Resistance of the Heart – A Valentine’s Day Program

Nathan Stoltzfus is the Rintels Professor of Holocaust Studies at Florida State University. His book Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany won numerous prestigious awards. His other books include Hitler’s Compromises: Coercion and Consensus in Nazi Germany, Protest in Hitler’s National Community: Social Unrest and the Nazi Response, Nazi Crimes and the Law and Courageous Resistance: The Power of Ordinary People. He is currently co-editing a book titled Women Defying Hitler. He has established the Rosenstrasse Foundation to document this forgotten history.

Ruth Wiseman graduated from U.C. Davis in 1992 with a B.A. in International Relations and Russian. After college she spent a year in Russia, where she interviewed Jews born in pre-Soviet times. Upon returning to her hometown of Berkeley, CA, she interviewed Russian survivors for the Holocaust Oral History Project. She was later approached by Survivors of the Shoah to be an interviewer and conducted more than three dozen interviews for the organization. Ruth is the daughter of Dr. Rita Jenny Kuhn, a Shoah survivor from Berlin, Germany who was detained at Rosenstrasse in February 1943 and released through the brave efforts of the women who protested the arrests. Ruth is the author of How the Moon Became Dim (Saturn’s Moon Press, 2017). She is working on a version of the Rosenstrasse Protest for children. 

Dr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous, Sheltering the Jews, Saving the Jews, Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust, Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust and The Righteous Among the Nations. He teaches at Stern College and Touro College and serves on the Board of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. Thanks to his efforts, there is now a square named for Aristides de Sousa Mendes as well as a street named for Raoul Wallenberg, both in Jerusalem. He is a member of the B’nai Brith committee in Israel honoring Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.