News

New Chair of the Academic Working Group of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research

Professor Steven T. Katz, Alvin J. and Shirley Slater Professor of Jewish and Holocaust Studies and Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University, has been elected as the Chair of the Academic Working Group of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research at its half yearly meeting in Linz, Austria. He succeeds Dr. Paul Dostert of Luxembourg and Professor Julianna Wetzel of Berlin. The ITF, created through the initiative of the King of Sweden in 1998, is now sponsored by the European Union. At present it consists of 25 countries, with several additional countries about to join. This group includes all the major Western and Central European countries, plus Argentina, Israel, Canada, and the United States.

The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research was created in order to coordinate national and international efforts to:

• encourage political and social leaders to support Holocaust education, remembrance and research;
• commemorate the victims of the Holocaust;
• support and promote teaching about the Holocaust at all levels of education;
• encourage research in this field and the opening of Holocaust-related archives; and
• contribute to the funding of Holocaust education, remembrance and research projects.

The Academic Working Group, now chaired by Professor Katz, has responsibility for encouraging and overseeing academic projects in the countries belonging to the ITF. For example, at the recent meeting in Linz, it dealt extensively with archives and archival resources in various countries. This included negotiations with the current Austrian government over the future of the Simon Wiesenthal Archives that have been in Vienna, where Simon Wiesenthal, who died in 2005, lived for 50 years. There were also discussions of: the State Archives of Slovakia, housed primarily at the the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava; the recently found Archives of The Jewish Community of Vienna that cover the entire modern period since 1700; the Archives of the International Tracing Service, created at the end of World War II, overseen by the International Red Cross, that have, under pressure largely from the ITF, only recently been opened; and the Vatican Archives, the most important archive holding of crucial Holocaust sources that are still closed to scholars.

Other issues discussed were Holocaust revisionism in European countries, especially Hungary, Lithuania, and Poland. And new projects in the Netherlands, as well as the funding of a variety of research projects supported by the Research Fund of the ITF.

Professor Katz has been the American representative to the ITF for the past six years. His work on the ITF is supported by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Alvin J. and Shirley Slater Professorship in Jewish Holocaust Studies

Thanks to the great generosity of Alvin J. and Shirley Slater, a new Chair in Jewish Holocaust Studies has been fully endowed.

Mr. Slater, who passed away on February 2, 2006 at the age of 86, was a 1940 graduate of Boston University where he studied economics and finance. He began his career in Washington D.C. as an economist, while also working at two part time jobs as a shoe salesman and theatre usher. After the end of World War II he attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1949.

After graduation from law school Alvin Slater began a very successful career as a lawyer, investor, entrepreneur and real estate developer. He also owned a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. A man of great generosity, he – and his wife, Shirley – supported Jewish and other philanthropies both in America and abroad.

In describing the reason for their endowment of a Chair in Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University, Mrs. Slater explained that she and her husband grew up in the 1930s and 1940s and were deeply touched by the tragedy of European Jewry. She emphasized that Mr. Slater, “wanted the Holocaust to be remembered so that, hopefully, humankind would learn from that terrible experience and nothing like it would ever happen again to any group.” And she added, “My husband felt that we each have a responsibility that this not be forgotten.” As to why the Chair was given to Boston University, Mrs. Slater noted that, “her husband felt that B.U. had been very good to him.”

On the recommendation of an academic committee tasked with advising on the appointment of the first holder of the Chair, President Brown announced that Professor Steven T. Katz, Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, was appointed to the new position. A public occasion marking this endowment took place on September 24, 2007.