Manhattan College's Holocaust Center has new leadership
By John DeSio, Riverdale Review

A much-valued resource on the campus of Manhattan College is back in business.

The Holocaust Resource Center at Manhattan College, which had announced its closure last year, has reopened, named a new director, and lined up a series of events to kick off its rebirth.

Dr. Jeff Horn, associate professor of history at the college, will take over the role of executive director of the center. The college is also working to establish a leadership team and a board of advisors to help oversee all future programs and lectures.

Horn succeeds Frederick M. Schweitzer as director. Schweitzer was the influential voice in launching the Holocaust Resource Center and in overseeing its activities for over a decade. Schweitzer, professor emeritus of history, has been a member of the Manhattan College community for nearly half a century.

"I am humbled to follow Frederick Schweitzer's example in maintaining the strong links between Manhattan College and the Riverdale community," Horn said. "It is my hope, or intention, to emphasize this link even more. The campus community joins me in believing that the Holocaust and other genocides must be studied, understood and never forgotten."

Horn said that while Manhattan College has always supported the work of the center, this time around the college will make an even greater commitment to the center's work.

"The school has always supported us, but it has made a real decision to make this a priority," said Horn.

Under Horn's direction, the Holocaust Resource Center will initially hold two public events per academic year, including the Frederick M. Schweitzer Lecture on the Holocaust and Genocide, to be inaugurated in the fall of 2008.

"Manhattan College's commitment to the Holocaust Resource Center has been unwavering," says college president Brother Thomas Scanlan. "The College is expanding its efforts to institutionalize the center to ensure its effective functioning long into the future. We are hopeful that the Holocaust Resource Center will be enriched by contributions and support which will permit it to expand and further develop its events and activities."

Horn noted that the first event sponsored by the relaunched Holocaust Resource Center will not address  the Holocaust but will instead continue the center's tradition of focusing on a different genocide, this time in Darfur.

Dr. Eric Reeves, professor of English language and literature at Smith College, will open the fall program at the center with his lecture, "A Long Day's Dying: Genocide by Attrition in Darfur" on Tuesday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Smith Auditorium.

Reeves, internationally recognized for his knowledge of current events in Sudan, is the author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide" (2007).

He is a longtime public advocate of issues related to Darfur and has spent the past eight years working as a Sudan researcher and analyst. Dr. Reeves has testified several times before Congress and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan.

"He will be a passionate and acknowledgeable speaker," said Horn of Reeves.

A second fall event will focus specifically on the Holocaust, offering a view of that genocide through the eyes of those who lived through it.

On November 6, the center will commemorate Kristallnacht, or "The Night of Broken Glass," a massive, coordinated attack on synagogues and Jewish businesses throughout the German Reich on the night of November 9, 1938. The public program will feature the premier of two educational DVDs in which Manhattan College students interview local Holocaust survivors.

Following the event, the DVDs will be made available to teachers for classroom learning on the Holocaust.

For more information about Reeves' lecture or the Holocaust Resource Center, contact Dr. Horn at (718) 862-7129 or jeff.horn@manhattan.edu.