Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education

SPRING 2009

Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education
Sponsored Events

WINTER 2009

Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education
Sponsored Events

February 25th: 6:00pm
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
6:00pm, location TBA

The NWCHGEE invites you to join us for this year's second presentation by award-winning teacher and Holocaust survivor Mrs. Noémi Ban.  Hear Noémi's remarkable story and take part in a Q&A session with this amazing woman! 

Location: Western Washington University
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Admission: Free!
Seating is limited, please pre-register.

Due to limited seating and Mrs. Ban's popularity, all those who wish to attend must make a reservation in advance! To do so, please email us at NWCHE@wwu.edu with your name and the number of guests in your party.  If you expect to have more than three guests attending, we ask that you please include the names of all guests. We will send you a confirmation of your reservation; please print that confirmation out and bring it with you to the event.  We look forward to seeing you for this special night!
 

BELLINGHAM - "My Name is Noémi," a film biography of Holocaust survivor Noémi Ban by Western Washington University Associate Professor Jim Lortz, will have its debut screening at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 20, at WWU's Performing Arts Center Mainstage.

Begun by Lortz almost three years ago as a sabbatical project, "My Name is Noémi" tells the story of 86-year-old Noémi Schönberger, who was taken, along with her mother, grandmother, younger sister, and baby brother Gabor, who was only six months old at the time, from her home in Debrecen, Hungary, to the infamous Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. Her mother, grandmother, sister, baby brother and 18 other members of her immediate family never left the camps. Samu, her father, was sent to a forced-labor camp, but survived the war; he would later change his last name to Gabor in honor of his infant son.

"She's an amazing person with a remarkable story that needed to be told," said Lortz. "I first met Noémi when she came to talk to one of my Summer Stock casts that was preparing to do ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,' and it didn't take me long to know that I wanted to help tell that story somehow."

More than 100 hours of video were shot in the making of "My Name is Noémi," with the final project coming in at just under two hours in length. Lortz said the decisions to cut footage were often very tough to make, especially with some of the video shot during two trips back to Auschwitz with Ban.

Noémi Ban, inside the gates at Auschwitz II. photo courtesy Ray Wolpow

"It was overwhelming at times to be there, with her, to know the horrible truth about what that place was built for and designed to do," he said. "Filming her saying Kaddish (a Jewish ritual of mourning) on the grounds of Birkenau was an incredibly powerful moment."

"In the end, if nothing else, I want this movie to be a legacy for her family. After she saw it for the first time, she looked at me and said, ‘I feel like you have introduced me to myself,' which was fabulous, because I know the film rings true to her," said Lortz.

This event is sponsored, in part, by Western's Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education (http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/NWCHE/). 

Tickets for the screening of "My Name is Noémi" are $2 for seniors and students, and $3 for general admission; the PAC can be reached at (360) 650-6146.

For more information, click here to view our current events page

Article from University Communications: http://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/1538/246854

Presentation and trailer preview
Monday, November 10th, 2008    
6:00pm, Arntzen Hall 100

The NWCHGEE invites you to join us for a presentation by award-winning teacher and Holocaust survivor Mrs. Noémi Ban.  Hear Noémi's remarkable story and watch a 10-minute preview trailer of "My Name is Noémi," a video produced by Jim Lortz and co-edited by Noémi.  The video will premiere in its entirety at an upcoming NWCHGEE event this January.      

Please join us for Mrs. Ban's first presentation of the 2008-2009 academic year. Due to limited seating and Mrs. Ban's popularity, all those who wish to attend must make a reservation in advance. To do so, please email us at NWCHE@wwu.edu with your name and the number of guests in your party, and we will send you a confirmation of your reservation.  We look forward to seeing you for this special event!

Location: Western Washington University: Arntzen Hall 100


Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm


Seating is limited, please pre-register: Please e-mail us at NWCHE@wwu.edu with your name and the number of guests in your party.  We will send you a confirmation.  Please print out that confirmation and bring it with you to the event.


Admission: Free!

Noémi Ban greets a guest at her November 10th, 2008 presentation

Eycke Strickland
Sunday, November 2, 2008    
Temple Beth AM, Seattle
Author of Eyes are Watching, Ears are Listening. Co-Sponsored by Temple Beth Am
 

Please visit http://www.wsherc.org/ for any current information on events