Benutzer:Samson

Samson Munn

Professor, UCLA Adjunct Associate Professor, Tufts University

PERSONAL HISTORY

Legal name: Samson Munn

Full legal name: Charles Samson Munn

Place of birth: New York, New York, U.S.A.

Citizenship: U.S.A., Germany, Poland and Israel. (German citizenship granted on the basis of special importance to the nation of Germany.)

Foreign languages: German: Zertifikat, Deutsche als Fremdsprache [Certificate, German as a Foreign Language] # PH332609, May 1998 Yiddish: some spoken and reading ability

INTENSIVE, GROUP DIALOGUE EXPERIENCE

To Reflect and Trust 1992–2008. Participant in a small, international group of thoughtful, motivated people who originally were personally related to the Holocaust through their parents' and grandparents' victimization, perpetration, or related involvements by Germans and/or in Germany: sons and daughters of Holocaust victims meeting primarily with daughters and sons of Holocaust perpetrators. Later, grant funding engendered the group’s growth to include participants from South Africa, from Palestine and Israel, and from Northern Ireland. Co-lead project’s expansion to include Northern Ireland.

The Austrian Encounter 1995–current. Founder and long-term facilitator of a small, international group of thoughtful, motivated people who are personally related to the Austrian element of the Holocaust through their parents' and grandparents' victimization, perpetration, or related involvements: sons and daughters of Holocaust victims meeting with daughters and sons of Holocaust perpetrators, somehow connected to Austria.

Facilitation. Facilitator or co-facilitator of a number of meetings, sessions and encounters in Germany, Northern Ireland, Palestine, England and Austria, since 1995. One example was Towards Understanding and Healing, November 2000 and 2001, in Lusty Beg, Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. Groups of ~ 28 and ~ 36 (respectively) Northern Irish and British men and women whose personal and family histories were directly involved in or poignantly impacted by The Troubles. The group included former Catholic, Nationalist and Protestant, Unionist paramilitaries and British army personnel, perpetrators and/or victims, as well as close family members.

Boston Jewish–German Dialogue Participant 1994–1996.

Our Dialogue Participant 1998 (U.S.A.) and 1999 (in the Alps).

CONSULTANCY / COMMUNITY / OTHER LEADERSHIP ROLES

Consultant to groups internationally that engage interpersonal, group dialogue related to terrible, human, group behavior, such as genocide; 1995–[current]

Executive Committee, Friends of New England Holocaust Memorial, 2001–2011 (Note: the Memorial ceased altogether to be an independent entity in 2011.)

CONFERENCE ORGANIZED

The first International Conference of Jewish—German Intensive Dialogue Groups. Boston 26–28 July 1996. Conceived by Professor Dan Bar-On, Ph.D. (Ben Gurion University of the Negev). Organized and chaired by Samson Munn, M.D. Thirteen groups from many countries were represented. (Two subsequent such Conferences have taken place, in Berlin and in Vienna (organized by others).)

HONORS AND SPECIAL AWARDS

Dr. Munn is currently titled a Fulbright Specialist in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies: • Approved 27 September 2011 for candidacy to the Fulbright Specialist roster by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. This honor generally carries a five-year term; mine was extended to six years (expiring in late September 2017). The specialization area is Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies. This means that should a foreign university or other organization request a facilitator or group consultant of the Fulbright Commission or of the U.S. State Department, and should Samson Munn be selected from the list of pre-approved Fulbright Specialist candidates, he would be eligible and pre-approved for a Fulbright Specialist grant. • Completion of a Fulbright Specialist grant in September 2017 in Budapest Hungary. The subject area was contemporary dialogue by descendants of victims with descendants of perpetrators, regarding identity and responsibility in post-Holocaust, post-fascist/Communist Hungary. (This work was done jointly with Professor Júlia Vajda, a sociologist, mathematician and psychologist, head of the Department of Empirical Methods in Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest.)

Other Fulbright • Peer reviewer of applications to the Fulbright Scholarship Board, the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, and the Institute of International Education, for Fulbright Specialist grants, all of calendar year 2016.

Other • Invited participant in Goldner/Weinstein Symposium on the Holocaust and Genocide, 1996–current. An invited, international group of 36 Holocaust or genocide scholars (primarily) who meet every even numbered year in Wroxton (near Oxford), England, in an effort to study and to intervene against racism and genocide based on lessons learned from the Holocaust. Sponsored by Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, and by private grants.

INVITED LECTURES/PRESENTATIONS/APPEARANCES Too numerous to warrant listing comprehensively; some representative examples include:

Invited Guest Participant Dan Bar-On Legacy Meeting, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany, October 3–5, 2019.

Symposium: Escaping the Burden of Silence – The Austrian Encounter: 20 Years, Adult Children and Grandchildren of Victims and of Perpetrators of the Shoah/Holocaust in Dialogue An international seminar, 4-8 December 2015 in Vienna, Austria. Attendees were from Austria, Germany, England and the U.S.A. Samson Munn presented twice: • 4 December: the evening, introductory lecture: Dan Bar-On, the German-Related Encounter Group To Reflect and Trust (TRT) and the Beginnings of The Austrian Encounter (TAE) • 5 December: the first morning lecture: Identity, Responsibility and Being Human: Subsequent Generations.

Dealing with Nazi Perpetration in Descendants – of Perpetrators and of Nazi Victims – and in Wider Society, 1945 Through Today An international conference, 5-7 December 2013 in Hamburg, Germany, organized by Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial; with support of the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg, and of Helmut-Schmidt-University; and, sponsored by the Federal Agency for Political/Civic Education (Germany) and by Friends of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Samson Munn presented thrice: • 5 December, early evening panel entitled Toward Dealing with Descendants of Perpetrators; Samson Munn’s presentation is entitled The Intentions of Dan Bar-On Toward Establishing Dialogue Groups with Descendants of Perpetrators. • 6 December, late afternoon panel entitled Dialogue Groups; Samson Munn presented (jointly with Dirk Kuhl) the To Reflect and Trust dialogue group. • 6 December, 8 pm evening film event; Eine unmögliche Freundschaft (An Impossible Friendship), discussed subsequently by Dirk Kuhl, Heike Mundzeck and Samson Munn.

The Ghosts of the Third Reich Evening event held at the Museum of Tolerance in New York 22 April 2013, sponsored jointly by the Museum and UJA Federation of New York. The film of this name (see below at bibliography, group process, documentary films) was shown to a private audience of ~ 45 people, followed by a lengthy, panel-type, question and answer discussion period. Present and discussing were the film maker (Claudia Sobral) and Samson Munn. The Museum of Tolerance is the educational arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The Ghosts of the Third Reich Evening event held at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles 23 April 2012, sponsored jointly by the Museum, by Facing History and Ourselves, and by Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles. The film of this name was shown to a public audience of hundreds, followed by a lengthy, panel-type, question and answer discussion period. The two moderators were from Facing History and Ourselves (Jan Darsa and Beth Cohen), and the panel was composed of the film maker (Claudia Sobral), Bernd Wollschlaeger and Samson Munn, discussants. The Museum of Tolerance is the educational arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Responsibility, Identity and Dialogue – Post-Holocaust Keynote address at the 13th Annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture, Keene State College, 27 September 2010, Keene, New Hampshire. Invited by Professor Henry Knight, Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Power of Dialogue in Social Change Keynote address at the 2005 Rev. James E. Coffee Human Rights Awards ceremony, 8 December 2005, Santa Rosa, California. Sponsors: Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights, Listening for a Change and Volunteer Center of Sonoma County.

Storytelling and Encounter Keynote address at the Storytelling as the Vehicle? conference, 29 November 2005, Antrim, Northern Ireland. Sponsor: Healing Through Remembering (Belfast).

The Foundation Trust Keynote address at the 8 February 2001 Racism, Hatred and Reconciliation conference of the United Nations’ NGO Committee on Mental Health, in New York.

Chaired a panel entitled Children of Victims and of Perpetrators – Why Work Together? at the opening day of Remembering for the Future 2000: International Holocaust Survivors’ and Second Generation Gathering, 16 July 2000, in London, England.

Presented The Austrian Encounter: • at the 28th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, March 1998, in Seattle (hosted by University of Washington) • at the 29th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, March 1999, in New York (hosted by Nassau Community College); and, • at the International Conference on Genocide, October 1998, in Sacramento (hosted by California State University).

Second Generation, Post-Holocaust Dialogue Co-presenter of Grand Rounds at the Department of Social Work, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston), 18 February 1998.

Opposite Sides of a Shared History Keynote address of a 2 June 1996 evening presentation (of the same title) held at the physical venue of the Royal Geographic Society (London, England), attended by approximately five hundred members of the public. Sponsors: Second Generation Trust (London, England) and Institut für vergleichende Geschichtswissenschaften [Institute for Comparative Historiography] (Berlin, Germany).

DOCUMENTARY FILMS (neither producer nor writer):

The Ghosts of the Third Reich SD Cinematografica (Rome), © 2010, 2011 and 2012; produced by Claudia Sobral. Focused on descendants of Holocaust perpetrators, this film includes some emphasis on The Austrian Encounter, including Samson Munn (founder and long-time facilitator of the group). 47 minutes. The Italian version has been sold to the History Channel for broadcast in Italy. The English version has been sold to the National Geographic channel for broadcast elsewhere in Europe and in many other countries.

Children of the Third Reich Timewatch, B.B.C. (London), © 1993; produced by Catrine Clay. Samson Munn was one of four highlighted participants of a group of eighteen: daughters and sons of Holocaust survivors who meet for profound encounters with sons and daughters of German Nazis. 50 minutes. Broadcast nation-wide in the U.K. (several times on the B.B.C.), in the U.S. (several times on the Arts and Entertainment and The History Channel cable-TV networks), and in Holland, Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Turkey and elsewhere.

Eine unmögliche Freundschaft [An Impossible Friendship] Provobis (Berlin), © 1998; produced by Michael Richter. Documented the psychological and experiential development of friendship between Samson Munn (the son of two concentration camp survivors) and Dirk Kuhl (the son of the Gestapo commandant of Braunschweig). 48 minutes. Broadcast several times in Germany and Austria.

Out of the Ashes Timewatch, B.B.C. (London), © 1995; produced by Catrine Clay. Examined Samson Munn and two others and their relationships with their parents, and has been broadcast nation-wide in the U.K. (several times on the B.B.C.), in the U.S. (several times on the Arts and Entertainment and The History Channel cable-TV channels), and in Israel, Holland and elsewhere.

Love History Klub Zwei © 2010; produced by Simone Bader and Jo Schmeiser. Credited in the film (for having aided the film makers in trying to find interview subjects and for raising awareness of a film screening in Vienna in 2011).

NEWSPAPER INTERVIEWS (not author) – just two amongst many:

L'impensable dialogue: Les mémoires de la Shoah – IV [The Unthinkable Dialogue: The Memories of the Holocaust – IV] Le Monde (Paris), 28 April 1995, page 16, by Annick Cojean. Samson Munn was one of five commentators interviewed and quoted in this full-page article, the fourth in a series in France’s most prestigious newspaper.

Anreden gegen die Schweigespirale: Wie Kinder von hohen Nazis und Nachkommen der Holocaust-Opfer in London versuchten, einander zu begegnen [Arguing Against the Spiral of Silence: How Children of Major Nazis and Descendents of Holocaust Victims Sought to Encounter One Another in London] Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) 4 June 1996, page 3 (a favored, prestigious position in German newspapers), by Birgit Weidinger. Samson Munn was one of three quoted commentators in this article in one of Germany's most respected and widely read newspapers.

RADIO INTERVIEWS (neither producer nor interviewer, but rather subject):

Die Lebendigkeit der Geschichte [The Aliveness of History] Bayerischer Rundfunk © November 1999; produced by Nicole Ruchlak. Recorded in Vienna and broadcast from Munich, Samson Munn and a colleague were interviewed about their friendship and about their international work in dialogue.

The Austrian Encounter Deutsche Welle © summer 1997; produced by Silvia Pfeifer. Samson Munn and a couple of the participants in The Austrian Encounter were interviewed in Vienna for an English language program on national German radio. Munn is the founder and facilitator of the Encounter.

Encounter between Children of Survivors and Children of Perpetrators [during a religious affairs program on] B.B.C. Radio 4 © 1996; 2 June 1996. Samson Munn was one of two people interviewed for about five minutes of air-time in this Sunday morning program broadcast throughout the U.K.

Children of the War Today at One, Blue Danube Radio, Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian National Radio, Vienna), 13 March 1995, © 1995; produced by Jane Duke. Samson Munn was interviewed for 11 minutes of air-time by Hal Rock about the creation of The Austrian Encounter, then merely at its beginning, in this Austrian, but English language, radio program.

Second Generation Reconciliation Outlook, B.B.C. (London), 10 November 1993, © 1993; produced by Kate Howells. Samson Munn was one of two people interviewed for 7 minutes of air-time by John Waite in this radio, news magazine program, broadcast throughout the U.K.

CHAPTERS

1. Wolff, Roswitha, Munn, Samson, "Scholz, Sabine", Kuhl, Dirk, and Goschalk, Julie, Einführung in die Arbeit der Nachkommen von Opfern und Tätern [Introduction to the Work of Descendents of Survivors and of Perpetrators], in Staffa, Christian and Klinger, Katherine, Die Gegenwart der Geschichte des Holocaust [The Presence of the History of the Holocaust] (Berlin: Institut für vergleichende Geschichtswissenschaften, 1998, ISBN 3-9805206-1-7) 59–70.

2. Munn, Samson, To Reflect and Trust – Aims of the Project and My Personal Involvement [erroneously entitled "'To Reflect and Trust' (TRT). Commitments and aims of the project" in the published version], in Bar-On, Dan, Bridging the Gap: Storytelling as a Way to Work through Political and Collective Hostilities (Hamburg: edition Körber-Stiftung, 2000, ISBN 3-89684-030-4) 28–29.

3. Munn, Samson, Choosing among Special People — The Northern Ireland Encounters, in Bar-On, Dan, Bridging the Gap: Storytelling as a Way to Work through Political and Collective Hostilities (Hamburg: edition Körber-Stiftung, 2000, ISBN 3-89684-030-4) 67–70.

4. Munn, Samson, A Great Deal of Pressure, in Bar-On, Dan, Bridging the Gap: Storytelling as a Way to Work through Political and Collective Hostilities (Hamburg: edition Körber-Stiftung, 2000, ISBN 3-89684-030-4) 125–126.

5. Munn, Samson, The Austrian Encounter, in Lappin, Eleonore and Schneider, Bernhard, Die Lebendigkeit der Geschichte. (Dis-)Kontinuitäten in Diskursen über den Nationalsozialismus [The Aliveness of History. (Dis-)Continuations in Discourses Regarding National Socialism] (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2001, ISBN 3-86110-285-4) 417–437.

6. Munn, Samson, The Austrian Encounter, in Kimenyi, Alexandre and Scott, Otis, Anatomy of Genocide: State-Sponsored Mass-Killings in the Twentieth Century (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001, ISBN 0-7734-7600-8) 321–337.

7. Munn, Samson, Dialogue Toward a Culture of Peace, in Storytelling as the Vehicle? (compiled by Gráinne Kelly) (Northern Ireland: Healing Through Remembering, 2006, ISBN 978-1-905882-00-7) 21–36.

8. Munn, Samson, Post-Genocide and Related Dialogue: What Dan Bar-On Began, in von Wrochem, Oliver and Eckel, Christine, Nationalsozialistische Täterschaftern: Nachswirkungen in Gesellschaft und Familie (Berlin: Metropol Verlag 2016, ISBN(13) 978-3-86331-277-0) 257–277.

REVIEW

Munn, S. Dialogue toward agenocide: encountering the Other in the context of genocide. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 2006;46(3):281–302.