Alan Rosen Lecture: Early Holocaust Testimonies Taken at Displaced Persons Camps

Dr. Alan Rosen, an expert on Holocaust literature who studied under Elie Wiesel, will speak at USC on November 10.  His lecture will focus on the work of David Boder, who recorded the testimonies of Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps in 1946.  Boder is the subject of Dr. Rosen's latest book, The Wonder of Their Voices:  The 1946 Interviews of David Boder (Oxford University Press, 2010).

In Dr. Rosen's words, "[Boder's] goals were straightforward.  First of all, he wanted to preserve an authentic record of wartime suffering.  Second, he was professionally interested as a psychologist in the impact of extreme suffering on personality.  Third, he wanted to increase the knowledge of a post-war American public who knew little abourt what happened to the victims in the ghettos and in the concentration camps.  And, finally, he hoped that the [displaced persons'] stories could be effective in advocating on their behalf for immigration to America."

Dr. Rosen has held fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research, the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Archives for the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron.  He has taught at universities and colleges in Israel and the United States, and lectures regularly on Holocaust Literature at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies and other Holocaust study centers.

Dr. Alan Rosen Lecture
Thursday, November 10, 4:00 p.m.
USC Leavey Library Auditorium
650 West 35th Street
Los Angeles, CA  90089

Contact:  vhi-academic@dornsife.usc.edu