NEWSLETTER
Public program takes place on Thursday, March 21
Rochester, N.Y. (March 5, 2024) —The George Eastman Museum presents Viewing Traumatic Imagery: Holocaust Photography in Context, an expert discussion detailing the ethics of viewing traumatic imagery through the lens of the Holocaust. This talk, which features authors Wendy Lower and Valerie Hébert, will be held on Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. in the museum’s Dryden Theatre, and is open to the public.
The program will focus on the analysis of Holocaust photographs for research and teaching and the advantages, disadvantages, and ethics of viewing traumatic imagery. Wendy Lower’s volume, The Ravine, reveals layers of detail concerning the open-air massacres in Ukraine to enhance understanding of the place of the family unit in the ideology of Nazi genocide. Valerie Hébert’s edited volume, Framing the Holocaust, examines a series of photographs documenting a mass shooting in Latvia that is nearly unbearable to view and offers a multidimensional response to the question of why we should, including the challenges and responsibilities of using photographs to teach about atrocity. Note: Program includes graphic images of violence.
Hébert is professor of history and interdisciplinary studies at Lakehead University Orillia. She has received research fellowships from the German Historical Institute and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, among other institutions. Hébert has written extensively about the place of the Holocaust in the evolution of Human Rights Law, among other areas. She is the author of Hitler’s Generals on Trial: The Last War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg (2010) and co-editor of Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941 (2023).
Lower is the John K. Roth Professor of History and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. Lower chairs the academic committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and previously served as acting director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (2016-2018). Her book Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been translated into twenty-three languages. Her latest volume, The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (2021) received the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category.
Tickets are recommended to be reserved in advance, but will also be available at the door. A reception and book-signing with Lower and Hébert will follow the program. Books are available for purchase at the Museum Shop. Visit eastman.org for more information and to register for the event.
This program is in partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the University of Rochester, and the George Eastman Museum. It is funded in part by the Louis S. & Molly B. Wolk Foundation.
About the George Eastman Museum
Founded in 1947, the George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the largest film archives in the United States, located on the historic Rochester estate of entrepreneur and philanthropist George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography. Its holdings comprise more than 400,000 photographs, 41,000 motion picture films, the world’s preeminent collection of photographic and cinematographic technology, one of the leading libraries of books related to photography and cinema, and extensive holdings of documents and other objects related to George Eastman. As a research and teaching institution, the Eastman Museum has an active publishing program and, its L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation’s graduate program (a collaboration with the University of Rochester) makes critical contributions to film preservation. For more information, visit eastman.org and follow the George Eastman Museum account on Facebook, as well as the @eastmanmuseum accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and Threads.
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Media Contact: Nathaniel Smith
(585) 327-4813