Resource person: Marina Kornblum, mkornblum@jccottawa.com, (613)798-9818 ext. 254

Location: Social Hall A (with stage) (Soloway JCC, Social Hall (A+B+C)) | 21 Nadolny Sachs Private, Ottawa, ON, K2A 1R9

Description:

Silent statues and the distortion of truth.

In spring 2024, Jewish Edmonton activist Paula Kirman and her creative partner Adam Bentley toured the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) and Finland, where they exposed monuments to Nazis hiding in plain sight.

They discovered a history-drenched frontier where, in our collective recent memory, this region faced two consecutive authoritarian occupations (Nazism and Soviet Communism). However, there is much more condemnation of the Soviet occupation than the Nazi occupation. In fact, the land is absolutely filled with monuments, place names, and reverence to Nazis.

After producing two attention-grabbing, grant-funded short documentaries exposing controversial monuments to Nazis and their collaborators in Edmonton – A Monumental Secret (2018) and Monumental Secrets (2022) – Paula and Adam ventured far overseas to answer the question:

How can the Baltic States, countries now a part of the European Union with its common understanding of continental history, have trouble letting go of its reverence for World War II Nazis and their local collaborators?

Price: $0.00 Taxes waived

Notes: Scroll down to the calendar for registration 

Share this activity: