University makes history By hosting 30th annual Holocaust Conference

“Millersville University is committed to a creative campus. Not only in the terms of the arts, but also in terms of creating new knowledge. At Millersville University, we have programs such as the Holocaust Conference that integrate and demonstrate our commitment to interdisciplinary studies to the liberal arts, the creation of knowledge,” the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences said.

Millersville hosted the 30th Anniversary of the Holocaust Conference April 14-16, making it the longest conference dedicated to the Holocaust in North America. The event was titled “Holocaust and Genocide: A Half-Century of Changing Narratives,” and held in the W.M.H. Bolger Conference Center.

On the first day of the conference, keynote speaker and internationally acclaimed Yevgeni Yevtushenko from the Univesity of Tulsa, a Russian poet, writer, actor, and film director spoke on one on his poems titled “Babi Yar,” highlighting the Holocaust in Soviet and Russian Literature and Arts.

On the second day of the conference, as part of a special presentation and discussion on the movie “Defiance,” Zvi Bielski, son of one of the Bielski brothers, spoke about the memories of their family’s resistance. “Defiance” tells the story of the Bielski brothers, who escaped to the forest of Nazi-occupied Poland, and rescued more than 1,200 Jews from extermination while fighting against the Nazis from a base hidden deep in the forest.

Over the three days, Holocaust historians, survivors, and scholars participated in the conference. The importance of the scholars, historians, and survivors is that they are keeping the future generations aware of what happened so that it will never happen again.