West Chester University will play host to a film festival celebrating the late Dr. Irene Shur’s work in the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Jan. 30.The festival will be featuring documentaries done by Shur and Dr. Saul S. Friedman, professor of Jewish History at Youngstown State University and guest speaker for the day.
Dr. Jonathan Friedman, the new director of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Department at West Chester and son of Friedman is organizing the event in honor of Shur.
Shur was considered a pioneer in the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies since founding the program at West Chester University in 1978 with an undergraduate course on the Holocaust. She received a local Emmy for her work on the film CANDLES – The Story of the Mengele Twins in 1990. She was the director of the program until her death in June 2003.
Thanks to Shur, West Chester now offers a master degree in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, a certification program, an undergraduate minor, a regional education center, and a library collection.
Saul helped Shur develop the masters program at West Chester University. He is considered to be a leader in the development of Holocaust Studies in Ohio.
He received his Ph. D. from Ohio State in 1969. From there he went on to teach at Youngstown State University, where he has been the recipient of the Ohio Humanities Council Lifetime Achievement Award and the ZOA Branckis Award.
Along with many articles and books on Jewish history and the Holocaust, he has also received five local Emmy Awards for documentaries he helped write and produce.
The festival in memory of Shur will begin at 8 a.m. in Sykes Theater. The first film featured will be CANDLES, a documentary named for the Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiment, a group of twins who survived Dr. Josef Mengele’s genetic experimentation at Auschwitz.
Other films featured include “There are No More Wise Men in Chelm”, “Voices of Giants”, “Zionism in America and Robert Clary A5714: A Memoir of Liberation”, which Saul won a local Emmy for Best Cultural Production in the Ohio region.
A luncheon will be served in Ballroom C of Sykes where Saul will deliver a lecture. The events will run from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. Dr. Saul Friedman will be speaking at 11:30 a.m. in Sykes theater.
All interested should contact the Holocaust and Genocide Department for more information.