by George J Elbaum

Each year Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) holds the Powell and Heller Conference on Holocaust Education.  The conference is a two-day event dedicated to bringing educators to the PLU campus to consider ways to better teach the Holocaust, and thus the lessons of tolerance, in middle and secondary schools.  I was invited to participate in this year’s Fifth Annual Conference as the Survivor Speaker, and the audience of about 200 seemed to be composed of equal numbers of educators and PLU students, with both groups enthusiastically involved in the question & answer session.  Following the talk I participated in a panel “NEVER AGAIN: Community Conversation” with Nancy Powell as moderator, Nick Coddington of the Charles Wright Academy, and Laurie Reddy, a PLU student.

The annual Powell and Heller Conference is sponsored by Nancy Powell, her sister Carol Heller and their respective families, and is organized by Robert Ericksen, the Kurt Mayer Chair in Holocaust Studies at PLU.  Both Robert and Kurt were also speakers at the conference.  My participation was arranged by Janna Charles of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.

Note: If your photo (below) has only a letter instead of your name, please email it to me via this weblog together with the letter and I’ll exchange them 🙂  Also, the first/large photo below is by PLU photographer John Froshauer.