The 'Arij Boogerman lecture' was established to commemorate the involvement of entrepreneur and broker Arij Boogerman (1945-2022) in Dordrecht. His help to the Documentation and Knowledge Center Augustijnenhof and his unbridled commitment to the Foundation for the Preservation of the Augustijnenkerk are examples of this. His commitment to the Stolpersteine Foundation will also be remembered through this lecture.
The Arij Boogerman Lecture was established after his death in August 2022 to keep his vision alive. The theme of the upcoming lecture is connected to Arij Boogerman's views during his time as chairman of the Stichting Stolpersteine Dordrecht. After his death, Arij was called an inspired Dordrecht man in memorial articles.
"The Holocaust and the Judeo-Christian tradition" is the multifaceted title that entirely touches on Arij's commitment to Stolpersteinen in Dordrecht. Historian and Dordrecht resident Harrie Teunissen will deliver the lecture.
At the unveiling of Stolpersteinen (trip-stones) in Dordrecht, Arij Boogerman spoke regularly about the importance of "the Judeo-Christian tradition as a common foundation for our hope that such horrible things cannot happen again. Shortly before his death, Harry had a long conversation with Arij about the value as well as the limitations of that view. That conversation is the starting point for this second Arij Boogerman Lecture.
Featuring maps, photographs, documents, cartoons and paintings surrounding the Holocaust, the lecture first analyzes Nazism as a political religion. The fanaticism of murderous Nazis and the indifference of ordinary people to the removal of Jews from their midst flows far from this religious dimension of Nazism. Discussed are the "Aryan New Testament" versus the "Semitic Old Testament," "the German Christians," and "Hitler as a warring messiah. Then we see how in the resistance the Judeo-Christian tradition takes shape. We see Arnold Daghani painting the suffering of Jews as the Passion of Jesus and how the U.S. Army promotes Jewish-Christian cooperation in Germany. To introduce the Q&A after the break, Harrie Teunissen touches on the limitations of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Harrie Teunissen studied cultural and religious psychology in Nijmegen and Paris and Islam studies in Leiden and Damascus. He was a research associate at the University of Amsterdam. Since then he has been a historian and designs exhibitions, including 'East of Auschwitz' at the Riga Ghetto Museum (2015), with Per Bos 'Dordrecht - Sobibór' in our city office (2021) and with his partner John Steegh 'Modernity in Map' at the Design Museum Den Bosch (2023-'24).
This lecture is free, but advance registration is required and can be done at: info@augustijnenhof.nl
The lecture will be held in the Augustinian Church Consistory Room which can be accessed through the Court entrance.
Walk-in starting at 7 p.m.
