Terezín: Propoganda and Witness – 88 years after Kristallnacht

Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, South Orange, will welcome Czech Holocaust historian, author, researcher, and educator Pavel Batel for a special community program on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, bringing his firsthand research into the history of Terezín and the Jewish experience under Nazi persecution to the present, 88 years after Kristallnacht.
For more than two decades, Batel has dedicated himself to researching the Terezín Ghetto and preserving the stories of those who lived through it. Through the Bat El Institute for Jewish History, Batel and his associates conduct research, give lectures, and develop ongoing educational programs grounded in extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors and their families. Batel has lectured internationally and has presented programs at institutions including the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York and the recently opened Holocaust Museum of Korea, in cooperation with the museum on a forthcoming exhibition focused on the Terezín Ghetto. He has also worked with educators connected to Yad Vashem and other Holocaust-education institutions. His approach is deeply personal and accessible. Rather than presenting the Holocaust solely as a series of historical
events, Batel uses individual stories and firsthand testimony to explore how people navigated a brutal period in Jewish history. His research preserves testimony and memory at a time when the generation that experienced the Holocaust firsthand is rapidly disappearing.
The November 11 program will offer members of the congregation and the broader community an opportunity to hear directly from a scholar whose work is rooted in the physical places, archival records, and human stories of the Holocaust.
The program is particularly timely as Jewish communities face the challenge of transmitting Holocaust memory to younger generations while confronting the distortion of Holocaust history and the persistence of contemporary antisemitism.