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Event Topic: History & Memory

  • Global Conversations: Shameless: Exploiting the Holocaust

    Global Conversations: Shameless: Exploiting the Holocaust

    In partnership with Melbourne Holocaust Museum (MHM) and The Jewish Quarterly, we invite you to a compelling conversation with award-winning UK journalist Tanya Gold and Dr Daniel Haumschild, Manager of Exhibitions and Storytelling at MHM.

    In novels, film and popular culture, the Holocaust genre is booming. As Tanya Gold shows in this crucial Jewish Quarterly essay, however, the creators of these works all too often put the success of their product above the integrity of the story. Unfortunately, when creators engage in crass and self-serving exercises of exploitation, the results are shameful fictions that desecrate the past and misrepresent the Jewish people of today.

    Tanya will join us virtually from the United Kingdom.

  • Writing Lives: Michael Visontay on ‘Noble Fragments’

    Writing Lives: Michael Visontay on ‘Noble Fragments’

    Noble Fragments by Michael Visontay tells the fascinating story of how a rare book dealer in the 1920s took apart a Gutenberg Bible and sold its pages individually—an act that shocked the literary world. Decades later, this decision would play an unexpected role in Visontay’s own family history, helping them rebuild their lives after fleeing post-war Hungary. Blending history and personal memoir, the book explores how seemingly small events can have lasting and life-changing consequences.

  • Global Conversations: Samuel Kassow & David Slucki Discuss ‘The Rudashevski Diary’

    Global Conversations: Samuel Kassow & David Slucki Discuss ‘The Rudashevski Diary’

    The upcoming issue of The Jewish Quarterly presents the diary of Yitskhok Rudashevski, a Jewish teenager in the Vilna Ghetto. An only child, Rudashevski was transferred to the ghetto at age 13 and used a small notebook to chronicle his experiences, wonder, hopes and regrets. The diary was later discovered in an attic which was the final hiding place for him and his parents. On Tuesday 12 November, join Samuel Kassow in conversation with David Slucki as they discuss Yitskhok Rudashevski’s remarkable diary, filled with the observations of a teenager whose belief in culture, history and knowledge defied the cruelty that surrounded him.

  • The Dressmakers of Auschwitz

    The Dressmakers of Auschwitz

    MJBW is delighted to bring you this special event in partnership with The Melbourne Holocaust Museum and The Shrine of Remembrance.

    At the height of the Holocaust, twenty-five young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – mainly Jewish women and girls – were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. Drawing on diverse sources including interviews with the last surviving seamstress, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz follows the fates of these brave women.

    In this captivating event, author and historian Lucy Adlington will join us virtually from the United Kingdom to uncover these stories. In conversation with the Melbourne Holocaust Museum’s Dr Breann Fallon, Lucy will reveal the bonds of family and friendship that helped these women endure persecution. 

    Guests will have an opportunity to explore the Shrine’s exhibition Trenches to Runway: Military Influences on Modern Fashion before the talk commences. While the exhibition does not explore the themes in The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, it draws important parallels between the impact of military clothing design and wartime conditions on popular fashion, tracing these influences from the 1870s to the present day.

    Important things to know before you book:

    • Light refreshments will be provided after the talk.
    • Guests will have an opportunity to submit questions for Lucy in their event booking.
    • Those wishing to explore Trenches to Runway will have the opportunity to do so from 5pm to 5.50pm. We cannot facilitate viewings after the talk.
    • Entry to this event is via the Shrine’s Education Foyer.
  • JQ live – Whitewash: The Jews and Poland

    JQ live – Whitewash: The Jews and Poland

    Jan Grabowski, world-renowned Holocaust historian, discusses his ground-breaking essay ‘Whitewash’ with Jewish Quarterly Editor, Jonathan Pearlman. Grabowski examines how museums, schools and state institutions have downplayed and denied the role of Poles in the destruction of the country’s Jews. He recounts how his work led to him becoming the victim of a notorious lawsuit, and reviews the far-reaching consequences of Poland’s efforts to challenge the truth about the Holocaust.

  • When Fact Becomes Fiction: Bringing history to life

    When Fact Becomes Fiction: Bringing history to life

    The scale of history can be overwhelming. Fiction allows us to focus on the individual. Our panel of Australian Jewish authors has recently published four acclaimed novels all with Jewish protagonists. A life in middle-class Vienna upended by the Great War; a woman leading an extraordinary spy ring in Palestine; a self-effacing Japanese diplomat saving Jews in the next war; a thriller set during the Cold War in the Soviet Union.

    Supported by Golda’s Girls – in memory of Golda Isaac

  • Arnold Zable: A life in words

    Arnold Zable: A life in words

    Few Australian authors are as greatly loved or widely revered as Arnold Zable. Recently recognised with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, he continues to chart new territory on the map of our national consciousness. Join Arnold in conversation with Bram Presser as they discuss his storied life at the forefront of Australian literature and human rights advocacy.

  • Mark Raphael Baker: His Literary and Intellectual Legacy

    Mark Raphael Baker: His Literary and Intellectual Legacy

    Mark Raphael Baker was a Holocaust scholar, an inspiring teacher and the critically acclaimed author of The Fiftieth Gate and Thirty Days. He was also a much-loved member of the Melbourne and Sydney Jewish Communities. In this session, panellists who knew Mark well, will speak on aspects of his life and work and Michelle Lesh and Raimond Gaita will read from A Season of Death, Mark’s posthumous memoir, forthcoming.

  • Unforgotten: The Shoah and ancestors lost

    Unforgotten: The Shoah and ancestors lost

    Australia has had the largest influx of Holocaust survivors post war outside of Israel. Those survivors are now few in number leaving second and third generations to piece together their family’s stories. Rachelle Unreich has captured her mother’s story in A Brilliant Life. Tess Schofield -Peters’s book, Dear Mutzi tells of her grandfather’s experience fleeing Nazi Germany and Louise Helfgott explores her Polish family’s Holocaust past. This trio of authors discuss why they have detailed these dark family stories and what they learned by doing so.

  • Writing Lives: Anne Sebba on Ethel Rosenberg

    Writing Lives: Anne Sebba on Ethel Rosenberg

    We are delighted to present our Writing Lives conversation with esteemed British biographer, Anne Sebba, discussing her remarkable book: ‘Ethel Rosenberg: The Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother’. How did an otherwise non-descript, first generation Russian Jewish émigré, and mother of two young boys, become the first American woman executed on spurious charges, for a crime other than murder?

    Anne Sebba is a biographer, journalist and former Reuters foreign correspondent. She has written many books including the best-selling ‘Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image’, ‘Laura Ashley, A Life by Design’ and ‘That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor’. She lives in London.