The annual Raul Hilberg Memorial Lecture, presented by UVM’s Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies on Monday, November 13, presented the opportunity to recognize and appreciate the deep impact of donor contributions to the Center since its establishment in 1993. 

Prior to the introduction of featured speaker Wendy Lower of Claremont McKenna College, history professor Alan Steinweis, holder of the Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professorship of Holocaust Studies, reflected on the Center’s genesis in the early 1990s.

Thanks to the leadership of a group of UVM faculty members and the support of many committed donors, they were able to carry forward Raul Hilberg’s scholarly and pedagogical legacy by establishing the Center.  

Professor Hilberg taught at UVM from 1956 to 1991 and is best known for his monumental work "The Destruction of the European Jews," first published in 1961, which changed the way historians and students around the world viewed the Holocaust. Together with Professor Samuel Bogorad, Hilberg team-taught one of the first courses on the Holocaust offered by any American university. 

Transforming the Center through Gifts and Service 

Professor Steinweis noted the foundational charitable support of Carolyn and Leonard Miller ’51, whose major gifts in 2000 and 2006 created endowments for operating purposes and two endowed faculty positions, respectively.  The Center was named for the Millers in 2006 in recognition of their generosity.

Professor Steinweis also cited the importance of charitable support from other donors who have given generously over the past three decades in the form of named endowment funds, gifts for the renovation of the center’s offices in the historic Billings Library, and donations for a variety of purposes ranging from course offerings, to research, to public education programs relating to the Holocaust.

Acknowledgement was also given to the dedicated efforts of the Center’s advisory board members for their guidance and support then and now.

History professor Jonathan Huener, Miller Center Director and holder of the Leonard and Carolyn Miller Distinguished Professorship of Holocaust Studies, paid tribute to advisory board member and long-time donor Jerold “Jerry” Jacobson ’62 for his generous support of the annual Raul Hilberg Memorial Lecture.

He noted, “Jerry Jacobson’s involvement in Holocaust Studies at UVM goes back not thirty years, but more than sixty.  A 1962 graduate, Jerry was Raul Hilberg’s student in the early years of his career, and he has for decades been a strong advocate for the Center’s work, supporting, together with his wife Gertraude Holle-Suppa, this special lecture that honors Raul Hilberg.” 

On-Going Scholarship about the Holocaust 

The 2023 Hilberg Lecture delivered by Wendy Lower was entitled “The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed,” the subject of a book of the same name she authored, which won the 2022 National Jewish Book Award. 

Her talk focused on the singular power of photographs to transmit story, meaning and impact across time and distance. Recalling the horrors of the Holocaust, Dr. Lower investigated and discussed "why perpetrators, bystanders, and victims who bore witness to the genocide and sought to document it, all turned to the power of the photograph." 

Links to the names of many of the past Hilberg lecture speakers and their topics may be found on the Miller Center’s website. 

About the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies 

The Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont promotes scholarship, education, and public awareness of the events that brought about, constitute, and continue to issue from the Holocaust. Drawing upon the expertise of a distinguished faculty from across the University, the Miller Center offers an undergraduate minor field in Holocaust Studies and supports graduate training with nationally and internationally recognized scholars.  Currently, Holocaust Studies faculty are based in History, German, Italian, French, Anthropology, Sociology and English, and, among them, they offer ten to twelve Holocaust-related courses per year.   

The program's graduates are well-equipped to enter prestigious Ph.D. programs and then accept faculty appointments.  Some have landed positions at Holocaust-related organizations such as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum. 

In addition to the annual Raul Hilberg Memorial Lecture, the Miller Center presents several public lectures each academic year featuring leading scholars on topics related to the Holocaust.  Since 2000, the Center has hosted nine special events known as the Miller Symposia, which include the presentation of papers on a single aspect of the Holocaust from internationally recognized experts.  The papers are subsequently published as a volume and made available to libraries and for use in college and university classrooms around the country, and around the world.  

The Miller Center was honored in 2016 by the New England Board of Higher Education with its Robert J. McKenna Award for Program Achievement.  The New England Board of Higher Education is an interstate compact formed in 1955 by the six new England governors that promotes greater educational opportunities and services for the residents of New England. 

What Is Your UVM Legacy?

These donors, and many others, have committed their attention and resources to keeping critical conversations about some of the most despicable events in human history in the public view. Because of this, we are able to come together to learn, to remember, and to aspire to a better world. 

Click here to join the alums and donors who are making the ongoing work of The Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies possible.

Every center, school, college and program at UVM has meaningful opportunity to establish a legacy in the days to come. Please let us know when you're thinking about the difference you'd like to make. Just contact Kevin at kmorgens@uvm.edu or 802.656.3227 to start the conversation.