Campus Illumination and Panel Discussion Honors Holocaust Remembrance Day
Historian Konrad H. Jarausch, Ph.D., Raises Awareness to Complicity and Moral Responsibility
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As dusk fell over the New York Medical College campus on January 27, the campus illuminated in a yellow light. The College joined Touro University, Westchester Medical Center, and other institutions across the state participating in New York State’s Yellow Lights initiative—a visible act of remembrance marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The lighting ceremony was accompanied by "The Reluctant Accomplice: An International Holocaust Remembrance Day Event,” which examined how ordinary individuals become complicit in mass violence and the urgent relevance of those lessons today. More than 275 registered participants—virtually and in person— came together to honor the memory of six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution.
“International Holocaust Remembrance Day asks something difficult of us,” said Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins, who delivered opening remarks. “It asks us not only to remember the unimaginable suffering of the six million Jewish lives who were murdered and the millions of others who were targeted, but to confront how much atrocities were allowed to happen. Remembrance requires us to engage with uncomfortable truths, to study the past with clarity to carry those lessons forward with intention.”
At the event, Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A., chancellor and chief executive officer, interviewed renowned historian Konrad H. Jarausch, Ph.D., about his book Reluctant Accomplice, a collection of his father’s wartime letters during World War II. His father, Dr. Konrad Jarausch, was a German high-school religion and history teacher who served in a reserve battalion of Hitler’s army, stationed in Poland and Russia, where he died from typhoid in 1942. Most of his letters were addressed to his wife, and together they formed a story of a patriotic soldier whose firsthand exposure to the war’s brutal realities in the East gradually eroded his faith in its moral justification. Over time, his views of the war change as he witnessed the suffering and mass deaths of Russian prisoners. Together, the letters reveal the moral struggle of ordinary soldiers—complicit in, and constrained by, Hitler’s regime—who at moments glimpse a shared humanity in those they had been trained to see as enemies.
The author, who rejected his father’s nationalist political views, reflected on his painful legacy. During the conversation, he and Dr. Halperin explored how these historical experiences illuminate the psychological and social dynamics that can lead otherwise law-abiding citizens to become complicit in acts of mass violence.
“Holocaust remembrance is not only a historical obligation – it is a moral and professional responsibility,” said Dr. Halperin. “For institutions dedicated to medicine, science, and education, understanding the consequences of silence and dehumanization is essential to ethical leadership and patient care.”
“As the largest university under Jewish auspices in the country, Touro University has a role to play in educating the next generation of leaders about how to root out antisemitism in their communities,” said Alan Kadish, M.D., president of NYMC and Touro University. “The simple act of illuminating our campuses and raising awareness of the day is part of a larger effort to help educate the communities we’re in about the importance of standing up for what’s right.”
Following the interview, Stephen J. Ferrando, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Edith Har Esh Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, provided a medical and psychological perspective, examined how social pressure, moral erosion, and dehumanization can transform ordinary people into what he describes as “reluctant accomplices.”
Marie T. Ascher, M.S., M.P.H., the Lillian Hetrick Huber Endowed director of the Phillip Capozzi, M.D., Library, facilitated the questions-and-answers session before Rabbi Baruch Fogel, M.A., campus rabbi of Touro University, reflected on the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. “Use this day as an impetus to remember and ensure that the Holocaust will remain a lesson that we can learn from, commemorate, and think about,” said Rabbi Fogel.
This event was made possible by the support and sponsorship of the NYMC Office of the Chancellor, the NYMC Phillip Capozzi, M.D., Library, and The Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education of North Carolina.
The video from "The Reluctant Accomplice: An International Holocaust Remembrance Day Event" and other NYMC events are available on the NYMC YouTube Channel.
