Comm prof honored for Holocaust book

What started out as an examination of 150 years of words and images over time was reduced to three dark weeks in April 1945. But that shift proved successful for Communications Professor Barbie Zelizer, who received the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Bruno Brand Tolerance Book Award last week at the Rittenhouse Hotel. The award, which includes a $1,500 prize, honors Zelizer's work Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory Through the Camera's Eye, which she originally planned as a study of images throughout the last century and a half. Ultimately, Zelizer chose to concentrate on the Holocaust. In a small reception in front of family and friends, Zelizer accepted the award given annually by the Wiesenthal Center for the best non-fiction book that promotes the concept of tolerance. The brief presentation included remarks by Mark Weitzman, director of the Wiesenthal Task Force Against Hate, and Franklin Littell, a professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton College in New Jersey. Afterwards, Zelizer signed copies of her book. In Remembering, Zelizer highlights the significance of concentration camp photographs and how they have become the basis of our memory of the Holocaust. "We can look at the pictures and look beyond the six million and see the human stories and human beings that can be understood by all," Littell said. "Pictures tell that and speak to that." In the book, Zelizer explains how the photographs have affected our perceptions of contemporary history and subsequent atrocities. In addition, she argues that photography earned new legitimacy as a tool of reporting during the Holocaust. "Images were needed to convince a disbelieving public of what was actually happening," Zelizer said. Chosen from 30 to 40 books submitted by publishers from across the country, a panel of three distinguished judges reviewed the entries and picked the winner. "We choose a panel of judges who bring their own knowledge and experience for the definition of [tolerance]," Weitzman said. "They are different every year but are always remarkable people with remarkable achievements." In addition to Littell, this year's panel included Pulitzer Prize-winning author Roy Gutman and University of Pittsburgh Women's Studies Department Chairperson Kathleen Blee. In singling out Remembering, Littell explained, "Any one of two to three books would have satisfied the award's criteria," Littell said, adding, however, that "every good teacher should know that a good picture is worth at least 20 pages of script. [Zelizer] showed a genius in combining the two ways of communicating." Zelizer said she felt the award validated her field of study. "Receiving this award is a delight," she said. "It means not only that the Holocaust is a topic worth thinking about but it is also a recognition of communications as a field that can look into a topic like this."