The Rescuers: Panel Discussion

The Rescuers, from Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael King and Producer, Joyce D. Mandell, uncovers the largely unknown stories of 13 heroic and courageous diplomats who, at tremendous personal cost, saved tens of thousands of Jews during World War II. The film follows Stephanie Nyombayire, a young Rwandan anti-genocide activist who lost 100 members of her family in the Rwandan Genocide of the 1990s, and Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned 20th century and Holocaust historian, as they travel across 15 countries and three continents interviewing survivors and descendants of the diplomats. Nyombayire and Gilbert explore and contemplate the past in a quest, in part, to understand what should be done to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur and elsewhere.

After the screening, a renowned panel of leaders in their scholarly fields explore The Mystery of Goodness: What causes one human being to do the right thing because their instinct, soul and spirit knew they had to, at any cost?  This is The Rescuers’ post-film discussion.

The renowned panel features leaders in their scholarly fields: Debórah Dwork, Ph.D., Director, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity The Graduate Center—City University of New York, Dr. Stephanie Fagin-Jones, clinical psychologist, Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University Teachers College, and a Holocaust heroism science scholar, Joel N. Lohr, Ph.D., President of Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, and Dr. Sylvia Smoller, Scientist, writer and Holocaust Survivor, Moderator Avinoam J. Patt, Ph.D. , The Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut.