Institute Staff Attend International Task Force

The semi-annual conference of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF) convened on November 27-28, 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands. The theme for this winter's conference was Uses, Abuses and Misuses of the Holocaust Paradigm.

The USC Shoah Foundation Institute is part of the U.S. delegation, and Managing Director Kim Simon was in attendance. In addition, Stephen Smith, the Institute's Executive Director and part of the U.K. delegation, attended and delivered one of the keynote speeches at the conference on Sunday, November 27. The Institute's newest senior staff member, Director of Programs Kori Street, is on the Canadian delegation, while Andrea Szőnyi, the Institute's liaison in Hungary, is also a member of the Hungarian delegation; both were in attendance as well.

The ITF is made up of 28 member states, each of which is represented by delegates drawn from a pool of experts and leaders in the field of Holocaust studies in their respective countries. Each year, a different member state chairs the semi-annual conferences in two different cities.  Next year, the conference chair will be Belgium.