Panel Discussion in Conjunction with the Exhibition “Between Life and Death: Stories of Rescue During the Holocaust”

This free panel discussion, with a reception, held at the Center for Jewish History, accompanies the exhibition Between Life and Death: Stories of Rescue during the Holocaust, on view at the United Nations from January 15 to February 20, 2026. The discussion will focus on acts of rescue, individual moral choices, and the legacy of human solidarity during one of the darkest periods in history.

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THE SCHEDULE

⇒ 6:00 pm US Eastern Time, please join us in person for a reception of light hors d’oeuvres sponsored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York. We look forward to meeting you!

⇒ 7:00-8:30 pm US Eastern Time, panel discussion. Please note that the Zoom livestream will also begin at 7:00 p.m.

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MEET THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007 and is now on the Board of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. His books include Remembrance and Meaning: Dialogues and Thoughts on the Significance of Holocaust Rescuers; The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust; Sheltering the Jews: Stories of Holocaust Rescuers; Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans and Reconciliation; Whosoever Saves One Life: The Uniqueness of the Righteous Among the Nations; Saving the Jews: Amazing Stories of Men and Women Who Defied the Final Solution; Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust; German Rescuers of Jews: Individuals versus the Nazi System; Polish Rescuers of Jews: Selected Stories of Amazing Acts of Goodness; Poland, the Jews and the Holocaust: Promised Beginnings and Troubled Past; Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust and Righteous or Not: The Honoring of Rescuers of Jews. He serves on the B’nai B’rith Commission to honor Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. Thanks to his efforts, there is now a square named for Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Jerusalem. He provided the list of 60 diplomat-rescuers honored by the US Congress in 2024 in the Forgotten Heroes of the Holocaust Congressional Gold Medal Act.

Elżbieta Ficowska  was born in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 to Henia and Jossel Koppel. She survived because she was smuggled to the “Aryan side” and was hid from Germans by Stanisława Bussold, a 56-year-old midwife and member of the underground who helped Jews. The only thing left from her Jewish parents is a little silver spoon bearing the girl’s name and birth date. Her story is among those presented in the travelling exhibition Between Life and Death. For many years, she has been active in the Association of Children of the Holocaust, sharing her personal testimony of rescue and remembrance.

Jay Winter, left, is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and a leading scholar of 20th-century European history. A specialist on World War I, he has profoundly influenced the study of memory, mourning, and the cultural consequences of modern conflict. He is the author of numerous seminal works, including Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (1995), The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996), René Cassin and Human Rights (2013), The Cultural History of War in the Twentieth Century and After (2022), and most recently The Day the Great War Ended, 24 July 1923: The Civilianization of War (2022). He holds honorary degrees from the universities of Graz, Leuven, and Paris.

Daniel Blatman, right, is the Max and Rita Haber Professor Emeritus of Contemporary Jewry and Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He previously served as director of the University’s Institute of Contemporary Jewry and of the Center for the Study of the History and Culture of Polish Jewry. His research focuses on twentieth-century Polish Jewry, the Jewish labor movement in Eastern Europe, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, Polish–Jewish relations during the Holocaust and its aftermath, and Nazi extermination policy. Among his major publications are For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland, 1939-1945; Reportage from the Ghetto: The Jewish Underground Press in the Warsaw Ghetto; The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide; and Conflicting Histories and Coexistence: New Perspectives on the Jewish-Polish Encounters. He is the recipient of the Jacob Buchman Memorial Prize, the Yad Vashem International Prize in Holocaust Studies, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.

Jayashri Wyatt, who will moderate, is the Chief of Education Outreach, in the UN Department of Global Communications. She is a seasoned communications professional with a wealth of experience in the United Nations System producing high-level events, advocacy campaigns, and films for the Department of Global Communications, UNICEF, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). She also has nearly a decade of experience as an educator championing women’s empowerment and gender equality.

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Register to join us in person or via ZOOM. Click on the link below and follow instructions.