Twenty members of the SMU community participated in a study tour of Holocaust sites in Poland Dec. 18-30, 2014.
Led by SMU Embrey Human Rights Program (EHRP) Director Rick Halperin, 16 SMU students traveled with two SMU staffers and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor James K. Hopkins, who teaches European history in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. The group visited cities and death camps throughout Poland, where, during World War II some 4,375,000 people were murdered during the Nazi, Germany, occupation.
Upcoming Human Rights Tours
Twelve students in SMU’s Student Leadership Initiative (SLI), sponsored by the Embrey Human Rights Program, will participate in a service-learning trip to Costa Rica Jan. 2-12, 2015. The SLI students will be led by Dr. Howard J. Recinos, Professor of Church and Society at SMU Perkins School of Theology, and Dr. Joci Caldwell Ryan, a lecturer in the women’s and gender studies program of SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities Caldwell-Ryan.
Another Holocaust-focused trip will have SMU students, faculty and staff visiting Budapest, Hungary, Jan. 7-13, 2015. Led by EHRP director Rick Halperin, 12 undergraduate and master’s level students will travel to the country along with Vicki Hill, SMU’s Assistant Dean for the University Curriculum. In an effort to address past, present and future identity issues stemming from what happened in Hungary before, during and after its Nazi-occupation in World War II, the group will meet with Holocaust survivors, witnesses and rescuers.