Events by location: Center for Jewish History

On April 11, 1945, Buchenwald was liberated. Nearly 1,000 boys survived. Sixty-five years later, several of the surviving boys from Block 66 returned to Weimar and to Buchenwald.

In his new collection of essays, The Fan Who Knew Too Much (June 2012, Knopf), author Anthony Heilbut ranges across American culture with observations on the career of Aretha Franklin, gays in gospel music, the early history of soap operas, and the world of German exiles from Arendt to Zweig.

This documentary focuses on an encounter between Eric Pleskow and Ari Rath, who both had to flee from Austria and the Nazi regime. These two extraordinary men just recently found out that they grew up in the same Viennese street, the Porzellangasse.

Shanghai was the last refuge for almost 20,000 German and Austrian Jews between 1936 and 1941, virtually the last place they could go where visas were not required. This exhibition brings together rare archival documents, photos, artwork, as well as books and periodicals printed in China that document the refugee’s experience in China.

Emerging stars like the American Baritone Thomas Megliorenza, French Violinist Fanny Clamigirand, and German Violinist Augustin Hadelich perform works by Milhaud, Debussy, Ravel, and Felix Mendelssohn as well as a world-premiere of a piece by Somei Satoh.

Shulamit Volkov will discuss her new book, Walther Rathenau: The Life of Weimar’s Fallen Statesman about the rise and tragic end of Weimar Germany’s Jewish Foreign Minister.

Vassa Shevel and Inessa Zaretsky of the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble and a guest pianist, Ellen Braslavsky, will perform music for one and two pianos by J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Witold Lutoslavsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Astor Piazzola and Inessa Zaretsky.