured excerpts from the pre-recorded interview with Mr. Ferencz and presentations by:
Michael Bazyler
Professor of Law and The 1939 Society Scholar in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies
Dale E. Fowler School of Law
Chapman University
Michael S. Bryant
Professor of History and Legal Studies
Bryant University
Kristen Nelson
Gratz College
2019 Einspruch Lectures (pdf)
October 20-21, 2019
The 2019 lectures were presented by Dr. Mark Roseman, the Pat M Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.
Sunday, October 20 – 2 pm | Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center
“Flowers for the Heinemanns: The Hidden History of Helping Jews in Nazi Germany”
Using the remarkable example of a little-known oppositional group in Nazi Germany, the lecture explored the challenges and opportunities of helping Jews in the Third Reich, and the motives for doing so. It asked why those who lived under Nazi rule and took on the regime found it hard after the war to articulate what they had been through, and why much of their experience disappeared from memory. With the help of some unique wartime documents, the lecture sought to recover a lost world of thought and action during the Holocaust.
Monday, October 21 – 9 am | Amistad Conference Room (SP/N)
“Genocide in View: Holocaust Perpetrators in the Eyes of Others”
This lecture introduced an ongoing research project. It explored the vantage points of different groups who encountered German perpetrators of the Holocaust – among them their victims, their families, the courts, the postwar press, historians and more. It showed how these different “constituencies” struggled to reconcile what they were seeing with their vision of Germany, their understanding of humanity, and/or their other knowledge of the individuals concerned – and it explored the ways in which they responded to the challenge of making sense of the perpetrators.
**Videos will be added of each lecture shortly
2018 Einspruch Lectures (pdf)
October 28-29, 2018: Dr. Peter Hayes
Dr. Peter Hayes, the emeritus Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor of Holocaust Studies at Northwestern University, presented two lectures:
Sunday, October 28th – 4pm | Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center,
“Why? Explaining the Holocaust”
Prof. Hayes summarized the findings of his newest book via an exploration of two fundamental questions raised by the Holocaust: Why were Jews killed? Why didn’t anyone stop the murder?
Photos from Sunday’s lecture can be viewed on Facebook.
Monday, October 29th – 9am | Davidson Auditorium (Jindal School of Management Building)
“German Corporate Complicity in the Holocaust”
Prof. Hayes outlined the surprisingly contemporary motivations that induced most large German firms to cooperate with the Nazi government of Germany, detail the ways in which these enterprises became deeply complicit in many of that regime’s worst crimes, and explain how the nation’s largest businesses managed to evade responsibility for their deeds until the 1990s.
2017 Einspruch Lectures
November 5-6, 2017: Dr. Michael Berenbaum
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, the director of the Sigi Ziering Institute at the American Jewish University, presented two lectures, “Holocaust Memorials and the Perpetrators” and “Issues in Creating Holocaust Museums and Memorials: The Obligation to the Past, the Responsibilities Toward the Future.”
2016 Einspruch Lectures
November 5-7, 2016: Géza Röhrig
Géza Röhrig, the star of the Academy Award-winning film Son of Saul was this year’s speaker. In addition to having a screening of the film Son of Saul, Mr. Röhrig presented two lectures: “Playing Saul in Son of Saul” and “On Forgiveness.”
Read an article about the Einspruch Lectures in the “Texas Jewish Post.”
2015 Einspruch Lectures
October 18-19, 2015: Professor Omer Bartov
Dr. Omer Bartov, the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Professor of German Studies at Brown University and author of Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine, presented two lectures: “The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood: The Murder of a Town in Eastern Galicia” on October 18th and “Investigating Genocide on the Local Level: Challenges and Benefits.” The video for both lectures should be available online for viewing soon.
2014 Einspruch Lectures
October 26 – 27, 2014: Professor Wendy Lower
Dr. Lower, the John K. Roth Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and Research Associate at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, presented the Fall 2014 Burton C. Einspruch Lectures.
Dr. Lower presented two lectures: “Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields” on Sunday, October 26, and “Traitors to the Homeland: Nazi Collaborators and Soviet Trials in Ukraine” on Monday, October 27.
2013 Einspruch Lectures
October 13 – 14, 2013: Professor Jan Gross
In October, Professor Jan T. Gross, the Norman B. Tomlinson ‘16 and ‘48 Professor of War and Society at Princeton University, presented two lectures in the Einspruch Lecture Series: On the Periphery of the Holocaust: Killings and Pillage of Jews by Their Neighbors and Reception of Neighbors and Current Writing on the Holocaust in Poland. Click on the titles to view the full lectures.
Professor Gross’s research and teaching on modern Europe is focused on comparative politics, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Soviet and East European politics, and the Holocaust. Born in Warsaw, Professor Gross is a graduate of Warsaw University and Yale University. His often fiercely controversial published works on the Holocaust in Poland includeNeighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland; Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz; and, most recently, Golden Harvest: Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust, described by The New Yorker as a “lucid and chilling book.”
February 24 – 25, 2013: Professor Timothy Snyder
In February, Professor Timothy Snyder, Bird White Housum Professor of History at Yale University, presented two lectures in the Einspruch Lecture Series: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin and How Could the Holocaust Have Happened. Professor Snyder received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. In 2001, he joined the faculty at Yale, where he teaches courses on the Holocaust, East European history as global history, and modern East European political history. He is the author of numerous articles and several award-winning books, the most recent being Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010). Click on the titles to view the full lectures.