In observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, on Thursday, May 2 the Shelter Rock Jewish Center in Roslyn has invited author Dr. Robert Scott Kellner to present a unique account of Nazi Germany as told through his grandfather’s secret diary, recorded from 1939 to 1945.
As a mid-level German officer, Friedrich Kellner risked his life to record the Third Reich’s path to genocide, the involvement of ordinary citizens, and his own revulsion. In 1968, Friedrich gave his diary to his American grandson to translate and bring to the attention of the public. It became Dr. Kellner’s mission to share the diaries, particularly in this period of rising anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
At the presentation’s conclusion, there will be a service and memorial candle-lighting led by Rabbi Martin Cohen.
Dr. Kellner, a retired English professor who taught at the University of Massachusetts and Texas A&M University, translated and edited the diary from its original German, to publish “My Opposition: The Diary of Friedrich Kellner, A German Against the Third Reich” (2018, Cambridge University Press, UK). It tells the story of his Lutheran grandfather, who had first campaigned as a Social Democrat against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party during the time of the Weimar Republic. When the Nazis came to power, the grandfather Kellner began his diary to record their crimes and the general acquiescence of ordinary people.
Shelter Rock Jewish Center is located at 272 Shelter Rock Road in Roslyn. For further information, contact the office at 516-741-4305, ext. 10, or write to frontdesk@srjc.org.
