Home > Programs & Events > January 27 - IHRD
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
2012 commemoration on Sunday, January 29
The Neuberger proudly presented our third-annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day lecture, generously sponsored by the Esther Bem Memorial Fund. Special thanks to the keynote speakers, Professors Robert Jan van Pelt and Michiel Horn, and the program's co-presenters, the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Toronto.
David Koker’s diary, published this winter as At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary 1943-1944, is a rare account of life in a German concentration camp written by a Jew during the Holocaust. Join the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre for a commemorative lecture from professors Robert Jan van Pelt and Michiel Horn as they chart Koker’s life in Vught and trace his spiritual evolution as a writer and poet through his rescued writings.
David Koker was born in Amsterdam in 1921 and transported to the Vught Concentration Camp in 1943. During his time in Vught, David recorded his observations, thoughts, and feelings on an almost daily basis, writing his entries on whatever scraps of paper he was able to find.
David mercilessly probed the abyss that opened around him and, at times, within himself. His diary covers almost a year, both charting his life in Vught and tracing his spiritual evolution as a writer and poet. With the help of civilian workers overseeing the prisoner workshops, David was able to send almost a year’s worth of entries to Amsterdam. In June 1944 David was deported to Auschwitz. Sent on in August to the Langenbielau camp in Silesia, he was included in a prisoner transport to Dachau in February 1945. He did not survive this journey.
At the Edge of the Abyss has been edited and annotated by Robert Jan van Pelt, and translated by Michiel Horn and John Irons.
Robert Jan van Pelt was born and educated in the Netherlands. He is university professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada,
teaching in the School of Architecture. He has published widely on the history of Auschwitz, the Holocaust, and Holocaust denial,
and is presently working on a book on the culture of tourist trips to the death camps in Germany and Poland.
Michiel Horn was born in the Netherlands and grew up in Canada. He is professor emeritus of history and university historian at
York University in Toronto. He has translated fiction and nonfiction.
Generously sponsored by the Esther Bem Memorial Fund.
About International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27 marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated this day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD)*, an annual day of commemoration to honour the victims of the Nazi era.
*Designated by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005.
Previous January 27 Programming
The Neuberger first commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2010 with a lecture from Professor Leonid Livak about the Jewish Persona in the European Imagination.
On January 27, 2011, the Neuberger presented the second-annual lecture in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, featuring Dr. Frank Bialystok addressing the Holocaust and the Canadian Jewish community.
Read about the program in the Canadian Jewish News here.
Presented together with the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto and generously sponsored by the Esther Bem Memorial Fund.
Photos credit Michael Rajzman
On January 29, 2012, we commemorated the UN-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a lecture and book launch of "At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary" at the Munk Centre, U of T.
Dr. Leo Livak
