History of the Holocaust: Resilience and Rescue
June 29 - June 30, 2020
Dr. Joanna Sliwa is a historian of the Holocaust and Polish Jewish history. She has taught in the History Department at Rutgers University, and in the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program at Kean University.
Joanna served as a faculty advisor to the Master Teacher Institute in Holocaust Education at the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, where she also taught summer mini-courses on the Holocaust for teachers.
In addition to her teaching and scholarship, Dr. Sliwa serves as a translator and historical consultant for projects ranging from academic texts, to websites, and films. Her book project, "Concealed Presence: Jewish Children in German-Occupied Krakow" explores how the Holocaust progressed in Krakow, Poland, from the perspective of Jewish children's experiences. She is currently a historian at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).
Chris Nicola is a senior investigator for New York State with a law enforcement career spanning thirty-seven years. He spends most of his free time caving, serving as a public speaker, and further developing a story that he first heard as a rumor in Ukraine twenty years ago: a story of how a group of Jews survived the Holocaust by living in a cave for more than a year. To date, he has confirmed the story by locating fourteen of the original thirty-eight cave dwellers, and coauthoring a book that led to the making of No Place on Earth, a documentary film about their experiences. Nicola runs the Priest’s Grotto Heritage Project, a genocide awareness project in which the grandchildren of those who lived in Priest’s Grotto Cave during the Holocaust work hand-in-hand with the grandchildren of those who lived above the cave in building an exhibit to honor what those courageous thirty-eight people did so long ago. The hope is that by keeping this story alive for future generations, it will help to prevent genocides such as the Holocaust from ever happening again.
Colleen Tambuscio is the Pedagogical Consultant to the MTI and has served in this position for over fifteen years. She is a long time special education and regular education teacher and a leading voice in Holocaust education, both in New Jersey, as founder and president of the Council of Holocaust Educators, a statewide professional development organization, and nationally. Colleen has an MA in Jewish-Christian Studies from Seton Hall University, and is an educational consultant to the NJ Commission on Holocaust Education.
She established a Holocaust education curriculum at New Milford High School which now includes two elective classes — “The Holocaust, Genocide and Human Behavior” and “Contemporary Genocide: A Call to Action.”
Colleen was honored by Princeton University as a Distinguished Teacher and by the New Milford Educational Foundation. In 1998, Colleen was named a Mandel Fellow to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and continues to serve as a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Regional Educator.
Two-Day Advanced Seminar: Media and Migration in Uncertain Times
July 1 - July 2, 2020
Peter Adams is senior vice president of education at The News Literacy Project, a national education nonprofit offering nonpartisan, independent programs that teach students how to know what to trust in the digital age. Since joining NLP in 2009, he has coordinated classroom and after-school programs, served as Chicago program manager, worked on organizational strategy, developed NLP’s digital program, and provided news literacy training and workshops to educators and others throughout the area. He currently oversees NLP’s education team, which develops resources and training for teachers.
Adams began his career as a classroom teacher in the New York City schools through Teach for America. He has also taught in the Chicago public schools, at Roosevelt University and at Chicago City Colleges’ Wilbur Wright campus. In addition, he has worked with the NYC Teaching Fellows program, with After School Matters and as an independent education consultant.
Adam Strom is the director of Re-Imagining Migration, an organization whose mission is to ensure that all young people grow up understanding migration as a fundamental characteristic of the human condition. The organization works with educational leaders and social organizations to develop the knowledge, empathy, and mindsets that sustain inclusive and welcoming communities. The print and digital educational resources developed under Strom’s direction have been used in tens of thousands of classrooms and experienced by millions of students around the world. These materials include numerous mini-documentaries on identity, prejudice, the Holocaust, genocide, and civil and human rights, as well as the following books: Stories of Identity: Religion, Migration, and Belonging in a Changing World; What Do We Do with a Difference? France and the Debate over Headscarves in Schools; Identity and Belonging in a Changing Great Britain; and the viewer’s guide to I Learn America. Before helping to found Re-Imagining Migration, Strom was a longtime member of the senior leadership team at Facing History and Ourselves.
Colleen Tambuscio is the Pedagogical Consultant to the MTI and has served in this position for over twelve years. She is a long time special education and regular education teacher and a leading voice in Holocaust education, both in New Jersey, as founder and president of the Council of Holocaust Educators, a statewide professional development organization, and nationally. Colleen has an MA in Jewish-Christian Studies from Seton Hall University, and is an educational consultant to the NJ Commission on Holocaust Education.
She established a Holocaust education curriculum at New Milford High School which now includes two elective classes — “The Holocaust, Genocide and Human Behavior” and “Contemporary Genocide: A Call to Action.”
Colleen was honored by Princeton University as a Distinguished Teacher and by the New Milford Educational Foundation. In 1998, Colleen was named a Mandel Fellow to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and continues to serve as a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Regional Educator.
