Join us for an engaging roundtable discussion regarding the experiences of those who did the liberating and those who were liberated in Europe in 1945, and how institutions and scholars preserve and teach this history.
“World War II: Witnesses and Memory” is a series of partnered programs between The Pilecki Institute of Warsaw, Poland, and The National WWII Museum of New Orleans. The series will cover “Liberators and Liberated,” “Witnessing the Outbreak,” and “Memory Wars.”
The series will launch on January 28—the day after 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz—with the first program, “Liberators and Liberated.” Chaired by John Cornell, PhD, the panel will include Robert Citino, PhD, Gordon “Nick” Mueller, PhD, and Wojciech Kozlowski, PhD.
The program is free. To register for the event, click here. Please note the time on the registration page is Warsaw time as they are hosting this program.
The Panelists:
Wojciech Kozłowski, PhD
Wojciech Kozłowski is the director of the Pilecki Insti-tute, a research institution based in Warsaw, and the chief editor of its scholarly journal Totalitarian and 20th Cen-tury Studies. He holds a PhD in medieval studies from Central European University and an M.A. in history from the University of Warsaw. He was a fellow at the New Europe College and a visiting scholar at the Department of History at Harvard.
John Cornell, PhD
John Cornell received his Bachelors in Music from the University of California, Berkeley, and continued his studies in Modern European History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his PhD there in 1997, specializing in modern French musical culture. He moved to Warsaw in 2008, and has been working with the Pilecki Institute since 2016, aiding with programs such as their database of post-war testimonies "Chronicles of Terror" and directing their workshop series "English in Academia". As an adjunct with the Institute's Center for the Study of Totalitarianisms, his current research projects concern relations between the Polish Government-in-Exile and the British Government during the Second World War, and the work of the Polish Government with the United Nations War Crimes Commission.
Robert Citino, PhD
Robert Citino is the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy and the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at The National WWII Museum. Dr. Citino is an award-winning military historian and scholar who has published ten books including The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943, Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942, and The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich and numerous articles covering World War II and 20th century military history. He speaks widely and contributes regularly to general readership magazines such as World War II. Dr. Citino enjoys close ties with the US military establishment, and taught one year at the US Military Academy at West Point and two years at the US Army War College.
Gordon “Nick” Mueller, PhD
Gordon “Nick” Mueller is President and CEO Emeritus of The National WWII Museum. Dr. Mueller assisted historian Stephen Ambrose in founding the institution, initially known as The National D-Day Museum, and led the organization as Chairman of the Board from 1998 through its fundraising and construction to the Grand Opening on June 6, 2000. His appointment as full-time President and CEO has allowed him to shape the Museum’s development, image and outreach. He has played a lead role in raising more than $280 million for a $400 million expansion on three blocks of downtown New Orleans. Mueller assumed the President and CEO Emeritus position in July 2017 as Executive Vice President and COO Stephen Watson became the Museum’s chief executive.
Before stepping into his second career in the museum world, Dr. Mueller enjoyed a 33-year career as Professor of European History at the University of New Orleans. During his tenure there he also served as Dean, Vice Chancellor and founding President of the Research and Technology Park. He is known as founder of UNO’s Metropolitan College, its regional campuses, Business-Higher Education Council, and the university’s International Study Programs, sending over 10,000 students to 10 countries for study abroad since 1973. He also served in leadership positions with national higher education associations and is a member of the University Continuing Education Hall of Fame. His passions include travel, snow skiing and sailing.
Dr. Mueller earned his Bachelor’s degree at Stetson University, an MA and PhD at the University of North Carolina, and has done postgraduate work at Yale, Harvard, and several European Universities.
About the Pilecki Institute of Warsaw, Poland:
The Pilecki Institute is a modern scholarly institution engaged in a broad range of research, exhibitional, educational and cultural initiatives. “Called by the Name”, the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal, the Berlin exhibition devoted to Witold Pilecki, and the “Chronicles of Terror” are only some of its undertakings. Each of these projects, however, encourages a deeper reflection on the impact which the long-term criminal presence of German and Soviet totalitarianism had on Polish society and the Polish state. The mission of the Pilecki Institute also includes the organization of activities and events outside the borders of Poland, and therefore on 16 September 2018 we officially opened our branch in Berlin. This gives us the opportunity of developing cooperation with German institutions of culture and science, and improving the quality of archival research.
Our Patron:
Witold Pilecki threw down the gauntlet to two totalitarian systems the German and the Soviet. In 1940, he volunteered to be sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he proceeded to organize a clandestine resistance movement and write his so-called reports, in which he informed his superiors of the mass murder of Jews. After World War II he helped create an intelligence network in the country, by then taken over by the Communists. Arrested by the Office of Public Security in 1947, he was interrogated and brutally tortured, and sentenced to death in a political show trial. The sentence was carried out on 25 May 1948.
For more information: instytutpileckiego.pl/en/instytut.
