Holocaust Commemoration

Holocaust Memorials Across Canada 

This interactive map of the Holocaust Memorials across Canada was created by Jessika Thiffault, a digital artist.

To effectively use this map, click on the different icons to view pictures of each respective memorial.

Guest Lecture: Klaus Müller

In this clip, Dr. Klaus Mueller describes the importance of research, and its capacity to change reality and to recover history. This is contextualized by Dr. Mueller’s experience interviewing Frieda Belinfante, a Jewish lesbian resistance fighter. Frieda is an example of a missing voice recovered. To continue recovering the stories of those lost—the stories of gay men, lesbians, trans people and Jewish LGBTQ+ people and others obscured by time and circumstance—Dr. Mueller turns to a new generation to continue to do the work of re-reading research, reading the documents of the perpetrators against the grain, and, even when we are left only with traces, employing our imaginations to save a story from oblivion and honor LGBT victims and survivors as the unique individuals they were.

Treblinka Memorial and the Polish National Pride

In this clip, Dr. Jan Grabowski describes various physical structures in Poland that have been preserved or erected to memorialize the Holocaust. Despite this, Dr. Grabowski notes, that in Poland’s national memory, there is a large distortion of the Holocaust that removes any Polish responsibility and distorts the role of the Poles, as well as the Jews. Holocaust memory in Poland can therefore be messy and altered from what the historical record says. Please pay attention to the complexities of Holocaust memory in Poland and why Dr. Grabowski says it is such a hot button issue there.