Ruth Ellen Gruber: "Seeing, Believing, Being: Holocaust sites, Jewish heritage, Dark (and not-so-dark) Tourism"

The Duke Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies is proud to welcome Ruth Ellen Gruber who will give a lecture entitled "Seeing, Believing, Being: Holocaust sites, Jewish heritage, Dark (and not-so-dark) Tourism." In this talk she will discuss changing relationship to Holocaust sites, taking photographs (can you take a selfie at Auschwitz?) visiting them, etc. She will discuss her own relationships with these sites, which she has documented and visited for more than a quarter of a century.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ruth Ellen Gruber has spent her adult life in Europe. An award-winning writer, researcher, photographer and public speaker, she is an expert on contemporary Jewish issues in Europe as well as on European Country Music and the "imaginary Wild West."Ruth is the author of several well-reviewed books and has lectured widely. She is the coordinator of www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu, a web site project of the Rothschild Foundation Europe that serves as an on-line clearing house for information, resources, debate and expertise regarding Jewish historic monuments.In September 2011 she received one of Poland's highest honors granted to foreigners: the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit. Her other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Michael Hammer Tribute Research Award from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute (HBI) and other honors.