Statement regarding Hamas's attack of Israel

The Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Committee grieves Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas’s actions have caused heart-wrenching suffering in Israel and in Gaza and have frustrated the cause of peace. All hostages must be released immediately and the humanitarian tragedy precipitated by Hamas in Gaza must be stopped. Our prayers are with all the victims and their families.

Calendar of Events

Remember: Tibor Klopfer: Personal History from the Holocaust in Hungary
April 4, 6:00 PM, West Lafayette Public Library

Connect: A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting
In collaboration with WALLA, April 8, 6:30 PM, West Lafayette Public Library

Connect: Candlelighting Ceremony
April 14, 6:30 PM, Temple Israel, West Lafayette

Educate: James Waller: Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide
April 16, 5:30 PM, Fowler Hall, Purdue University

Educate: And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank
April 21, 2:00 PM, McCutcheon High School

Learn: What Has a Man with a 'Genocidal Machete' Got to Do with a Belgian Military Officer?
February 15, 5:30 PM, Krannert Auditorium, Purdue University

All times are Eastern Time (same time as New York)

Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide

James Waller

Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice, University of Connecticut

Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 5:30 PM EDT
Fowler Hall, Purdue University

Watch Presentation on YouTube

Dr. James Waller is the inaugural Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice at the University of Connecticut. At UConn, he also directs the Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs for the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute and is a Professor of Literatures, Cultures, Languages, and Human Rights. He is the author of six books, most notably his award-winning Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing, Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide, and A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland. In 2017, Waller was the inaugural recipient of the Engaged Scholarship Prize from the International Association of Genocide Scholars in recognition of his exemplary engagement in advancing genocide awareness and prevention. Waller has written for The Washington Post, The Irish News, and The Conversation and is frequently interviewed by broadcast and print media, including PBS, CNN, CBC, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, National Geographic, Scientific American, and The New York Times.

Faculty Website
Books by James Waller
• Confronting Evil
• Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Murder
Flyer

A Personal History from the Holocaust in Hungary

Tibor Klopfer

2nd Generation Survivor

Thursday, April 4, 2024, 6:00 PM EDT
West Lafayette Public Library

Watch Presentation on YouTube

Tibor Klopher Tibor will present stories of his family’s experiences as Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust. His mother, Manci, was deported from a ghetto in rural Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was moved to an industrial slave labor camp and ultimately was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration near Hannover, Germany. His father, Michael, was processed through Auschwitz and worked in forced labor camps before being liberated from Dachau, near Munich, Germany. He lost all his immediate family, including his first wife and two young daughters. Tibor's Uncle Alex, his mother’s youngest brother, thirteen years of age at the beginning of the war, witnessed the devastation of his family and survived a whirlwind of farm and industrial forced labor camps before being liberated from an Austrian factory camp. With family photos, maps and other illustrations, their stories and the stories of other family members Tibor will put human faces on historical events and provide a perspective on the Holocaust that transcends sterile renditions of dates, events and statistics.

Tibor was born in Hungary in 1954 and emigrated to the United States with his parents, older brother, and other family members in December of 1956, shortly after Hungarian Revolution. They settled in Indianapolis. Tibor has served as a volunteer speaker for the Bureau of Jewish Education’s Holocaust Education Center of Indiana since 2013.

Reflections of a Well Rewarded Holocaust Education Speaker

Statement regarding Ukraine

The GLHRC fully supports the following statement issued by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), and we stand with the Ukrainian people in their defense of their sovereignity: The USHMM strongly condemns Russia’s outrageous attack on Ukraine and is deeply concerned about threats to civilians and loss of life. In justifying this attack, Vladimir Putin has misrepresented and misappropriated Holocaust history by claiming falsely that democratic Ukraine needs to be “denazified.” Equally groundless and egregious are his claims that Ukrainian authorities are committing “genocide” as a justification for the invasion of Ukraine.

Mission Statement

The goals of the Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Committee, initiated by Rabbi Gedalyah Engel and the Mayors of Lafayette and West Lafayette in 1981, are to continue awareness of the Nazis' War against the Jews from 1933-1945, to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, and to promote individual, community, and media responsibility for combating the forces of prejudice, hatred, and discrimination today.