Testimony: Personal, Literary and Photographic

16:00 - 17:00 Personal Testimony

Mr. Gideon Lotan

Gideon Lotan was born in 1936 in Danzig. His parents managed the Youth Aliyah House in Gouda. When his mother joined the Dutch underground, Gideon was left with the ten Berge family in Amersfoort, Netherlands, where he survived the war. Gideon will share his experiences of the war and rescue as he lived them as a child. He is a widower, father of three sons, and grandfather of four. He lives in Ramat Gan.

17:00 - 18:00 Primo Levi: Fundamental Images

Dr. Uri S. Cohen, lecturer of Hebrew and Italian literature at Tel Aviv University, Primo Levi scholar.

In light of the new translation of Primo Levi's first book, If This Is a Man, we will discuss the history of the text, the circumstances of its writing and publication, and the gap between the first edition of 1947 and the more familiar second edition of 1958. We will also explore the first Hebrew translation, the attempt to adapt Levi's work to the Holocaust terminology as understood from the Eichmann trial, and the distance between the first and current translations.

18:00 - 19:00 The Camera Goes to War

Efrat Komisar, co-director of Mabatim: The Online Center of Methodology of Visual Materials from the Holocaust for Research & Education.

Many German soldiers who went to the front chose to take cameras with them to document what they saw and experienced. They left behind fascinating visual documents that reveal their daily lives, the sights they encountered and the ways they wished to present them. Beyond this, they also left an invaluable record concerning the fate of Jews during the Holocaust. This lecture will review these amateur photographs and examine how they viewed Jewish victims, how they wanted to depict them, and when photographers were documenting, observing, or actively participating in crimes.