The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County (HMTC) just announced two staff members have been promoted.
Helen Turner and Dr. Thorin Tritter have started new positions within the center, located at 100 Crescent Beach Rd. in Glen Cove. Turner is the organization’s new director of education, while Tritter will serve as the museum and program director.
Turner will “develop educational programs using the latest technology and pedagogical techniques, as well as keeping HMTC at the forefront of Holocaust studies.” Turner previously was the center’s director of youth education. With the new position comes extra responsibilities, including extra programs for adult education, volunteer recruitment and training.
The new director of education has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in history, with a specialization in Holocaust and genocide studies. Her research areas include the Nuremberg trials, which were military trials held in Germany from 1945-46 that charged Nazi war criminals with crimes against humanity under international law, as well as the work of Judge Cecelia Goetz. She is also the senior curator of the HMTC exhibit called “Cecelia Goetz: The Aggressive War Chief of Nuremberg.”
Meanwhile, Tritter was previously the executive director of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), a group that takes more than 60 graduate students in medicine, law, business, journalism and religion to Europe, exploring the actions of professional works in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The organization then uses “that history as a launching point for an intensive course of study on contemporary professional ethics.”
“As museum and program director, Dr. Tritter will oversee the upgrading and curation of HMTC’s permanent and special exhibitions and will be responsible for continuing HMTC’s topical and impactful community programs open to the public,” the HMTC said in a statement.
Tritter holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago, as well as both a master’s degree and doctorate from Columbia University.
The HMTC is host to thousands of students and adults each year, educating people about the atrocities of the Holocaust. The center creates programs “that utilizes the history and lessons of the Holocaust to teach about the dangers of anti-Semitism, bullying and all manifestations of intolerance.”
For more information about HMTC, call 516-571-8040 or visit www.hmtcli.org.
