Close Up Radio Welcomes Back Holocaust Expert Alice Eckardt

Bethlehem, PA – The Holocaust was the ultimate expression of hatred and false teachings and beliefs. We must remain ever vigilant that people understand the truth and not be taken in by falsehoods so that such atrocities do not happen again.

As an Oberlin College student Alice Eckardt first became interested in the history of Christian-Jewish relations upon learning about the many horrors associated with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

With a Masters degree in history, Eckardt taught in the Religion Studies department at Lehigh University from 1972 to 1987. She taught a course on the history of relations between Christians and Jews, as well as two different courses on the Holocaust.

From 1973 to 2015 Eckardt was a member of the national Christian Scholars Study Group on Judaism and the Jewish People.

Subsequently Eckardt helped found Lehigh University’s Jewish Studies program, and served as co-director from 1976 to 1985. She also served on the academic advisory board of the Lehigh Valley Center for Jewish Studies from 1971 to 2015.

Eckardt co-authored three books: Encounter With Israel: A Challenge to Conscience, Long Night’s Journey Into Day: Life and Faith After the Holocaust, and A Revised Retrospective on the Holocaust. She also edited and contributed to Jerusalem: City of the Ages, and Burning Memory: Times of Testing and Reckoning, and was editor of Collecting Myself by A. Roy Eckardt.

Eckardt was appointed as a special consultant to the President’s Commission on the Holocaust by its chair Elie Wiesel in 1979, and special advisor to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

“It’s shocking to realize that a large proportion of America’s younger generations do not know the terrible history of the Holocaust.”