Exclusive Twin Cities Premiere: BESA:The Promise

Muslims who saved Jews in World War II
Introduction by Dr. Daniel Schroeter, University of Minnesota
Saturday, November 9, 2013
7:00 p.m.
St. Anthony Main Theatre
Tickets: $5.00



BESA:The Promise weaves Albania's heroism in WWII through the vérité journeys of two men. One is Norman Gershman, a renowned Jewish-American photographer determined to document first-person accounts of the Albanian Muslims who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. The other is Rexhep Hoxha, a Muslim-Albanian. Rexhep must fulfill the promise made to a Jewish family his father rescued during the Holocaust and return to them a set of Hebrew books they left behind. And Rexhep's promise is more than words - it's part of his besa - an honor code that, among other things, pledges all Albanians to offer safe harbor to refugees.

More than seven years in the making, Besa: The Promise presents a powerful human drama compounded by a devastating twist. It is a story that that bridges generations and religions ... uniting fathers and sons ... Muslims and Jews.

To view the trailer click here.

Sponsored by: The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Center for Austrian Studies, European Studies Consortium, Center for Jewish Studies, The Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Jewish Community Relations Council.

New book paints a damning portrait of Polish citizens who betrayed and murdered their Jewish neighbors without German orders

Betray thy neighbor: Holocaust historian claims Poles picked up where Nazis left off
2-15-2013

Rebuilding the Community: Jewish Life in Germany after the Shoah now available to view on YouTube

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 Professor Jay H. Geller spoke to the community about Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah. A video of that talk is available by visiting The Center for Jewish Studies, University of Minnesota YouTube channel.

Even after the Shoah, Jews chose to settle in Germany. Who were these Jews, and why did they decide to remain in a country that had been hostile to their very existence only a few years earlier? How did they deal with antagonism by German neighbors and isolation by Jewish groups abroad? This talk explores the circumstances that led to a renewed Jewish community in post-Holocaust Germany and the alliances that permitted it to flourish.

Jay Geller is the Samuel Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies and Associate Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. He specializes in Jewish history and modern European history, with a focus on Germany. He is the author of Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, and co-editor of Three-Way Street: Germans, Jews, and the Transnational with Leslie Morris. He is currently writing a biography of Gershom Scholem and his family.

Evil Conspiracies and Common Enemies: Mussolini, the Vatican, and the Origins of the Italian Racial Laws

Berdahl Memorial Lecture
Dr. David Kertzer, Professor of Anthropology at Brown University
September 24, 2012
4:00 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Dr. David Kertzer is Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, where he formerly served as Provost. Professor Kertzer's research ranges widely, including: Italian politics and history, anthropological demography, social organization, politics and symbols, political economy and family systems, age structuring, European historical demography and the history of Catholic Church-Jewish relations.

For the past several years Dr. Kertzer has been working in newly opened Vatican archives, along with Italian state archives, on a book that probes the relationship between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini.
Professor Kertzer has published several books and articles including, Prisoner of the Vatican: The Popes' Plot to Capture Italy from the New Italian State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, was chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by Publishers' Weekly. His work, The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism, 2001. New York: Knopf, was a selection of the Book of the Month Club.
This event is free and open to the public.
For more information please contact the Department of Anthropology at anth@umn.edu or by phone at 612-625-3400.
Sponsored by: Department of Anthropology, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Department of French & Italian, , Center for Jewish Studies, Department of History, Institute for Global Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Department of Religious Studies