Fambul Tok

Exhibition shown at the FHM
March 26, 2011 - May 1, 2011

Fambul Tok is an exhibition of photography from "Fambul Tok", a face-to-face community-owned program that brings together perpetrators and victims of the violence in Sierra Leone's eleven-year civil war through ceremonies rooted in the local traditions of war-torn villages.  It provides Sierra Leonean citizens with an opportunity to come to terms with what happened during the war, to talk, to heal and to chart a new path forward, together.  

GHRAM Opening Event with special guest, LGen Romeo Dallaire

At the Florida Holocaust Museum
April 2, 2011, 6:30pm

Join us for a reception and public program featuring LGen Romeo Dallaire (Ret).  Dallaire is a true hero and an outspoken leader for the 21st century.  A decorated Lieutenant General, Dallaire served 35 years with the Canadian Armed Forces.  His best-selling book, "Shake Hands with the Devil," is a stirring account of his experience as the Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, which exposes the failures of the international community to stop one of the worst genocides in the 20th Century.  

To see photographs from the evening with Romeo Dallaire, click here.

Public Program:  How the Light Gets In

At the Florida Holocaust Museum
April 5, 2011, 6:30pm

Can a daughter of Holocaust Survivors and a daughter of Nazis help each other?

The Generations After Committee of the Florida Holocaust Museum present this unique public program.  In 2009, a second-generation survivor and a member of the second generation of Nazi perpetrators met after a week-long dialogue in Berlin and found that after initially feeling very uncomfortable, the two felt very united.  Each of the daughters will tell her story on how the Holocaust affected her upbringing by her parents and how, very surprisingly, similar circumstances existed on both sides.

Free to all.

Pardoll Family Lecture Series: Sally Becker and Maja Kazazic  

At the Florida Holocaust Museum
April 7, 2011, 6:30pm

In May 1993, Sally Becker decided to go to Bosnia to help victims of the then ongoing war.  She began by delivering medial aid and food to Mostar and was given permission to evacuated wounded Bosnian children from the besieged side of the city.  Sally later led a convoy of over 50 vehicles and 200 volunteers from Britain. They evacuated 98 wounded from besieged areas.  

After the war had been going on for two years, Maja Kazazic, aged 16, was outside the building where she lived, when a mortar fell in the courtyard, several feet from where she stood.  When she was unable to walk, she was carried to a makeshift hospital located in a basement.  A week later when infection had set in, Maja's leg was amputated.  A few months later, Sally Becker arrived at the hospital.  Maja was one of the children Sally was allowed to take with her for medical treatment.  Maja now lives in Palm Harbor and is a motivational speaker.  

Free to all.  Light refreshments will be served.

Film Screening:  Fambul Tok

At the Tampa Theatre, 711 N. Franklin Street, Tampa 
April 17, 2011, 6:00 pm

Film screening of  "Fambul Tok", a documentary film about victims and perpetrators of Sierra Leone's brutal war who come face to face in an unprecedented reconciliation program of grassroots truth-telling and forgiveness ceremonies.  "Fambul Tok" will change the way you think about Africa, inviting you to examine your own life - and what the power of forgiveness can accomplish.

View the "Fambul Tok" trailer.

General admission:  $9, Tampa Theatre Members: $7.  Purchase tickets:  http://tampatheatre.org/descriptions.php#fambul

Presented in partnership with the Tampa Connection.

Rose Mapendo

At the USF St. Petersburg Campus Activities Center
April 21, 2011, 6:30 pm

Rose Mapendo and her husband had seven children when the Rwandan army invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo in August 1998.  In response to Rwanda's invasion, Congo's President Kabila announced that some ethnic groups inside Congo were the enemy.  Soldiers arrested Rose and her family and shortly after, executed her husband.  Two months after her imprisonment, Rose realized she was pregnant - with twins who were born in her eighth month of captivity. 

After being imprisoned for 16 months in the death camps, Rose and her children were flown to a refugee camp in norther Cameroon.  Ultimately, she and her family resettled in the U.S.

Free to All.

Yom HaShoah
(Holocaust Remembrance Day)

At the Florida Holocaust Museum
May 1, 2011, 2:00 pm

Dr. Ken Hanson, assistant professor in the Judaic Studies Program of the University of Central Florida, performs as Martin Niemoller, the famous German theologian who was ultimately arrested by the Nazis and who authored the famous quotation:  "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.  Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.  Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.  And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me..."

The event also includes a commemorative ceremony.

Free to all.