‘The Auschwitz Album’ Exhibition in Sept. 2017

2017-09-27T18:45:28+08:00

In September 2017, the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre was pleased to present a unique set of photographs – The Auschwitz Album – an exhibition organized along with the University of Hong Kong’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures and in cooperation with Yad Vashem and the HKU Libraries. The Auschwitz Album is one of the most significant photographic collections of 20th century European history. They are the only surviving images documenting the systematic murder of European Jews by Germany between 1941-1945 at the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The images capture the arrival at Auschwitz of a Jewish transport from Carpatho-Ruthenia in May 1944. The most striking fact of the album is its discovery by Lili Jacob, a survivor of that very same death transport. The Auschwitz Album is a critical primary source reminding us of the horrors and barbarism that took place at heart of Europe over 70 years ago.

‘The Auschwitz Album’ Exhibition took place at the Main Library, The University of Hong Kong, along with an opening talk ‘The Auschwitz Album and its Historical Significance’ by our board member Dr Roland Vogt.

Read More

HKHTC’s op-ed on the 75th Anniversary of Anne Frank’s Diary Appeared in Apple Daily

2017-08-25T12:34:08+08:00

中心總監李家豪與研究助理林卓瀚在《蘋果日報》撰寫關於《安妮日記》75週年的評論。

The widely-circulated HK-based Apple Daily just published an HKHTC op-ed on the 75th Anniversary of Anne Frank’s Diary. Our director of education Simon K. Li was recently the Anne Frank House’s Visiting Educator in the Netherlands. The article can be accessed by clicking here.

Read More

Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Tamaki Matsuoka Discussed Her Nanjing Massacre Film with Director of Education Simon Li

2017-08-25T08:36:29+08:00

Well-respected Japanese documentary filmmaker Tamaki Matsuoka and Director of Education Simon Li discussed her lifetime work on the Nanjing Massacre and her documentary Torn Memories of Nanjing. Ms Matsuoka is dedicated to educate the Japanese public about the Nanjing Massacre. She has been collecting information from survivors and perpetrators for more than two decades.

Read More

‘Watchers of the Sky’ Screening at the 7th Human Rights Documentary Film Festival

2017-09-27T19:00:49+08:00Tags: , |

On 22 and 25 September 2017, the HKHTC was delighted to co-organise two screenings and discussion event with the Amnesty International:

Watchers of the Sky (天空守望者) – Screening and Discussion with Simon Li, HKHTC Director of Education
Chinese accessible captions will be available. 電影提供中文通達字幕。
The post-screening discussion will be conducted in Cantonese. 座談會以廣東話進行。

Venue: Broadway Cinematheque (Prosperous Garden, 3 Public Square Street, Yaumatei)
地點: 百老匯電影中心 (油麻地眾坊街3號駿發花園) 

About the film: Raphael Lemkin, a young Jewish lawyer from Poland, was forced to flee to the United States alone during the Holocaust, later learned that 49 members of his family were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Lemkin was a person who believed deeply in the rule of law. He created the term “genocide” and spent most of his life pushing the United Nations to create the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Lemkin also pushed to have some sort of enforcement mechanism in place, although he did not live to see the creation of what we now know of as the International Criminal Court. Lemkin passed away in New York City alone in 1959.

Watchers of The Sky interweaves the stories of four modern humanitarian advocates, including the last surviving prosecutor from Nuremberg, while exploring the long-forgotten story of Raphael Lemkin. For those who want to deepen their knowledge about the violent acts committed during World War II and modern International Criminal Law, you would not want to miss this film!

關於電影: 居於波蘭的猶太裔年青律師Raphael Lemkin被迫移居美國，及後得知其49名親人死於納粹集中營。Lemkin深信法治精神，可惜國際法庭卻苦無法律制止不斷重演的大屠殺。他因而創作genocide (種族滅絕) 一詞，致力推動聯合國採納並通過《防止及懲治滅絕種族罪公約》，成功為紐倫堡審判與國際刑事法院的工作奠定了重要基礎。1959年，Lemkin在紐約市孤獨地去世。

《天空守望者》連結四名人道主義者的故事，包括最後一位尚存的紐倫堡檢察官，同時側寫Lemkin被遺忘的事蹟。希望深度認識國際刑事法的由來的觀眾，萬勿錯過！

About the speaker: Simon Li is the Director of Education at the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre. An award-winning former journalist in Canada, he was a Senior Lecturer and Visiting Educator at the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank House in Spring 2017.

關於講者: 李家豪現為香港猶太大屠殺及寬容中心總監 (教育)。李曾是加拿大獲獎記者和高級講師。在本年上旬，李擔任荷蘭阿姆斯特丹安妮之家 (Anne Frank House) 訪問學人。

Read More

On 72nd Anniversary Of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, HKHTC Director Met with Korean Victims of Atomic Bombs

2017-08-25T08:30:10+08:00Tags: , , |

As the world marks the 72nd anniversary of the A-bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Director of Education Simon K. Li interviewed with Mr Kim, a 91-year-old Korean victim of atomic bombs, in Seoul, along with other elderly atomic bomb victims whose tragic stories have now been almost forgotten.

Read More

Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association’s Director & HKHTC Director Discussed Cases of Korean Hiroshima Victims

2017-08-25T08:33:58+08:00Tags: , , |

On the eve of the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Director of Education Simon Li met with Mr Sim Jintae, the Director of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association in South Korea. Mr Sim was a baby at the time when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thousands of Koreans who survived the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan in the final days of WWII have struggled for decades with debilitating illness, poverty and discrimination with little help coming from Tokyo or Seoul.

Mr Li and Mr Sim discussed the association’s journey of struggles and its mission, as well as the experiences of some Korean Hiroshima victims who were in Japan as forced labour or had left Korea voluntarily to escape poverty. When these survivors returned to a divided Korea after Japan’s defeat, they were shunned out of fear of radiation poisoning-related illnesses while many struggled for decades due to ill health and mounting medical expenses. According to Mr Sim, there were about 70,000 Korean victims in total at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, with 40,000 dying in the blasts or shortly after. Japanese data shows slightly smaller numbers.

Read More

UNESCO’s APCEIU Team & HKHTC Director Simon Li Discussed Global Citizenship Education

2017-08-25T08:41:42+08:00Tags: , , |

In summer 2017, Director of Education Simon Li visited the UNESCO’s Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) in South Korea. Mr Li met with Ms Anna Chung, the APCEIU’s Head of External Relations, and her team. They had a very meaningful discussion on global citizenship education and Holocaust education in East Asia.

APCEIU is a UNESCO Category 2 Centre established in 2000 by the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Korea and UNESCO in order to promote and develop Education for International Understanding (EIU) and Global Citizenship Education (GCED) with UNESCO member states. GCED aims to empower learners to assume active roles to face and resolve global challenges and to become proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and sustainable world.

Read More

Secretary-General of the History NGO Forum for Peace in East Asia and HKHTC Director Discussed Peace Education in Asia

2017-08-25T08:47:57+08:00Tags: , |

HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li met with Mr Kang Sungho, Secretary-General of the History NGO Forum for Peace in East Asia, which recently organized the 7th International NGO Conference on History and Peace (in collaboration with the Northeast Asian History Foundation) at Korea University. Mr Kang and Mr Li had an in-depth discussion in Seoul which focused on teaching for peace as well as historical justice and the way it is perceived in East Asia.

Read More

Director of Korea Chongshindae’s Institute met with HKHTC Director in Gyeonggi-do

2017-08-11T09:36:10+08:00Tags: , , |

HKHTC Director of Education Simon K. Li met with Professor Lee (李聖順所長), Director of the Korea Chongshindae’s Institute, in Gyeonggi-do. The two researchers discussed the history of Korean women drafted for military sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II. It is estimated that 50,000 to 300,000 Korean women were forced to become military sex slaves during the war. Since 1990, when the institute was founded, and Kim Hak-soon and Moon Ok-ju’s public statements were made in 1991, more former Korean comfort women survivors have since come forward or signed up as comfort women victims.

Korea Chongshindae’s Institute is the only research institute in Korea which aims at research on the Chongshindae issues. Since its establishment in July 1990, the institute’s voluntary research staff have been devoted to disclosing the truth about the Chongshindae, which, for half a century after WWII, had been neglected.

Read More

HKHTC Director Paid Tribute to Former Comfort Woman Ms Kim Gun-ja in Korea

2017-08-25T08:49:09+08:00Tags: , , |

This July, one of the few remaining Korean comfort women survivors Ms Kim gun-ja passed away shortly before HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li arrived in Seoul. Mr Li was invited to attend her memorial services and he also talked to former comfort woman Ms Lee Yong-su, a close friend of Ms Kim, after the funeral.

“I lived a hellish existence at the comfort station, facing an average of 20 Japanese soldiers every day, and sometimes as many as 40. I came to the US because I needed to hear an apology from Japan before I died… We want them to understand that there is a price to pay for the human rights violations and war crimes they committed.” Kim Gun-ja testified to the horrors of her experience of being a Japanese military comfort woman at a Feb. 2007 hearing on the issue before the US House of Representatives. Ms Kim is the third comfort woman survivor to pass away in South Korea this year. The number of survivors has now dwindled to 37 of the 239 registered with the South Korean government. Our Director of Education was at the site of commemoration in Seoul (video in Cantonese):

https://www.facebook.com/hkhtc/videos/1326191444165286/

居住在南韓的日軍慰安婦受害者金君子剛剛因病去世，終年91歲，令南韓政府登記備案的慰安婦數目只剩餘37人。中心教育總監李家豪最近在首爾應邀出席金女士的悼念活動和與幾位南韓慰安婦受害人會面，而首爾民眾亦在日本使館前集會致哀。

Read More
© Copyright 2011 - | Hong Kong Holocaust & Tolerance Centre: All Rights Reserved | Website Creative Art Mix
FacebookX
Go to Top