Each year at the JFCS Holocaust Center, students from colleges and universities throughout the Bay Area apply for the Pell and Manovill University Fellowships.  University Fellows mentor and teach high school students, conduct research, develop curriculum, work with primary source materials in the Tauber Holocaust Library and Archives, and gain first-hand experience learning from Holocaust Read More

Facebook and Genocide in Myanmar By Nikki Bambauer I often start my workday looking for the worst in humanity: checking for the latest news articles on the Holocaust, genocide, and atrocity. A little depressing, I know, but it’s actually one of my favorite parts of managing the JFCS Holocaust Center’s social media profiles. Facebook, Twitter, Read More

The JFCS Holocaust Center is excited to sponsor the upcoming premiere of Faces of Genocide! Sun., Nov. 11, 2018 5:00 pm Cowell Theater at Fort Mason 2 Marina Blvd, Building C San Francisco Faces of Genocide is a unique short documentary about the shameful succession of genocidal atrocities throughout the 20th and beginning of the 21st Read More

By Nikki Bambauer In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Perhaps he initiated genocide, too. But should that matter in 2018? It should, and it does. Last spring, one of the Holocaust Center’s Manovill Fellows taught her peers at Encinal High School in Alameda about indigenous genocide in California. When looking over her lesson plan, Read More

Europe’s Most Persecuted Minority By Nikki Bambauer Over the past several years, I have become increasingly troubled by the widespread use of the word “gypsy” in pop culture. Among young Americans, the term is synonymous with “free spirited” and “adventurous.” A quick search of “#gypsy” on Instagram will present you with images of long haired Read More

Reflections on the University Fellowship Each year at the JFCS Holocaust Center, students from colleges and universities throughout the Bay Area apply for the University Fellowship. As part of this program, two students benefit from a nine-month intensive study of the Holocaust that includes mentoring and teaching high school students, developing curriculum, working with primary Read More

Curated by Nikki Bambauer Friends separated by the Holocaust reunite in California Associated Press, April 13, 2018 Separated for 76 years, two Holocaust survivors had an emotional reunion last month in Los Angeles. Read Article > Everyone Supports Preventing Atrocity Crimes, But What Works? The Global Observatory, May 7, 2018 Since the Nuremberg Trials after the Read More

Curated by Nikki Bambauer After Documenting Nazi Crimes, A French Priest Exposes ISIS Attacks on Yazidis NPR, March 18, 2018 Father Patrick Desbois has spent the last 15 years uncovering details about Nazi massacres in Eastern Europe. He has now turned his attention to Iraq and Syria, where he is documenting ISIS’s crimes against the Yazidi. Read More

Genocide Awareness Month, 2018 By Alexis Herr, PhD “If women, children, and old people would be murdered a hundred miles from here, wouldn’t you run to help? Then why do you stop this decision of your heart when the distance is five thousand miles instead of a hundred?” — Raphael Lemkin When people learn that I Read More

We are pleased to co-sponsor an upcoming event at Congregation Sherith Israel. SHOAH: How Was It Humanly Possible?, an exhibit by the American Society for Yad Vashem, will be on display from April 16-19, 2018. This exhibit is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. See below for details. Don’t miss two Read More

Genocide of the Rohingya Muslims By Nikki Bambauer “It was 2 AM when they came to our village. They set all our houses on fire. There was no time to grab anything. Not even food. All we could do was run.” — Rohingya Refugee, posted March 8, 2018 on Humans of New York At this Read More

The Voices of Women in the Holocaust By Morgan Blum Schneider “Respond to hate with love… it is the only thing that works” –Helen Farkas, z”l [1] Why does it continue to be important to teach young women about great women in history? As Gershon Bacon reminds us, there is a “persistent tendency to assume the Read More

If we have not learned from the past, why do we remember? By Alexis Herr, PhD Facing a crowd of nearly 2,200 people packed together at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 2006 on the occasion of the first International Day of Commemoration of Holocaust victims, Professor Yehuda Bauer addressed the elephant Read More