“A Slovak Childhood in the Shadow of the Holocaust” Art Exhibition

To honor the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of the death camps of the Holocaust, UNC Asheville will host a national traveling exhibition.

The exhibition, titled “In Her Father’s Eyes: A Slovak Childhood in the Shadow of the Holocaust,” will run through March 27, in the Karpen Hall lobby.

An opening reception will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 5. These events are free and open to the public.

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In Her Father’s Eyes documents the short life of Kitty Weichherz as told by her observant and devoted father, and uses family photographs and diary entries to offer a window into a Jewish family’s everyday life events in the midst of growing Nazi power. The journal ended soon after the Holocaust began; the Weichherz family was murdered at the Sobibór extermination camp.

In Her Father’s Eyes is on loan to UNC Asheville from the Kennesaw State University Holocaust Museum. UNC Asheville’s Center for Diversity Education has added a local component to the exhibition, sharing the stories of families from Asheville who witnessed or survived the Holocaust.

The following free public events will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition:

7 p.m. Thursday, March 5, Did We Learn Anything? Reflections of the Holocaust 70 Years Later

Mark Gibney, UNC Asheville Belk Distinguished Professor of Political Science, will speak on the lessons of the Holocaust and the contemporary context of genocide. Gibney is an international authority on the legal implications of human rights and genocide. His lecture will be held in UNC Asheville’s Karpen Hall, room 038.

7 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, Music of the Holocaust and Lecture by Walter Ziffer

The local music group Bandana Klezmer will perform Klezmer music, jazz-like Eastern European Jewish celebration music, which lives on thanks to contemporary ensembles, although many of Klezmer musicians perished in the Holocaust.

Walter Ziffer, a Holocaust survivor and scholar, will share his story of liberation from the Gross-Rosen concentration camp by soldiers from the USSR. His mother and sister were also liberated from a nearby camp. Ziffer is the author of several books on Judaism and early Christianity, and has taught classes at the University of Maine in Orono, Mars Hill University and UNC Asheville, and in theological seminaries. The musical performance and lecture will take place in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith Student Union, Alumni Hall.

For more information, contact Deborah Miles, director of UNC Asheville’s Center for Diversity Education, at 828.232.5024 or [email protected].