Media Releases

University of Toronto Student participates in prestigious internship program in Poland

June 13, 2011

New York, NY – Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to stu­dent Lind­say Macum­ber is one of 10 grad­u­ate stu­dents and Ph.D. can­di­dates cho­sen by the Auschwitz Jew­ish Cen­ter Foun­da­tion (AJCF) to par­tic­i­pate in the Center’s Auschwitz Jew­ish Cen­ter Fel­lows Pro­gram. This pow­er­ful, three-week pro­gram held in Oświęcim (Auschwitz), Poland fos­ters aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al growth and com­mu­ni­ty activism as par­tic­i­pants study the uni­ver­sal impli­ca­tions of the Holo­caust. The pro­gram is fund­ed through pri­vate dona­tions that have made pos­si­ble three named Fel­low­ships— the But­nick Fel­low, the Jaf­fa and Lar­ry Feld­man Fel­low, and the William Donat Fel­low, as well as by the Con­fer­ence on Jew­ish Mate­r­i­al Claims Against Ger­many.

Lind­say is cur­rent­ly work­ing toward earn­ing her Ph.D. in reli­gion. Her pro­posed dis­ser­ta­tion will explore the con­nec­tion between the way in which the Holo­caust is rep­re­sent­ed in his­tor­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal, and the­o­log­i­cal sources, and the way in which it is con­crete­ly respond­ed to in the world today.

After a brief ori­en­ta­tion at New York City’s Muse­um of Jew­ish Heritage—A Liv­ing Memo­r­i­al to the Holo­caust, the Fel­lows trav­el to Poland on June 29 for three weeks, dur­ing which time they vis­it Krakow, War­saw, Oświęcim, and Lodz.  The Fel­lows will also be tak­en on a study trip through­out south­east Poland to explore the area’s rich Jew­ish her­itage and meet with local Jew­ish and non-Jew­ish lead­ers to learn about pre-war Jew­ish life, life under the Nazi occu­pa­tion and Com­mu­nism, as well as the sta­tus of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Poland today.  In Oświęcim, the Fel­lows attend an inten­sive pro­gram at the Auschwitz-Birke­nau State Muse­um where they tour the camps, study the his­to­ry of Jew­ish, Roma, and Pol­ish inmates; and learn how to use the archives, col­lec­tions, pub­li­ca­tions, and edu­ca­tion­al depart­ments.  The Fel­lows engage in ses­sions with Pol­ish and Ger­man stu­dents to dis­pel soci­etal stereo­types and prej­u­dices, while at the same time pro­mot­ing the cre­ation of last­ing cross-cul­tur­al rela­tion­ships.

The Auschwitz Jew­ish Cen­ter is oper­at­ed by the Muse­um of Jew­ish Heritage—A Liv­ing Memo­r­i­al to the Holo­caust from the Museum’s New York City cam­pus. The Cen­ter opened its doors in 2000 and joined with the Muse­um in 2006.  Locat­ed just three kilo­me­ters from the Auschwitz–Birkenau Death Camps, the Cen­ter pro­vides a place for indi­vid­u­als and groups from around the world to pray, study, and learn about the vibran­cy of Jew­ish cul­ture before the war, and memo­ri­al­ize vic­tims of the Holo­caust.  The only Jew­ish pres­ence in the vicin­i­ty of Auschwitz, its facil­i­ties include Oświęcim’s only sur­viv­ing syn­a­gogue.

 

-30-

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Bet­sy Aldredge
646–437-4337
baldredge@mjhnyc.org

Abby R. Spilka
646–437-4333
aspilka@mjhnyc.org