Genocide scholar and author James Waller, PhD, delivered the keynote address Tuesday, November 28 at the 40th Anniversary of the SSU Holocaust & Genocide Lecture Series. “Can we make ‘never again’ more than a slogan? Can we make it a lived reality?” Waller asked the 200-plus attendees in the Student Center ballroom. The event also included remarks from Holocaust survivor Rena Victor, SSU President Mike Lee, Petaluma Vice Mayor Janice Cader Thompson, and representatives from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and the Alliance for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide. Professor Diane Parness, past Academic Coordinator of the lecture series, provided a history of the series. The anniversary program was emceed by Dean Troi Carleton of the School of Social Sciences.
For four decades the lecture series has brought Holocaust and genocide survivors, liberators and rescuers, and leading scholars in the field from around the world to Sonoma State. Personal eyewitness accounts of survivors of the Holocaust and the Rwandan, Cambodian, and Bosnian genocides have lent power and perspective to the lectures. The series is unique in that it serves as both a semester-long credit course for students and a free public forum.