BY BENJAMIN MANDILE
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau — the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Poland — Queens Public Library and the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College are hosting an afternoon discussion on Sunday, Jan. 26.
The talk, titled “Living in the Shadows of Auschwitz: 75 Year later,” will feature Jody Russel Manning, who serves as Program Director for Rowan University’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He’s is expected to discuss the “traumatic legacy” of the camp.
Manning was the first American to intern at the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. He was there from 2005 until 2011, and has a unique insight into the camp, according to Laura B. Cohen, the executive director of theHarriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensbourogh Community College.
The title of the talk refers, in part, to the fact people now live around the memorial, despite it being home to the most notorious concentration and extermination camp, according Cohen.
In addition to discussion, the public is invited to look at photographs taken by Viktor Koen while he was on a trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek German Nazi concentration and extermination camps with his maternal-grandmother, a survivor of Auschwitz, according to the event’s page.
Koen is also expected to be at the talk and can answer questions. The event, which is geared toward all ages, will be held from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 26 at QPL’s Kew Garden Hills branch at 72-33 Vleigh Place.
Tickets, which are limited to two per individual, are free and can be found at www.eventbrite.com.
