May 8 - Cara de Silva Lecture

A collection of recipes that were exchanged by the women inmates of concentration camps have been compiled in a book, In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin, by columnist/editor/author Cara de Silva. The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education is proud to present as part of Holocaust Awareness Weeks 2003: Women and the Holocaust, the tastes and smells that were fondly remembered by these inmates. De Silva’s lecture, In Memory’s Kitchen: Reflections on a Recently Discovered Form of Holocaust Literature, focuses on the dream cookbooks that were obviously not intended for use at the stove. A committee of area women will work with de Silva’s lecture to incorporate the strong senses of taste and smell that will bring to life the memories of the women’s recipes through food samples made by area Holocaust survivors. This talk will be on Thursday, May 8 at 4 pm. at the Max Kade German Cultural Center, University of Cincinnati.

The committee includes area Holocaust survivors, Dina Bure, Roma Kaltman, Hanna Lewin, Trudi Koppel, and Zell Schulman. Zell Schulman, a friend of de Silva’s and also a cookbook author, conceived and organized the idea of using food as a means to incorporate the senses of taste and smell into Cara de Silva’s lecture. All of these women understand the capacity of food to nourish not only the body, but also the spirit. Women inmates exchanged recipe collections in concentration camps as means of keeping sane, and a way for the women to comfort themselves by recalling a gentler time. They also served as something else—a form of psychological resistance. To remember the dishes once cooked, the traditional foods with which women inmates once celebrated, is to reinforce a sense of who these women were when those around them sought to destroy both them and their culture.

In Memory’s Kitchen; A Legacy from the Women of Terezin was voted one of the New York Times Book Review’s Most Noteworthy Books of the Year in 1996. A book signing featuring author, Cara de Silva will be held on Friday, May 9, 2003. 11:30 am. at Borders Bookstore, 11711 Princeton Road. Cara de Silva’s visit is made possible through the generosity of the Taft Memorial Fund and the German Studies Department at the University of Cincinnati.

Holocaust Awareness Weeks 2003: Women and the Holocaust is a community-wide Holocaust Education effort which brings programs in music, film, food, lecture, art, and theater to all facets of the greater Cincinnati community. These programs give voice to women survivors, resisters, and rescuers whose distinctive stories have been neglected, humanize the Holocaust by focusing on the details of individual experiences, and promote the core values of tolerance, justice, hope, pluralism, and empowerment. The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is committed to programs invigorating the community with an awareness of the Holocaust as distinct for women, their roles and challenges, and the inability to overcome powerlessness.

The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education is an education and community resource center located on the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. It offers workshops, professional training seminars, and graduate courses. Teaching Holocaust Studies from academic and theological perspectives, The Center promotes tolerance and social justice in a broad range of civic and cultural concerns. For more information, contact The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education by phone (513) 221-1875, ext. 355 or email chhe@huc.edu or check the website at huc.edu/chhe.