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University of Redlands Remembers Holocaust With GIS Storymaps

A free program on the university's campus next week will feature a collection of GIS Storymaps, made by students as their spring seminar project, that visualize the journeys of Holocaust survivors.

GIS graphic
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(TNS) — In honor of Yom Ha'Shoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, University of Redlands students in Sharon Oster's spring seminar will present their final projects — a collection of GIS Storymaps retelling Holocaust survivors' stories, based on their study of Holocaust testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation Video History Archive — in a program Monday, April 18.

The free program is 4-6 p.m. in the Orton Center on the university campus, and it is open to the public.

Hannah Pollin-Galay, senior lecturer of literature at Tel Aviv University, will deliver a virtual keynote address, "Between Maps and Words: The Meaning of Holocaust Memory Today." Rabbi Lindy Reznick of Congregation Emanu El in Redlands will offer closing remarks on "Holocaust Remembrance Here and Now."

The event includes refreshments and an opportunity for those attending to see student map demonstrations on display throughout the Orton Center, according to a news release.

"The digital humanities methods, including making maps with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), have helped us re-envision Holocaust survivor experience and raise new questions," Oster wrote about the spring seminar project, according to the news release.

"Can digital GIS maps visualize the terrifying, tumultuous journeys of Holocaust survivors? We now know mapping can illuminate the scope and scale of the Holocaust and spatial and geographical dimensions of individual experience. But for all that maps show, what can't they represent?" Oster wrote.

"Where do we locate terror, grief, or loss on a map? Can maps help us witness what Primo Levi called 'the destruction of humanity' at the heart of the Nazi genocide, or for that matter, individual resilience or resistance to it?"

The project was made possible by a grant from the Holocaust Education Foundation of Northwestern University and support from the University of Redlands English department, Center for Spatial Studies, Office of Campus Diversity and Inclusion and Armacost Library and the University of Redlands Hillel.

©2022 the Redlands Daily Facts (Redlands, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.