The Jewish community of Luboml, dating from the 14th century, was among the oldest in Poland. By the 1930s, Libivne (as it was called in Yiddish), had a vibrant community of 4,000 Jews. The years between the first and second World Wars were a period of great cultural ferment in this shtetl (village).

While the family and traditional religious institutions continued to play a central role, they were joined, and sometimes challenged, by modern intellectual attitudes, styles of dress and other secular influences — particularly Zionism — which increasingly influenced this corner of Eastern Europe.

Jewish life in Luboml came to an abrupt end in October 1942, when the Germans murdered almost all of the town’s Jews. Only 51 Libivners (excluding those who had emigrated before the war) survived the Holocaust.

In 1994, Aaron Ziegelman, a Libivner who emigrated to the United States in 1938, initiated the Luboml Exhibition Project to preserve the history and the memory of the “shtetl.” To date, the project has collected nearly 2,000 photographs and artifacts from more than 100 families and archives around the world, and has videotaped oral histories with many Libivners. Remembering Luboml features highlights from the collection.

A native of Hungary and an Auburn resident, Isaacson is a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and of Hessisch Lichtenau, a satellite camp of Buchenwald. Her book, Seed of Sarah: Memoirs of a Survivor (University of Illinois Press, 1990), has been a best seller for both the press and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum bookstore.

An expanded edition and a German edition of the book were published in 1991, followed by a Hungarian edition in 1993. The chamber opera Seed of Sarah, composed by Mark Polishook, premiered in 1995. A film based on the opera will be released by a London producer later this year.

Isaacson served on the governing boards at Bowdoin College and recently received its Hargraves Freedom Prize. She holds honorary doctoral degrees from Bates and Colby colleges and the University of New England.

Isaacson’s talk is part of the Bates College lecture series Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul featuring individuals who represent a variety of religious traditions, disciplines and professions. The photography exhibit is sponsored by the Office of the College Chaplain, the college’s Jewish Cultural Community and the Bates history department.

Ladd Library hours fom April 5 through April 25 are are Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Hours from April 26 through the end of the month of May are Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday noon to 8 p.m.; and Sunday noon to 10 p.m. Summer hours, beginning June 1, are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. The library is closed Saturdays and Sundays during the summer.

Maine Remembers the Shoah will examine the Holocaust as an historical crisis and as a continuing influence in contemporary life. “The program is designed to present new material, to stimulate discussion, and to prepare teachers and students to teach and learn about the Holocaust,” said conference organizer Steve Hochstadt, associate professor of history at Bates. Hochstadt teaches a Holocaust course at Bates.

The conference includes presentations of new research, personal memories of survivors, readings of prose, poetry, film and slide showings, and displays of teaching materials.

The conference will feature the world premiere on of the video You Ask about the Family, an interpretation of the Holocaust by Maine artist Robert Katz and Maine composer Mark Polishook, at 7 p.m. March 1 in Room 204 of the Carnegie Science Center. The video is based on Katz and Polishook’s trip to Poland to research the fate of their families.

Initially inspired by a letter Katz received from a distant relative who survived the Holocaust, You Asked about the Family fuses visual imagery, sound and narrative to address on one hand, the social climate in which the brutalities of the Holocaust occurred, and, on the other, cultural continuity, rebirth, and survival in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

The conference will also feature Judith Magyar Isaacson, Bates class of ’65 and author of the acclaimed autobiographical Holocaust memoir Seed of Sarah, reading from a work-in-progress about the Holocaust at 8:30 p.m Feb. 28, in Chase Hall Lounge.

Other sessions of interest include Steven R. Cerf, the Skolfield Professor of German at Bowdoin College discussing Anne Frank’s Short Stories: Imaginative Writing as a Mirror of Interiority, at 9 a.m., March 1, and Marcus C. Bruce, associate professor of religion at Bates College, talking about My People: Steven Spielberg, ‘Schindler’s List,’ and the Holocaust, at 11:15 a.m., March 1. Both presentations will be in Room 204 of Carnegie Science Hall.

Maine Remembers the Shoah is jointly sponsored by the departments of history, philosophy and religion at Bates, as well as the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, the Dimmer-Bergstrom Fund and the Maine Humanities Council.