Studying the Holocaust and the Jewish Experience at Kennesaw State University: Pathways for Students and Beyond

The following piece explores Holocaust education at Kennesaw State University through interviews with Catherine Lewis, director of the KSU Museum of History and Holocaust Education, and Katie Kaukinen, dean of the KSU Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences. It also provides the description of a recent project that shows how collaborations with Holocaust museums can enhance the understanding of history in the Italian language and culture classroom. The goals of this piece are to provide avenues for educators to explore the introduction in their classes of Holocaust education and the memory of the Shoah, as well as the many intersections of that moment in history with the larger themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion.Historian Catherine Lewis is the assistant vice president of the KSU Museums, Archives and Rare Books, the director of the Museum of History and Holocaust Education, and a professor of history at Kennesaw State University. In a recent conversation, she explained the goals and scope of the KSU Museum of History and Holocaust Education, one of the largest of its kind in the nation.Could you please describe the history of the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State?In 2003, the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust approached Betty Siegel, who was the university president at the time, with the idea of bringing an Anne Frank exhibit here to KSU. It was not something that Kennesaw had done before, but I think Betty saw the potential and we brought the exhibit. What started in 2003 as a temporary exhibit has grown to be one of the largest World War II and Holocaust Museums and outreach programs in the nation, which has been amazing. Today, we are part of a larger Department of Museums, Archives, and Rare Books, which is a team of about thirty professionals, curators, historians, archivists, and educators. We work very collaboratively and last year we served four hundred thousand people through the museum onsite at the KSU Center, free and open to the public, and by taking the museum on the road: we have eighteen traveling exhibits, and thirty-three in total. Those exhibits travel regularly to schools, to other museums, to community centers, churches, synagogues, and libraries.What are some of the exhibits that you offer?They are so diverse. We have one called Georgia Journeys that talks about World War II and the impact on Georgia. We have Beyond Rosie, which, of course, is on women in war. We have an exhibit called Never Forget, which is an overview and an introduction to the Holocaust. There is the wonderfully powerful Enduring Tension, on encountering antisemitism in every age. We have Black and Jewish, a very interesting exhibit on the intersections between African American and Jewish history, and an exhibit called Refuge Refusal, which looks at turning points in US immigration history. It's a lot, and it encourages people to come to us, and then it encourages people to borrow our exhibits and they move around.We also do a tremendous amount of K-12 educational outreach for both public and private schools, but also for homeschool audiences. And, of course, we collaborate with courses on the Kennesaw campus, for our students. When COVID hit, we also developed forty modules that teachers can use in their curriculum, on a wide range of topics, certainly World War II, the Holocaust, World War I, but even further on civil rights and other significant topics. And then, in addition, we have traveling trunks (movable exhibits) that go out to schools.Among our partnerships are Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, but also partnerships with local schools, with other museums and related organizations. That makes the conversation very fruitful. There are two philosophies about our work, and one is our tagline, meet history face-to-face, because you can't understand a historical event by simply looking at statistics or numbers: Understanding how people perished in the Holocaust is certainly important, but you have to dig into those personal stories to really have historical empathy and to understand what people's lives were like and the choices they made, and how the historical events shaped them, and how they shaped historical events. So, we curate with an eye toward the personal, the story, and are very attentive to helping visitors make personal connections. Then we also work really hard to encourage dialogue about contemporary events. We want people to look at World War II and the Holocaust and think about war and peace, fascism and democracy, and rising ideas of white supremacy and civil rights. All those issues were present in some very powerful ways during World War II and shaped the world in the postwar period. So, it's important to think about a lot of the issues that people dealt with then and that we're still dealing with now, in profound ways. So, we try to not think in rigid ways, covering only, say, 1933, when Hitler comes to power, to 1945, when the war ends. We go much deeper and much broader.You came into this role as an historian, based in the Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences here at KSU: could you describe how the activities enhance the study of the humanities?We're separate from the college, but that doesn't mean that we don't work very closely with them. I am, of course, a faculty member in history and work very closely with colleagues. I just finished teaching an honors class on civil rights in the twentieth century in Atlanta. And then the museum does some interesting things: we are a learning lab in a lot of ways for our Kennesaw students. They do capstones, honors projects, and research projects with us. We as a team are very interdisciplinary, my assistant director, Tamara Livingston, is a musicologist. We have team members with interest in training in LGBTQ history, just lots and lots of variety, and we always have the humanities and social sciences at our forefront. Also, as we think about RISE [the Radow Institute for Social Equity, housed in the KSU Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences], their mission intersects with ours, and this creates pathways to expanding opportunities for equity across diverse populations. I can't imagine a more complex topic than World War II and the Holocaust for thinking about social justice and racial inequality, not just the Jewish experience, but the experience of the Roma, the experience of LGBTQ individuals, the experience of people who were disabled, or of Afro-Germans. It's so important to look at how that moment shaped our sort of post-war life.The reality is all of these issues were present long before World War II. Hitler doesn't invent antisemitism; Mussolini does not invent fascism. These are simply examples of when they dominate the world stage. I think what's really nice about KSU is that we have a culture of open dialogue and a willingness to take on some really tough topics. I think former president Betty Siegel used to call them courageous conversations. And so, the fact that the university would support a World War II and Holocaust Museum in suburban Cobb County, Georgia, might seem like a surprise, but what better place to put it, right? Within a big growing population, a very dynamic institution, one that's young. That has really made an impact on not only this community, but I would say regionally and nationally.Recent polls show that people no longer know about World War II and the Holocaust, with many having no idea of what happened, or having incorrect ideas or believing myths about it. And we feel that, every day, our job is to counter that and to educate and to inform, to promote dialogue. I've been here about twenty years, and I walk into my job every day feeling like my work matters. And I have so many colleagues, not just here on campus, but around the nation, who also do Holocaust education and Holocaust studies, and their work is equally significant. And I feel like we're all in dialogue and all in partnership. So, South Florida, Michigan, Illinois, San Francisco, Los Angeles, there are dozens of universities and museums that tell this story. We were just starting a partnership with The Tree of Life, the synagogue in Pittsburgh that was so brutally attacked several years ago, the attack happened, and we were scheduled to open, two days later, our antisemitism exhibit. We opened it at the Breman Museum in Atlanta. Unfortunately, we would hope that that would be in the past, but it's not.You and I [Federica] are both mothers of middle schoolers, two young Jewish women who are going through the educational pathway: what would you want to say to teachers, to educators, about how to approach these topics, or more in general how can museums like yours support teachers?I'll answer in two ways. We do so much outreach with our teachers, partly because it's such a hard topic. There are so many topics that teachers face that they often feel ill-equipped to take on, just think about Native American removal, slavery, World War II and the Holocaust, Vietnam. These are often topics that teachers are not experts on, and so one of the roles that museums like ours play is helping them find significant, meaningful, research-based ways to engage with those topics. So, we invite teachers to reach out to museums. But on a more personal note, I have a thirteen-year-old who just had her bat mitzvah, and yes, she gets a big dose of World War II and the Holocaust, but I think what I'm especially proud of is that we're members of the temple, and she has a very active Jewish education and is very thoughtful about that. She feels a great deal of pride in being Jewish and understanding how that history shapes it. There are many age-appropriate ways to engage. I always say that Anne Frank is a great entry point, but there are so many voices, there is so much poetry, literature, art, and music to be engaged with in this historical moment. We take our educational role very seriously, but we also take our commemorative role very seriously. Our job is to pass this memory as we lose our survivors, as we lose our witnesses to history. The weight of that history moves to our shoulders as scholars and historians and museum curators to make sure that we don't repeat it. We certainly would hope that we don't repeat it. Following our conversation with Lewis and because of the strong ties between the mission and goals of the KSU Museum of History and Holocaust Education and our work as scholars in the Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences, we also briefly interviewed the college's dean Katie Kaukinen, who has supported many new diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives for the college:Dean Kaukinen, would you please comment on the activities of the college, which include a strong focus on diversity and inclusion, and some of which are focused on the Jewish experience?The Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences is committed to actions that foster an inclusive and equitable culture and community. Over the last year, we have worked collaboratively to build a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategic plan with actionable goals. We have invested funds to support activities that bring us together in a way that highlights our celebration of diversity and commitment to equity and inclusion. Our DEI council connects the college to the university's Division of Diverse and Inclusive Excellence and serves as an advisory group to the dean's office. To support our faculty, we recently created an associate dean position for faculty and inclusive excellence. In collaboration with the dean, this academic leader will advance the faculty and inclusive excellence mission of college, overseeing its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and activities, and leading in the areas of faculty recruitment, retention, promotion, career progression, and professional development. The college is home to the Radow Institute for Social Equity (RISE), supported by a generous endowment from Norman and Lindy Radow. Drawing on KSU's commitment to community engagement and existing faculty expertise, RISE supports research activities that expand opportunities for equity across diverse populations and foster community engagement and dialogue around issues of race, diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. The college also hosts the annual Paul and Beverly Radow Lecture Series on Jewish Life, funded by Norman Radow, CEO of RADCO, an Atlanta-based real estate development company. The endowed lecture series was launched to honor Norman Radow's parents’ lifelong contributions to culture and education in their community. This year we hosted Michael Twitty, an African American Jewish chef, author, educator, and culinary historian, whose writings and teachings combine extensive historical, genealogical research with personal stories and reflections. His writings chronicle the Jewish and African American culinary history in the South. Upcoming events include a workshop on inclusive teaching. This will take the form of a book club and virtual workshop with author Viji Sathy (Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom). As part of the college's Black History Month program and with support from a Teagle Foundation Knowledge for Freedom grant, faculty hosted a Journeys in Justice Fireside Chat with Charles Black of the Atlanta Student Movement. The Knowledge for Freedom programs will bring underserved high school students to study humanity's deepest questions about leading lives of purpose and civic responsibility on college campuses. Students will participate in a year-long program where they experience the intensity of a seminar-sized discussion taught by college professors focused on major works of philosophy and literature. Finally, we are sharing a sample learning module and project designed by the Italian Studies Program faculty (Renata Creekmur, Federica Santini, and Andrea Scapolo) for third-year Italian students using the resources offered by the KSU Museum of History and Holocaust Education, and which may serve as an example of introducing the Holocaust to the Italian language and culture classroom.ITAL 3200: Critical Reading and Applied Writing in Italian—“Viaggi di carta” is an advanced-level course designed to help students develop critical reading and writing skills in the target language and foster their understanding and appreciation of relevant Italian cultural products and practices. The overarching theme of the class is fictional travels and the representation of geographical, social, and cultural spaces and places. During the semester, students engage with different types, genres, and styles of text, such as letters, autobiographies, short stories, plays, and songs, and reconstruct them in ways more consistent with their own personal experiences. One of the learning modules for this course, titled “Viaggi nella memoria,” deals with the tragedy of the Holocaust. The module begins with a general introductory lecture on the history of the Jewish community in Italy, with a specific focus on the fascist-era racial laws and the active participation of fascist Italy in the Shoah. After they familiarize themselves with the historical context, students analyze an excerpt from Elena Loewenthal's Lo strappo nell'anima, which deals with the trauma and guilt of the survivors and the importance of honoring the memory and testimonies of this event. As final assignment for this module, students are asked to work in groups and create a guide for the KSU Museum of History and Holocaust Education, in Italian, targeted to an audience of high school students. The purpose of this project is multifold: To educate students on the history of the Holocaust and the importance of preserving the memory of the past.To enhance students’ writing and speaking skills in Italian, including building vocabulary to talk about history and museums.To hone skills such as leadership, teamwork, organization, creativity, and use of technological tools.To build a sense of community and foster students’ familiarity and engagement with resources available on campus.To connect the students’ learning experience in Italian classes with other academic and professional experiences.To complete the assignment, students are required to visit the museum individually or in small groups. After their visit, they write a brief, guided reaction in Italian. Finally, they work in small groups to create their guide and poster, based on a template designed by the instructor. Both the guide and the poster should be designed for an audience of high school students. In class, the groups present their products and answer questions from the instructor and their classmates.To learn more about the KSU Museum of History and Holocaust Education and explore its resources, including the many fully online ones that are available to educators nationwide, please visit: https://historymuseum.kennesaw.edu/education/index.php