2025 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemorative Lecture
McGill's Office of the Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning, with the Department of Jewish Studies, invited the McGill community to a commemorative lecture delivered by Joanna Sliwa entitled “'The Counterfeit Countess': The True Story of a Polish Jewish Woman Who Fooled the Nazis." Joanna Sliwa is a historian at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and expert on the Holocaust in Poland and compensation for Holocaust survivors.
Through this commemoration, we aim to remember and honour those affected by antisemitism, strengthen our collective commitment to combatting discrimination, and promote the dissemination of research and scholarship to foster understanding and unity.
The event was open to all members of the McGill community and welcomed the participation of the general public.
The event was held on Monday, January 27, in the Thompson House Ballroom (3650 McTavish Street).
"The Counterfeit Countess": The True Story of a Polish Jewish Woman Who Fooled the Nazis
What new information can be gleaned from the histories of Holocaust survivors? Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg, a prewar mathematics scholar, assumed the false identity of a Polish Christian Countess to survive the Holocaust. She used her role to save thousands of non-Jewish Poles from Nazi persecution. After the war, Mehlberg immigrated to Canada where only a few friends knew her astonishing story of wartime survival and resistance. The co-author of the book, “The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles during the Holocaust” will explain how the story emerged, why it took so long to bring it to light, and what it teaches us about humanity in times in crisis.
Read the McGill Reporter article about the lecture.
2024 International Holocaust Remembrance Day
McGill's Associate Provost (Equity & Academic Policies) and Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), with the Department of Jewish Studies and representatives from different Jewish student associations and community groups, held a commemoration event for the victims of the Holocaust.
The event was held online at 11:00 am on Thursday January 25 and was livestreamed at: https://youtube.com/live/EQM4wuc9-dc
2023 International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration
On the afternoon of Thursday, January 26, 2023, McGill University held its inaugural International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration.
One of the speakers at the commemoration was McGill alumna Judith Nemes Black, who lived through the Holocaust as a child in Hungary. Ms. Nemes Black shared some of her family’s harrowing experiences following Germany’s invasion of Hungary—which resulted in the murders of an estimated 560,000 Hungarian Jews—including her father’s imprisonment and eventual reunion with the family that feared he was dead.
After the war, the family emigrated to Montreal. Ms. Nemes Black grew up to become first a teacher, then a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma.
“The Holocaust raises many questions, provides few answers, and shows many examples of moral courage in the struggle against evil,” she said. “As the late Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”
To read more about Judith Nemes Black’s extraordinary life and the profound responsibility she feels to keep the stories of the Holocaust alive through remembrance and education, read her interview with the McGill Reporter.
