Exhibition Opening | Panel Discussion: From Repression to Remembrance

Panel discussion in the framework of the opening of our exhibition "From Repression to Remembrance" at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York on May 31, 2023.

Evening Program

6:45 PM: Doors Open, Theater Seating
7:00 PM: Opening Remarks
Dr. Susanne Keppler-Schlesinger, Director, Austrian Cultural Forum New York
Prof. Mag. Hannah Lessing, Secretary-General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism

Followed by a Panel Talk with:
Prof. Mag. Hannah Lessing, Secretary-General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism
Mag. Dr. Karin Hanta, Translator, educator and writer; she has published extensively on the Holocaust and Exile in Translation
Lore Segal, Austrian-American writer; her novel Shakespeare’s Kitchen was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008
Avital Carroll, Austrian-American freestyle skier and granddaughter of Holocaust survivor Elfriede Hendell
Deborah Hendell, Daughter of Holocaust survivor Elfriede Hendell

About the Exhibition

The exhibition From Repression to Remembrance describes the tasks and activities carried out by the National Fund in areas such as Nazi victim recognition, project funding, art restitution, documenting life stories of survivors, the restoration of Jewish cemeteries in Austria, the Simon Wiesenthal Prize for outstanding civic engagement to combat antisemitism and promote Holocaust education, the renewal of the Austrian exhibition at Auschwitz, and the General Settlement Fund and its compensation and restitution for Nazi victims.

Read more about the exhibition here.

Hannah Lessing

Prof. Mag. Hannah Lessing is Secretary-General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism and has been responsible for the administrative and organizational management of the National Fund since 1995, for the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism (May 2001 – April 2022) and the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish cemeteries in Austria since 2010. She also is the Co-Head of the Austrian Delegation of the “International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance“. Lessing participated in the negotiations on compensation topics conducted by Under-Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, member of the Austrian delegation headed by Ambassador Sucharipa for the Joint Statement signed in Washington in January 2001. She also has lectured extensively on the National Fund and the General Settlement Fund, as well as in connection with international commemoration activities regarding the Holocaust.

Karin Hanta

Karin Hanta, a trained simultaneous interpreter, completed a doctorate in translation studies at the University of Vienna. In her monograph Zurück zur Muttersprache: Austro-amerikanische ExilschriftstellerInnen im österreichischen literarischen Feld (Mandelbaum, 2020), she focused on the role of translation in the creation of Austrian memory culture. For Hentrich & Hentrich Press, she brought Stefan and Lotte Zweig’s Letters from South America, written in English, back into German in 2017. She is currently preparing an exhibition on Lore Segal’s life and work for Bezirksmuseum Josefstadt in Vienna and translating Lore Segal’s book Ladies’ Lunch for Nagel & Kimche Press into German. Her research interest stems from her family’s history. The granddaughter of a survivor classified as a Mischling by the Nazi regime and of a member of the Slovenian minority, she has barely begun to scratch the surface of her working-class family’s story.

Lore Segal

Lore Segal is an Austrian-American writer. When Lore Segal was ten years old, she left her native Vienna and went to England, where she lived with a number of foster families. After receiving her B.A. English Honors from the University of London in 1948, she went to live in the Dominican Republic until her American quota allowed her to come to New York in May 1951. Between 1968 and 1996 she taught writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Princeton, Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ohio State University from which she retired in 1996. Lore Segal has worked as novelist, essayist, translator, and writer of children’s books. She has received the Clifton Fadiman Medal, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and a grant from the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Her reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and her stories in The New Yorker. Her short story “The Reverse Bug” was included in Best American Short Stories, 1989 and was a 1990 O. Henry Prize-winner. Her stories Other People’s Deaths and Making Good were included in the O. Henry Prize Stories in 2008 and 2010, respectively. Lore Segal’s novels include Other People’s Houses, first serialized in The New Yorker, Lucinella, republished in 2009 by Melville House; and Her First American, which won an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Segal’s novel, Shakespeare’s Kitchen was one of three finalists for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2023 Segal published Ladies Lunch and Other Stories and was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters.

Avital Carroll

Avital Carroll is a World Cup Mogul Skier who represents Austria on the world stage since obtaining citizenship through the Austrian Citizenship Act. She was inspired to do this to represent her heritage, and promote unity and growth on the world stage. She is ranked number 7 in the world after this past season, and brought home 2x Bronze Medals for Austria at the World Ski Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia this past February. She obtained citizenship through her grandmother, who was the one who got the whole family into skiing. Her “Oma” (Elfi Hendell (formally Strauber)) was forced to flee Vienna at age 7. She escaped through Northern Italy, and eventually made it to Rome where she was lucky enough to get chosen, along with her family, for a 21-day boat journey on the U.S.S Henry Gibbons to New York.

Deborah Hendell

Deborah Hendell is a New York City native who currently lives in Vermont. She is a first generation American whose parents were both forced to flee Europe during the Holocaust. Her mother’s family was able to escape Vienna while her father’s family followed a similar path out of Zagreb (in the former Yugoslavia). Deborah’s mother, Elfi Hendell was a teenager when she arrived in NYC, and was educated in the public-school system. Elfi graduated from City College and eventually earned her social work degree from Hunter. Her Holocaust experience shaped her life’s choices and led her to a life of helping others. Deborah has a Master’s Degree in Jewish Communal Service from Brandies. She raised five children in NYC who were all educated in the Jewish day school system. Free time was spent skiing and competing in Vermont. Deborah and her other children are currently applying for Austrian citizenship.

Link

https://acfny.org/event/exhibition-opening-panel-discussion-from-repression-to-remembrance/