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Holocaust by Bullets: Remembering the Babi Yar Massacre

Instructor
Irving Berkowitz, Ph.D.
W4021
Video Catch-up
Available

Course Description

The systematic slaughter of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators in other countries was not initially or exclusively about concentration camps, deportations, gas chambers, or crematoria. In this lecture, Dr. Berkowitz will examine the beginning stage(s) of this least-known chapter of Holocaust history, commonly referred to by scholars as the “Holocaust by Bullets.” It was the precursor to the industrial-scale extermination camps and the first stage of “the final solution to the Jewish Question.”  He will document the infamous Babi Yar Massacre of September 1941, which led to one of the largest execution-style mass murders of over 33,000 Jews in only two days. Dr. Berkowitz will carefully examine the social psychology of perpetrators, collaborators, and indifferent neighbors in this and other “genocides by mass shooting.”  He will underscore the importance of Ukraine’s acknowledgment and reconciliation of its collaborative role and elucidate the arguments supporting and opposing the recognition of this catastrophe as a Holocaust site to memorialize the genocide of Jews.

Course Info

  • Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
  • Date: Tuesday, April 2
  • Location: Friedberg Auditorium, Lifelong Learning Building
  • Fees: Member - $30
    $100 for any combination of four events, members only
    Non-member - $35
    One-time guest pass, Member or Non-member at the door - $35.

About the Instructor

  • Dr. Irving Berkowitz is the Emeritus Dean of Academic Affairs at Palm Beach State College, a position from which he retired after 8 years in 2020. This followed a 3-year stint as the Executive Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at the only institution of higher education on the island nation of Bermuda, Bermuda College. In his 42-year career in higher education he has served as a Professor, Dean, and Academic Vice President of colleges and universities around the country. He is a widely respected scholar and public speaker on the Holocaust and Contemporary Antisemitism and a recognized internationally published scholar in the fields of social policy and organization theory. Early in his career he was chosen Distinguished University Professor for his teaching and scholarship. In 1993, twenty years after graduating from Ohio University, Dr. Berkowitz was chosen as one of five distinguished alumni. In 1997 he was inducted into the Honor Society for International Scholars.