Holocaust Memorial Day lecture to inaugurate new Erasmus partnership between our University and the University of Rostock
The origins of Nazi genocide will be explored at our University's annual Holocaust Memorial Day lecture at 6:00pm on Tuesday 24 January 2017.
The event will mark the start of a new Erasmus partnership between our University and the University of Rostock in Germany.
Dr Jonas Kreienbaum, from the University of Rostock, will deliver the lecture titled ‘The Colonial origins of Nazi Genocide’, and will discuss the first genocide of the 20th century, carried out by Imperial Germany against the Herero and Nama peoples in modern-day Namibia 110 years ago.
The lecture, in conjunction with the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, will explore the links between colonialism and genocide, asking how colonial powers, such as Imperial Germany and Great Britain, looked upon their colonial atrocities and asking if there are any links between European colonial genocides and the Holocaust.
Dr Alex Korb, Director of the Stanley Burton Centre, said: “This year’s Holocaust Memorial motto, How life can go on?, is a question that is being asked every day, by the survivors of the Holocaust of the first, second and third generation who live among us here in Leicester, as well as by those who survived other, contemporary genocides.
“But also the genocides that have been committed in a seemingly distant past still haunt the descendants of the survivors today.
“Imperial Germany committed the first genocide of the 20th Century against the Herero and Nama peoples in today's Namibia. It was this month that Herero and Nama sued Germany over the forgotten genocide against their ancestors in a New York court. This clearly demonstrates that life goes on, but that genocide is never forgotten.”
The lecture, hosted by the Stanley Burton Centre, will take place in the Fraser Noble Hall on Tuesday 24 January and forms part of a series of events at the University of Leicester to mark Holocaust Memorial Day which are free and open to the public.
- Press release
- This year's Holocaust Memorial Day in Leicester, which was co-organised by the Stanley Burton Centre, was discussed on BBC Radio Leicester's "Talking History" [starts at 40:30, online until February 28, 2017]