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April 29, 2004 – ACADEMIC SYMPOSIUM ON THE JEWISH WOMEN OF RAVENSBRÜCK CONCENTRATION CAMP ATTENDED BY MORE THAN 125 PEOPLE
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2004 - CUNY GRADUATE CENTER, 6-8 pm

An academic seminar to mark the publication of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp (University of Wisconsin Press) by Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel was held at The Graduate School and University Center of CUNY (City University of New York), Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, New York, NY, on Thursday, April 29, 2004.

The evening included a panel of experts on the camp, as well as testimony from survivors.
Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, author of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, director of the Remember the Women Institute, New York, and a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Women and Gender at University of São Paulo, Brazil, presented an overview of Ravensbrück, quoting some of the victims’ voices from her book.

Dr. Susan Benedict, Professor of Nursing and Graduate Studies at the Medical University of South Carolina, addressed inmate and Nazi nurses in Ravensbrück, as well as some of the “medical” experiments at the camp.

Dr. Myrna Goldenberg, Professor Emerita, currently at The Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland, co-editor of Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust, discussed women's responses to hunger in their Holocaust memoirs.

Dr. Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University, noted author on Jewish women in Germany, served as moderator, and Dr. Patricia T. Clough, Coordinator of the Women’s Studies Certificate Program and Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the CUNY Graduate Center, introduced and concluded the evening.

Local Ravensbrück survivors whose stories are included in the new book, the first on this subject in English, were invited to attend. During the discussion that followed the panelists’ presentations, two Ravensbrück survivors, Sali Solomon Daugherty and Ester Weisz Grun, spoke eloquently and movingly of their experiences.

Dr. Saidel received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center. The symposium was co-sponsored by the following units of the CUNY Graduate Center: the Political Science Department, Dr. Ruth O’Brien, Executive Officer; the Center for the Study of Women and Society, and the Women’s Studies Certificate Program, Dr. Patricia Clough, Coordinator and Director; the Center for Jewish Studies, Dr. Jane S. Gerber, Director; the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Prof. Randolph L. Braham, Director; and the Ph.D. Alumni Association of CUNY, Dr. Gertrude Schneider, President; in cooperation with the Remember the Women Institute.

All photos courtesy Daniel Wolk.

Hungarian Ravensbrück survivor Ester Weisz Grun (pictured left) shared some of her memories of Ravensbrück at the CUNY symposium on April 29. 2004.

Dutch Ravensbrück survivor Sali Solomon Daugherty (pictured right) told the CUNY symposium participants about her life as a child in Ravensbrück.

Survivors (pictured left with Rochelle Saidel) Henry Leichter, Sali Solomon Daugherty, Judith Rosner Gertler, Rochelle G. Saidel, Ester Weisz Grun, and Senator Franz Leichter(l. to r.) at the CUNY symposium marking the publication of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Käthe Pick Leichter, an Austrian Jewish political prisoner and the mother of Henry and Franz, was murdered at Ravensbrück in 1942. The three women pictured with author Rochelle G. Saidel are all survivors of the camp.

The panel participants (pictured right) at the CUNY academic symposium on April 29, left to right, Dr. Susan Benedict, Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, Dr. Myrna Goldenberg, Dr. Marion Kaplan, and Dr. Patricia Clough.

Author Rochelle G. Saidel (pictured above left) signing a copy of her new book, The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp