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.
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For more information, please contact:
Betsy Aldredge
646–437-4337
baldredge@mjhnyc.org
Abby R. Spilka
646–437-4333
aspilka@mjhnyc.org