VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Holocaust Museum Houston presents Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust. Thursday, May 27, 2010 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM.

Shortly after V-E day in 1945, Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of Allied forces in Europe in World War II and future president of the United States, flew a dozen Hollywood moguls to Germany to see Nazi atrocities for themselves. "They saw the ovens," says the film director Vincent Sherman in "Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust." "They saw the piles of dead, which had not been buried." The idea, says Neal Gabler, the cultural historian, was that "they should bear witness" through their films. But, as this documentary points out, it was only in 1964, almost two decades later, that a major American film even tried to recreate the horrors of the camps.

Join Holocaust Museum Houston for this free screening of "Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust" followed by a discussion with Dr. Michael Berenbaum, a writer, lecturer and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the development of historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University, where he is also a professor of Jewish studies.

Seating is limited, and advance registration is required. Visit http://www.hmh.org/RegisterEvent.aspx  to RSVP online. For more information, call 713-942-8000 or e-mail events@hmh.org.