HOUSTON, TX (July 19, 2005) – Three nationally known experts on the Holocaust and genocide in modern society will keynote this year’s Summer Lecture Series sponsored by Holocaust Museum Houston.

The speakers include Mark Weitzman, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center – New York Tolerance Center and director of the Task Force Against Hate and Terrorism; Dr. Susan Zuccotti, former professor of the Holocaust and general Western European history at Columbia and Barnard Colleges in New York; and William Meinecke, education division member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

 All three lectures are free and open to the public and will be held in the Herzstein Theater at Holocaust Museum Houston, 5401 Caroline St., in Houston’s Museum District.

"The Summer Lecture Series is an opportunity for people to learn about the Holocaust and how its effects are still resonating in our world today," said Tamara Savage, managing director of the Museum. "There are many lessons still to be learned from the Holocaust, and it is important that we see the connection between history and what is happening in the world today in the areas of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination."

Weitzman will speak on "Online Extremism in the Age of the Internet" at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 27, 2005 as part of the Museum’s Cultural Bridges program. His presentation will focus on the prevalence of anti-Semitism throughout the world and its spread through the Internet.

Weitzman is a member of the official U.S. delegation to the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research and a board member and former vice president of the Association of Holocaust Organizations.

Zuccotti will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 28, 2005 about the roles of France and Italy and the Holocaust and explain how 85 percent of the Jews in Italy managed to survive, despite the intense German effort to deport them. She will consider the responses of Jews and non-Jews to the persecution in Italy, specifically the anti-Jewish laws of 1938 and 1939, the internment of foreign Jews, and the forced labor program for Italian Jews.

Zuccotti has written three books that have discussed the roles of Italians, French and Catholics during the Holocaust. Her first book, "The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival" received the National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies in the United States, and her book "Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy" was given the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish-Christian Relations and the Sybil Halpern Milton Prize of the German Studies Association.

Meinecke will lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, August 30, 2005 on the history of the Holocaust. Along with 6 million Jews, the Holocaust claimed the lives of over 5 million more innocent people.

This speech will address the stories and lives of these individuals and show how groups such as homosexuals and the handicapped also were victims of Hitler’s wrath.

Meinecke spent many years at the Wexler Learning Center of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was a prominent member on the design team of the center’s multi-media program on the Holocaust, the Historical Atlas of the Holocaust and the Student Learning Web site on the Holocaust.

The Summer Lecture Series is sponsored by Holocaust Museum Houston in conjunction with the Summer Institute, a program designed to help current and future teachers from around the world teach their students about the Holocaust and other more current examples of genocide.

Holocaust Museum Houston promotes awareness and educates the public of the dangers of prejudice, hatred and violence against the backdrop of the Holocaust by fostering remembrance, understanding and education.

Holocaust Museum Houston is free and open to the public and is located in Houston's Museum District at 5401 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004.

For more information about Holocaust Museum Houston, call 713-942-8000 or visit www.hmh.org.