Sondra Perl, Director

Sondra Perl is Professor of English at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. An acclaimed teacher, she is the author of six books and the recipient of both a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Carnegie Foundation’s Professor of the Year award. Perl’s desire to explore the difficult subject of the Holocaust began 16 years ago when she was invited to teach in Austria, a journey she chronicles in On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate. Ever since, she has been involved in post-Holocaust dialogue with members of the second and third generations in the United States and in Europe. In addition to her work on the Holocaust, Perl teaches a range of courses at the City University including memoir writing and creative nonfiction for doctoral candidates and “The Arts in New York City” for freshmen at the Macaulay Honors College.

Contact: [email protected]

To read an excerpt from On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate, click here.

Jennifer Lemberg, program coordinator

Jennifer Lemberg received her Ph.D. in English and a Certificate in Women’s Studies from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2007. She also holds a certificate from the International Trauma Studies Program, and has published essays on Holocaust literature, American Indian literature, graphic novels, and television studies. In addition to her work with HEN, Jennifer has taught composition, American women’s literature, and American Indian literature. Currently, she teaches interdisciplinary writing seminars, “Writing New York City” and “Journeys of Return,” at The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University.

Contact: [email protected]

Alice Braziller, Teaching Staff

Alice Braziller has taught high school English in New York City for the past 30 years. She has spent the past 27 years at Satellite Academy High School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, an alternative school for students at risk and a place she always considered her home away from home. In September 2010, Alice retired to pursue her many other interests, including quilting, running, hiking, writing, and volunteering at local women’s shelters. While her teaching career has been filled with countless highlights, her association with the Holocaust Educators Network remains one of the brightest. Alice is inspired by the relationships she develops with colleagues from all over the country who are drawn to teaching the Holocaust and who strive to teach it effectively.

Contact [email protected]

Erica Kaufman, Program Assistant

Erica Kaufman is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English focusing on Composition & Rhetoric at the CUNY Graduate Center. She also holds an MFA from The New School. In addition to her work with HEN, Erica teaches composition and literature at Baruch College, CUNY, and is a faculty member of Bard College’s Institute for Writing & Thinking. She is the author of censory impulse (a book-length poem) and the co-editor of NO GENDER: reflections on the life and work of kari edwards.

Contact: [email protected]

Steve Zehentner, Videographer

Steve Zehentner has worked in video production for over 20 years. His first video, The Color Line: Racism in America, was broadcast by PBS, and screened at the New York Film Festival. In 2010, The Sunflower Project, a film produced in collaboration with The Holocaust Educators Network and The Memorial Library, was also broadcast on PBS. He is co-founder of the award-winning Lower East Side Biography Project, a video oral history project that works to stem the tide of cultural amnesia on Manhattan’s rapidly changing Lower East Side. As a theater designer and director, he has collaborated with Warhol superstar and international theater artist Penny Arcade and together they have produced work in over 25 cities around the world. For his work in video, he has received a prestigious Aurora Independent Film and Video Award and a Bogliasco Fellowship.

Contact: [email protected]