In October and November 2019, The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre presented an acclaimed international exhibition — Stars Without a Heaven: Children in the Holocaust — a special project organized along with the City University of Hong Kong and in cooperation with Yad Vashem.

The ‘Stars Without a Heaven’ Exhibition took place at the Woo Foo Foundation Gallery of the City University of Hong Kong’s Run Run Shaw Library, along with the exhibition’s opening ceremony and talk.

The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre presented a special lecture titled “Who Will Write our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto” last week at the Hong Kong International Book Fair – a major event attended by roughly one million people annually. We are delighted that the talk attracted a diverse, standing room only crowd, emphasizing the value and importance of HKHTC’s core message of tolerance and non-discrimination.

The lecture was presented by HKHTC’s Executive Director Simon K. Li in Cantonese, enabling us to connect with hundreds of local community members, including many who learned about the Holocaust for the first time as a result of this event. Focus was on Samuel Kassow’s book Who Will Write our History?, which documents a secret archive created by historian Emanuel Ringelblum in the Warsaw Ghetto. During Ringelbaum’s internment, he established a scholarly organization to record the experiences of the ghetto’s inhabitants.

In Spring 2019, HKHTC, the University of Hong Kong and Yad Vashem presented the “Spot of Light: Women in the Holocaust” exhibition at both St. Paul’s Co-educational College in Central and the St. Paul’s Convent School in Causeway Bay. There were also opening lectures delivered by HKHTC board member and HKU professor Dr Roland Vogt.

Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, is observed every year. It is a day of commemoration of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust as a result of actions carried out by Nazi Germany. On 2 May 2019, HKHTC was honored to host the annual Yom Hashoah ceremony, which was held at the Jewish Community Centre, in remembrance of the millions of Jewish lives that perished in the Holocaust. Religious and lay leaders, representatives from many consulates, students, and members of the community paused both to reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust and recommit to engaging with its history and mandate.

On 27 April 2019, the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, Facing History and Ourselves and Asia Society organized a one-day workshop which aimed to prepare teachers to interweave a literary analysis of Elie Wiesel’s powerful and poignant memoir with an exploration of the relevant historical context underlying Wiesel’s experience. The workshop explored the central questions: How is our identity shaped and reshaped by the circumstances we encounter? How do tragedy and trauma influence an individual’s identity and choices?

Thanks so much for joining our teachers training workshop with Facing History and Ourselves at Asia Society last weekend. It was wonderful to have a full house.

On 3 March 2019, the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre was delighted to co-organise the screening and discussion event ‘Bye Bye Germany’ at Broadway Cinematheque:

Bye Bye Germany –
Screening and Discussion with Simon K. Li, HKHTC Executive Director

Chinese and English captions will be available.  電影提供中、英文字幕。
The post-screening discussion will be conducted in Cantonese.  座談會以廣東話進行。

About the speaker:
Simon K. Li is the Executive Director of 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.

More about the film:
https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Bye-Bye-Germany-an-engaging-tale-of-Jews-12875292.php

HKHTC was pleased to jointly coordinate the opening ceremony of the ‘Spots of Light: Women in the Holocaust’ exhibition with the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Wednesday, 13 February. The well-attended event included presentations by Israeli Consul-General Ahuva Spieler, HKHTC board member Dr. Roland Vogt, HKU academic Elizabeth LaCouture and Elsa High School students Elianna Diestel and Sarah Cohen.

This is a special project organized along with the University of Hong Kong and in cooperation with Yad Vashem.

Budapest-born Holocaust survivor, Ms Eva Koralnik, Eva spoke to 11 schools and universities during her visit to Hong Kong and Macau. Her presentations created a personal connection with over 3,000 students and community members, the large majority of whom never previously met a Holocaust survivor. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive as Eva made an unforgettable impression on everyone who heard her story.