Presentations

This is a select list of previous and upcoming public presentations and appearances.

I frequently present to public and academic audiences on all aspects of American responses to the Holocaust; immigration and the refugee crisis; American college students and the Holocaust; refugee aid networks; Holocaust-era diaries; and the Hoecker album. The selected presentations listed below represent my own scholarship, not talks given under the auspices of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Rescue Board” and the War Refugee Board

I have given hundreds of talks in 28 states and Washington, DC, on Rescue Board and the work of the War Refugee Board. Through the Jewish Book Council network, I was invited to 30 communities between 2018-2020. This list represents a sample of my War Refugee Board talks.

  • Chautauqua Institute (Chautauqua, NY), July 2023
  • Holocaust Museum Houston (Houston, TX), June 2023
  • New Hampshire Humanities (Concord, NH), virtual, 2023
  • National Capitol Historical Society (Washington, DC), virtual, 2023 (video link)
  • Echoes and Reflections (nationwide), virtual, 2022
  • Holocaust Resource Center (Buffalo, NY), virtual, 2021
  • Tolerance Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN), virtual, 2021
  • Holocaust Center for Humanity (Seattle, WA), virtual, 2020
  • Jewish Federation of Omaha (Omaha, NE), 2020
  • Jewish Federation of NE NY (Albany, NY), 2020
  • JCC of Dallas (Dallas, TX), 2020
  • Kean College, Pantirer Scholars Lecture (Union, NJ), 2019
  • Mizel Arts and Culture Center (Denver, CO), 2019
  • University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT), 2019
  • Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (Overland Park, KS), 2019
  • Washington Hebrew Congregation (Washington, DC), 2019
  • Greensboro Bound Book Festival (Greensboro, NC), 2019
  • University of Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls, IA), 2019
  • Joint Distribution Committee Archives (New York), First Annual Helen Cohen Memorial Lecture, 2018 (video link)
  • JCC of Metropolitan Detroit (Detroit, MI), 2018
  • St. Louis Jewish Book Festival (St. Louis, MO), 2019
  • Marcus JCC Book Festival (Atlanta, GA), 2019
  • FDR Presidential Library (Hyde Park, NY), 2018
  • Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ), 2018
  • Claremont McKenna College (Claremont, CA), 2018 (video link)
  • Heinz History Center/Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA), 2018
  • US Treasury Department (Washington, DC), 2018
  • US State Department (Washington, DC), 2018
  • Politics and Prose (Washington, DC), 2018 (video link)
  • Wilson Center History and Public Policy program (Washington, DC), 2018

Selected Presentations:

  • “Fort Ontario and the Birth of American Refugee Policy,” Chautauqua Institute, 2023.
  • Shakespeare Hour Live, Here There are Blueberries, panelist, Shakespeare Theater Company, Washington, DC, 2023. (video link)
  • “Treasury’s Response to the Holocaust,” panelist, US Department of Treasury, 2023.
  • “The Fort Ontario Refugees: Should They Stay or Should They Go?” keynote, Fort Ontario conference, Oswego, NY, 2023.
  • “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” panelist alongside filmmakers, Kino International, Berlin, Germany, 2022. (Sponsored by US Embassy Berlin)
  • Governor’s 42nd annual Holocaust Commemoration, with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Cincinnati, OH, 2022. (video link)
  • “Defiance in Connecticut: When Southbury Said No,” panelist, Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY, 2022. (video link)
  • “America’s Refugee Camp: Voices of Fort Ontario,” panelist, Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY, 2021. (video link)
  • “Artists Migrating to the United States, In and Beyond the Nazi Period,” panelist, The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized, and Banned Art, NY, 2021. (video link)
  • “Our Man in Budapest: Raoul Wallenberg, the United States, and the Myth of a Plan,” 31st annual Belin Lecture, University of Michigan, 2021. (video link)
  • “The Fort Ontario Refugees,” keynote, 75th anniversary reunion and commemoration of the arrival of the Fort Ontario refugees, Oswego, NY, 2019.
  • “American Responses to the Rise of Nazism and the Refugee Crisis in the 1930s and 1940s,” US Commission on Civil Rights, 2019.
  • “The Last Boat’: The Impact of the Encroaching War on Refugee Immigration to the United States, 1938-1941,” Association of Jewish Studies annual conference, Boston, MA, 2018.
  • “The Last Boat’: The Impact of the Encroaching War on Refugee Immigration to the United States, 1938-1941,” Exploring Refugee Data conference, Prague, Czech Republic, 2018.
  • “Myths of American Indifference: The St. Louis, Anne Frank, and the War Refugee Board,” American Historical Association annual conference, Washington, DC, 2018.
  • “The United States War Refugee Board, the Neutral Nations, and the Holocaust in Hungary,” “Bystanders, Rescuers or Perpetrators? The Neutral Countries and the Shoah” conference, sponsored by the International Holocaust Remembrance Authority, Madrid, Spain, 2014.