Davis Center: Murder and Silence: The Nazi Holocaust in the USSR and the Distorted Memory of It in Post-Soviet Lithuania

Date: 

Monday, December 11, 2017, 4:15pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

CGIS South, S354, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

Cold War Studies Seminar

Speaker(s): 

Ruta Vanagaite, Lithuanian journalist and writer
Efraim Zuroff, Coordinator of Nazi War Crimes Research and Director of Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs, Simon Wiesenthal Center

In the highly acclaimed book Our People: Journey with an Enemy, Ruta Vanagaite and Efraim Zuroff sought to bring to light the role of ordinary Lithuanians in the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry during World War II. They visited 40 sites of mass murder in Lithuania and Belarus, where they interviewed eyewitnesses and people currently living next to the sites and explored the role of the different elements of wartime Lithuanian society in the events. They will discuss their conclusions, how these are are viewed in Lithuania, and what they mean in the broader context of historical memory debates taking place throughout the post-Communist world.

This seminar is made possible through the generous support of the Kennan Institute as part of its Kennan Conversations series, an outreach program that links Kennan Institute scholars and alumni with audiences at universities around the country.

Sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

For more information, please call 617-495-4037.