HMH Bearing Witness - November 2016

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EXHIB I TS + EVENTS
Bittersweet
Harvest: The
Bracero Program,
1942-1964
ON VIEW DECEMBER 9, 2016
THROUGH MAY 14, 2017
CENTRAL GALLERY
Curated by the Smithsonian’s SITES program,
this traveling exhibition chronicles the history
of the largest guest worker program in U.S.
history. The bracero program brought millions
of Mexican nationals north to work on short-
term labor contracts across this country.
The work was backbreaking and living
conditions poor, but the program offered
Mexican men economic opportunities and
much-needed work. Their contributions to
communities in Mexico and the U.S. have had
a lasting impact on the political, economic,
social, and cultural landscapes of both nations.
By addressing an important but overlooked
chapter in American history, Bittersweet
Harvest, the Museum’s first Spanish/English
exhibit, offers a timely exploration of an issue
that remains relevant today.
Photo by Leonard Nadel, 1956 Courtesy Smithsonian’s
National Museum of American History
A Celebration of
Survival, by Artist
Barbara Hines
ON VIEW JANUARY 19 THROUGH
MARCH 12, 2017
MINCBERG GALLERY
Combining various mediums and technology,
this artistic exhibition by Houston Artist
Barbara Hines addresses the Holocaust and
other genocides framed in a message of
redemption and forgiveness. Inspiring visitors
to focus on what “could be”, rather than the
horrors of the past, the exhibition highlights
rescuers and prominent Jewish thinkers.
Oskar Schindler diaphanous silkscreen by Artist
Barbara Hines
WINTER 2016 15
Genocide: Man’s
Inhumanity to
Humankind
ON VIEW THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2016
MINCBERG GALLERY
This juried Texas contemporary art exhibition
is the inspired creation of HMH’s changing
exhibition committee. The committee
members include Gus Kopriva, owner of
the Redbud Gallery in Houston and juror/
curator Clint Willour, retired Curator for the
Galveston Arts Center.
Sixty-five selections representing 2D and
3D media, with the exception of film and
video, are featured from the more than 600
submissions by Texas area artists, inspiring
collaboration with the museum and further
promoting the programs and activities of
HMH.
Genocide, in all its forms, continues to
resonate and affect the human condition
even in today’s world.
Please visit HMH’s website for more
information.
Image: “Justice for Genocide” by artist Leslie M. Guzmán
Memorial de la Shoah Paris Executive
Director Jacques Fredj, The Honorable
Sujiro Seam, Consul General of France
in Houston, and HMH CEO Kelly J.
Zúñiga at the opening of “Hélène Berr,
A Stolen Life.”
Hélène Berr: A Young Girl in
Occupied Paris
Dir. Jérôme Prieur
(USA, 2013, 65 min, Documentary, English version)
Thursday, November 10, 2016, 7:00 p.m .
In conjunction with HMH’s exhibit
“Hélène Berr: A Stolen Life,” this film
imparts further insight into the life of
Hélène Berr, a brilliant, young Jewish
student of literature at the Sorbonne
University, who lived in Paris during the
Nazi occupation. In her diary, from 1942
till 1944, Berr described the mounting
horrors of the persecution of the Jews.
She was arrested in 1944 with her
parents and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
She died in Bergen-Belsen, a few days
before liberation. Her secret diary was
kept in the family and not published until
2008. Utilizing previously unseen footage
shot in occupied Paris, official archival
images and family photographs including
remarkable home movies, French director
Jérôme Prieur offers a highly original and
captivating adaptation of Hélène Berr’s
journal. Free admission. Private members
only reception at 6:30 pm.
Anatomy of Malice: The Enigma of
the Nazi War Criminals
Joel Dimsdale, MD.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 6:30 p.m.
Renowned psychiatrist, Joel Dimsdale, will
shed new light on the psychology of the war
criminals at Nuremberg. After an international
war crimes trial in Nuremberg was convened, a
psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, and a psychologist,
Gustave Gilbert, explored the psychology of
the Nazi leaders, using extensive psychiatric
interviews, IQ tests, and Rorschach inkblot
tests. The findings were so disconcerting
that portions of the data were hidden away
for decades. The research became a topic
of intense debates. Drawing on his decades
of experience as a psychiatrist and the
dramatic advances in psychiatry, psychology,
and neuroscience since Nuremberg, Joel E.
Dimsdale reviews the findings and examines
in detail four of the war criminals: Robert Ley,
Hermann Göring, Julius Streicher, and Rudolf
Hess.
Joel E. Dimsdale is distinguished professor
emeritus and research professor in the
department of psychiatry at the University of
California, San Diego.
Book signing after the lecture.
Free admission and open to the public.
Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican
Americans, Mexican Immigrants
and the California Farmworker
Movement
Dr. Lori Flores
Thursday, February 16, 2017, 6:30 p.m.
Known as “The Salad Bowl of the World,”
California’s Salinas Valley became an
agricultural empire owing to the toil of
diverse farmworkers, including Latinos.
Professor Flores will discuss how Mexican
Americans and Mexican immigrants
organized for their rights in the decades
leading up to the seminal strikes led by
Cesar Chavez. She will also look closely
at how different groups of Mexicans—
U.S. born, bracero, and undocumented—
confronted and interacted with one
another during this period. Her book is
an incisive study of labor, migration, race,
gender, citizenship, and class, and offers
crucial insights for today’s ever-growing
U.S. Latino demographic, the farmworker
rights movement, and future immigration
policy.
Book signing after the lecture.
Professor Lori Flores is the assistant
professor in the Department of History at
Stony Brook University.
Annual Yom Hashoah Observance
Venue: Congregation Beth Israel
Sunday, April 23, 2017, 3:00 p.m.
The annual community-wide Yom HaShoah
Commemoration is a time to remember the
six million Jewish people who perished in
the Holocaust and to pay tribute to those
who survived.
For more information, please call 713-942-8000
ext.104 or register at:
Unless otherwise stated, admission is $8 for
non-members, $5 for members, seniors and
students.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS AND EVENTS
Natasha Bleyzer, Julia Smilianska,
Director of the Institute of Judaica
in Kiev and curator of “Babi Yar:
Faces and Fates, 75th Anniversary
of the Tragedy,” in conjunction with
SigmaBleyzer, Houston,/DAR Kiev,
Ukraine, and HMH Chief Curator of
Collections and Exhibitions Carol
Manley at the exhibit’s opening.