On April 14 – 2015, Dr. Iael Nidam-Orvieto, Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, spoke with members of JPC about a project she has been conducting recently together with Dr. Robert Rozett: Review of the first letters written by Holocaust survivor immediately after being liberated by the Allies. Dr. Nidam-Orvieto highlighted the fact that in spite of the suffering and tragedies the survivors had endured, in their letters there were seeds of hope and a strong will to reconnect to humanity.
Dr. Iael Nidam-Orvieto is currently the Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem and she teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Publications Department of Yad Vashem. Dr. Nidam-Orvieto received her PhD in Holocaust studies at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry – the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her main fields of research are Italian Jews, Jewish responses during the Holocaust, Jewish leadership, The Vatican and the Holocaust and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust. She was a research-fellow at the International Institute for Holocaust Research in Yad Vashem, at the International Research Institute of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and at Pisa University. Her book on the rescue of the Villa Emma Children Group is forthcoming. She is the recipient of several prizes and grants such as the Research Fellowship of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoa, Paris, a Prize from the “Shlomo Glas and Fanny Balaban-Glas Found, a Prize from the Ben Tzvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities and the Prize from the “Olivier Vodoz Fund for Scholarships and Research in the War Against Racial Discrimination”, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
