Voices on Antisemitism United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Katharina von Schnurbein is the European Commission’s Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism. Von Schnurbein works with EU Member States, the European Parliament, civil society organizations, and academia to strengthen policy responses to antisemitism, as well as to hate crimes and discrimination more broadly.

Born in Iran, Maziar Bahari is a journalist, filmmaker, and human rights activist. He has made two films on the Holocaust: one about the refugees aboard the St. Louis and, most recently, about Iranian diplomat Abdol Hossein Sardari, who saved Jews in occupied France. Bahari was imprisoned by the Iranian government from June to October 2009.

Sarah Wildman is a journalist and the author of Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind. In her book, Wildman documents a journey to find her grandfather’s girlfriend Valy Scheftel, who stayed behind in Vienna in 1938 when he immigrated to America. The book is a detailed portrait of one young woman’s experience during the Holocaust, but also a deliberation about this generation’s role in preserving memory.

As a child of survivors, Raya Kalisman first experienced the Holocaust as a family tragedy, and a deeply personal narrative. As a young teacher, she was among the first generation to bring Holocaust studies to the classroom, as a historical narrative for Israeli students. But ultimately, Kalisman began to view the Holocaust as human narrative to be shared and studied across cultures. And in 1995, she founded the Center for Humanistic Education at the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum in Israel.

After a deadly attack on a Copenhagen synagogue in 2015, Niddal El-Jabri felt compelled to act. Inspired by expressions of non-violent solidarity happening as part of the Arab Spring, El-Jabri decided to organize a “peace ring” around the synagogue.

James Loeffler is an associate professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Virginia. He is a trained pianist, musicologist, and specialist on Jewish classical music. He serves as scholar-in-residence at Pro Musica Hebraica in Washington, DC, and has curated concerts at the Kennedy Center.