Commission holds multiple programs to mark genocide awareness month

The Rhode Island Holocaust and Genocide Education Commission and its partners were hard at work presenting educational programs during the month of April, which is Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Month.

The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide and the Rwandan Genocide all started or significantly intensified during the month of April.

The commission and its partners began educational events immediately, on April 1, with a professional development workshop co-sponsored by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center, in Providence, and the Genocide Education Project, in San Francisco. The presentation by Salve Regina University Prof. Michael Xiarhos focused on the growing use of artificial intelligence in genocide denial.

Professor Xiarhos said AI can fabricate evidence or alter historic records to support claims that the Holocaust and other genocides never happened, or have been greatly exaggerated. He gave educators tips about how to recognize this technology, while also reminding teachers to stay up to date as its development rapidly accelerates.

On April 5, the Bristol Holocaust and Genocide Center at Bristol Community College, in Massachusetts, in collaboration with the LusoCentro Porteguese Cultural Center, at BCC hosted a conference on African genocides. The symposium featured a presentation by Veronique Helenon, of the University of Massachusetts Boston, who specializes in the connection between the French-speaking African diaspora and colonialism.

Retired educator Barbara Wahlberg, who is a member of the commission, gave three presentations of her lecture, “America and the Holocaust: Jim Crow Laws, Eugenics and the March Toward Genocide in Nazi-Occupied Europe,” at the Tiverton Public Library, the Cumberland Public Library and the Harmony Library.

Wahlberg also gave two presentations of “The Ten Stages of Genocide and How Antisemitism Became an Effective Tool of the Nazis,” at the Willett Free Library, in North Kingstown, and the Newport Public Library.

From the Armenian community, commission chairwoman Pauline Getzoyan and Esther Kalajian gave four presentations of their lecture, “A Journey from Despair to Hope: The Armenian Genocide and the Story of the Armenian Americans of R.I.,” at the Cranston Public Library, the West Warwick Public Library, the Pontiac Free Library Association, in Warwick, and the Langworthy Public Library, in Hope Valley.

The commission closed out Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Month on April 28 with a multidisciplinary program called “Remembrance, Resilience and Renewal: Genocide Awareness through the Arts.” Curated by Judith Lynn Stillman, Rhode Island College’s artist-in-residence, the program brought together musicians, artists, dancers and spoken-word poets from the Cambodian, Rwandan, Liberian, Armenian, Uighur and Jewish communities. The event not only commemorated these genocides, but also encouraged dialogue and intercommunal support – a valuable resource in this time of rising fear and hatred.

For more information about the Rhode Island Holocaust and Genocide Education Commission, go to its website, at https://www.rihgec.org/home.

GIOVANNA WISEMAN is the director of programming and outreach at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center, in Providence.