On Tuesday night, the Bovee University Center auditorium was filled with Mount Pleasant residents and CMU students anxious to hear the visiting Duke University professor’s presentation, “Genocide and the Moral Order in a Globalized World.”

Koonz urged students to go home for the holidays and speak to their grandparents and relatives.

“Find the grass roots, I guarantee they’ll have something interesting to say,” Koonz said.

The series is part of Humans Right Month in November.

Koonz answered the key question for her presentation: How can a culture create a movement or identity so powerful that people who are a part of it feel that other people are barely human?

“The tragedy is obvious,” Koonz said. “What I’m interested in is what people said, what they thought about what they were doing.”

Her presentation was a part of the Dr. Harold Abel Endowed Lecture Series in the study of dictatorship, democracy and genocide.

Committee Chairman and history professor Eric Johnson was intrigued to find out what Koonz would say.

“I don’t think there is anybody more capable of doing this,” Johnson said. “I’m thrilled to have her here.”

Rochester senior Christopher DeEulis was impressed by the presentation.

“I had to do it for a class and didn’t know what to expect, but I’ve learned a lot of cool stuff today,” he said.

Some felt the time shortage was a shame.

“I feel like she had more to say about the topic but she was short on time,” said Lake Orion senior Christopher Mocny.

Koonz has a Guggenheim award and has written several award-winning books about women in Europe. She has now moved on to study the history of genocide in the world.

Tuesday was chosen as the date for the presentation because it was also the “Night of Broken Glass.”

In 1938 on that day, 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps and 267 synagogues were burned down.

Koonz said when a community is frightened, they re-draw the fences of their moral boundaries if they think it will keep them safe.

From years of research, she has concluded that every culture has its own kind of truth and rationalizations.

“It’s important for us to get in the minds of historical figures who made genocide righteous,” Koonz said.

She said we have to resist the temptation to generalize entire cultures by their few radicals.

Koonz left the audience with optimistic words.

“I think there will never be another Holocaust in the industrialized world,” Koonz said. “We are sensitized.”

The Holocaust scholar lectured about the genocide Thursday in the Charles V. Park Memorial Library Auditorium.

Jacobs, creator of the award-winning virtual tour of Auschwitz at www.remember.org, gave a presentation on the project before opening up for questions from the audience.

“It is important to understand that the only way stuff like this can happen is with bystanders,” Jacobs said. “People standing around letting this go on without doing anything about it.”

About 100 people attended the lecture. They included people from all ages, from college students to a 95-year-old Jewish man.

Lake Orion senior Megan Sulewski said she took to heart Jacobs’ messages of what had been and what could be.

“It’s important to always have reminders of the world’s past, especially genocide,” Sulensky said.

Jacobs said he has been to Auschwitz nine times.

He ended the presentation by urging his listeners to remain on guard.

“I can only do so much, this lecture is nothing until people get off their ass and do something about it,“ he said.

Alex Colton, a Livonia senior, said Jacobs’ speech moved him.

“(It was) interesting to hear from a man who understands genocide the way he does, to hear his feelings and facts towards the issue,” Colton said.

Jacobs at one point read a letter from his youth describing his emotions from the holocaust. The audience applauded after he finished the letter.

“The only way to stop genocide is to understand it,” Jacobs said. “Stop it before it gets going.”

Alan Jacobs, creator of the award-winning virtual tour of Auschwitz at www.remember.org, will host student workshops at Kaya Coffee House Wednesday from 12 to 5:30 p.m.

The English department, Honors Program and Multicultural Education Center are sponsoring the visit.

Jacobs has visited Auzchwitz nine times, the first was in 1979, and he said it was an unforgettable experience.

“It blew me away,” Jacobs said. “It’s like a giant spider skeleton squatting there in the Polish countryside.”

English professor Maureen Eke said Jacobs wanted to set up opportunities where he could talk to students on a personal level.

“He wants to sit down and have coffee with students and reconnect with students,” she said.

Eke said Jacobs was invited to CMU as a guest speaker for her course, ENG 460: Current Issues in English, but she wanted to provide an opportunity for other students and faculty to meet him.

Members of the CMU community can benefit tremendously from Jacobs’ visit, Eke said said.

English professor Ron Primeau said Jacobs has done a lot of research on the causes of genocide and how it can be prevented.

“He’s going to be talking about our responsibility to learn why genocide happens,” he said. “He feels we can do something about it.”

Jacobs will be giving a public lecture Thursday from 11 to 12:30 p.m. in Park Library Auditorium entitled “Dear Auschwitz.”

During the presentation, he will read to the audience a “Letter to Auschwitz” that he once wrote.

Jacobs said he has learned through his research that genocide is still an issue.

“It started to dawn on me that it was bigger than the Holocaust,” he said. “It’s a human problem.”

Eke said all students should attend Jacobs’ lecture because everyone is affected by these issues.

“The issue of human rights is something all of us should be concerned about,” she said. “All human rights can be violated at any time.”

It was that comment Holly senior Christine Hadley said stood out to her Monday night as Holocaust survivor Gerhard Weinberg spoke to a packed Bovee University Center Auditorium.

“It was surprising to me hearing people felt that way,” Hadley said.
Weinberg, a 2009 recipient of the Pritzker Military Library Award for Lifetime Achievement, shared his experiences and knowledge of Adolf Hitler and Germany during World War II.

Rochester Hills junior Zac Kaczanowski listens while Gerhard Weinberg, a noted military historian, lectures on Hitler and the beginning of Holocaust on Monday evening in the Bovee University Center Auditorium. Weinberg gave the inaugural lecture in the Central Michigan University's Harold Abel Endowed Lecture Series in the Study of Dictatorship, Democracy and Genocide, which aims to bring distinguished scholars to campus to discuss the past, present, and future of worldwide genocide. (Sean Proctor/Staff Photographer)

Weinberg has written many books about Hitler and WWII, and even edited for publication a book that Hitler himself dictated in 1928 but was never published.

Monday night Weinberg discussed the relevancy of the annihilation of the Jews with Hitler’s plan for war.

Weinberg said Hitler planned to destroy all the Jews in Germany and Europe when addressing the German Parliament on Jan. 30, 1939.

Students and guest unable to get into the auditorium huddled around the entrances of the doors listening in to what Weinberg said in his lecture.

Reed City graduate student Emily Miniear said she was impacted when Weinberg talked about the destruction of his synagogue during Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.

Of all the horrible events throughout the Holocaust, this night affected him the most and remains with him still, Weinberg said.

“I felt that this was extremely powerful,” Miniear said. “It was the moment in his childhood that he lost faith in humankind. He spoke about this with great remorse, as if it was something he’d never regain.”

The world today is very much related too the events that took place in the period of 1939 to1945, Weinberg said. He believes the United Sates today grew out of the events from WWII.

He said education and teaching is key so that no one can forget what happened to bring the world at war.

“I lecture on this topic and time period because of the world today,” Weinberg said. “It is important to understand the Holocaust and war are the same.”

Weinberg’s entire address will remain with her, Miniear said.

Ever since she read “The Diary of Anne Frank,” she realized the importance of education, she said.

“What else do we have left as individuals if not the ability to educate those generations that can make the difference?” Miniear said.

Stevensville freshman Josh Brummett was not really sure what to expect from the lecture, but he appreciated being able to get a first-hand experience on the time period without reading it in a textbook.

Weinberg said he knew at a very young age he wanted to teach.

“It was when I was kicked out of school in Germany at age 11,” Weinberg said. “We went to England and the teachers there were so nice I said then I want to do that.”

Miniear said one must always remember that education is key, and what Weinberg has done throughout his lifetime is a testament to that belief.