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Speaker Bio's

Joseph Corrigan
Pentagon Liaison to Congress

Joseph Corrigan, Lt. Col., currently Pentagon Liaison to Congress is a graduate of West Point and has a Masters of Engineering from Purdue. He was raised in West Lafayette, attending West Lafayette Senior High School. He accompanies members of Congress on their international trips to observe US defense forces.

Grace Feuerverger
Professor, University of Toronto, and Author
Oasis of Dreams, Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel

Grace Feuerverger, the author of Oasis of Dreams, Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel, is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at Ontario Institute on Studies in Education, University of Toronto. A child of Holocaust Survivors, Grace grew up in a multicultural and multilingual home in Montreal and brings her personal and professional experiences to bear on her teaching and research. She was educated at McGill University, Universita per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Alberta, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, and University of Toronto. Her research interests focus on cultural and linguistic diversity, ethnic identity maintenance, and minority language learning as well as on conflict resolution and peacemaking in international setting.

Hillel Fradkin
President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Hillel Fradkin is the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a research institute located in Washington, DC. Dr. Fradkin earned his degree in Islamic History and Thought from the University of Chicago, working under the direction of the late Dr. Fazlur Rahman. He has a BA in Government from Cornell University.

Fradkin was formerly the W.H. Brady, Jr. Fellow in Politics and Culture at the American Enterprise Institute and before that taught at the University of Chicago as a member of the Committee on Social Thought. He has also taught at Columbia, Yale, and Georgetown Universities and was the assistant director of the Project on Islamic Logic at the University of Maryland. He was a member of the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities and on the advisory committee on International Education of the US Department of Education. His many articles cover a variety of subjects in Islamic and Jewish studies, contemporary politics, and the issue of religion in modern political life. He has lectured widely both in the US and abroad.

Rudolf Graichen
Jehovah's Witness Survivor

Rudolf Graichen was born in 1925 in Germany. In 1937 the Gestapo arrested all the male members of the local congregation. His father was sentenced to five years in prison. Rudolf withstood intense pressure to join the Hitler Youth. In 1943, he was sentenced to four years in prison, more than a year of which was spent in solitary confinement in Stollberg. His mother died in Ravensbruck concentration camp shortly before liberation. He was released atthe end of the war. In 1950, he was tortured by East German police and sentenced to four years in prison. After his release, Rudolf attended the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead for missionaries. He married fellow missionary Patsy Beutnagel of Texas in 1962. Rudolf now resides in Brady, Texas.

Paul Parks, Sr
Purdue Distinguished Engineering Alumnus

Paul Parks, Sr., civil engineering graduate of Purdue, arrived at Purdue in 1941, one of eight black men in engineering. At that time , Purdue was totally segregated. He lived at International House with Jews. In 1942, he joined the segregated US Army. He served as construction engineer, building field hospitals, living facilities for soldiers, roads and bridges through bombed areas. He became an expert in deactivating mines, booby traps, and other enemy ordinance. Paul Parks liberated and befriended many of the prisoners in the Dachau Concentration Camp. He was a member of the committee that created and built the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, MA. He is a recipient of a Purdue Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award. He is currently President of Paul Parks and Associates, Inc. He helped start the first fraternity for black men, Omega Psi Phi.

James N. Pellechia
Associate Editor, Watch Tower Publications

James N. Pellechia is Associate Editor of Watch Tower Publications at the international offices of the Watch Tower Society; he is the producer of feature and documentary films, including the award winning film Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault; lecturer on modern history of Jehovah's Witnesses. Pellechia has presented at international academic conferences, university seminars and research institutions, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His publications include The Spirit and the Sword--Jehovah's Witnesses Expose the Third Reich. He is a board member and vice-president of Jehovah's Witness Holocaust-Era Survivors Fund, Inc.

Robert Ringel
Purdue Professor of Audiology

Robert Ringel, Purdue Professor of Audiology, recently Purdue Vice-President of Academic Affaies, is a cousin to Survivor Norman Salsitz. Bob's grandfather and Norman's father were brothers.

Todd Rosenblum
Senior Advisor to Senator Evan Bayh

Todd Rosenblum, Senior Advisor to Senator Evan Bayh on Foreign Affairs, National Security, Intelligence, Arms Control, and International trade with particular focus on the Senator's interest in the People's Republic of China and the Middle East. He traveled to China with Senator Bayh last year. His background in the State Department includes Senior Foreign Affairs Specialist for Northeast Asia at the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He has also served as an intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency. He has lived and traveled extensively in East Asia and the Middle East. His education includes a B.A. in political philosophy from George Washington University, and a Masters of International Affairs in International Security from Columbia University.

Norman Salsitz
Polish Survivor and Author
Against All Odds (with Amalie Petranker Salsitz)
In a World Gone Mad (with Amy Hill Hearth and Amalie Petranker Salsitz)
A Jewish Boyhood in Poland (as told to Richard Skolnik)

Norman Salsitz, born Naftali Saleschutz, a Polish Survivor, was the ninth and youngest son of a Chassidic family living in Kolbuszowa. He attended Yeshiva until he was 17. His mother, five sisters, their husbands, and their children were sent to Belzec, where they were murdered by the Germans. Earlier, he witnessed the shooting death of his father. Naftali was confined in two ghettos and three labor camps. He escaped each time, surviving for more than two years with various partisan groups.

Masquerading as a Polish Catholic, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In Krakow, he encountered a Volksdeutch woman whom he eventually married, who had survived by Naftali pretending to be Catholic. In 1947, Naftali, now Norman and Amalie Salsitz emigrated to the United States. He has authored three books: Against All Odds, A Jewish Boyhood in Poland, and In a World Gone Mad. Norman shared the same grandfather with Robert Ringel of Purdue University.

Harlington Wood, Jr
Circuit Judge, US Court of Appeals

Harlington Wood, Jr., Circuit Judge, US Court of Appeals, Springfield, IL, was appointed by three different Presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford. During his Special Assignment for the Department of Justice 1970-1973, he was Chief Government Negotiator in Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, which resulted in his Footnote to History: A Personal Account of a Segment of Wounded Knee told for Lauren and Alex.

His concern for minorities and diversity reflects his Native American background. He has worked with judges and prosecutors in Russia and Romania.

Jin Xu
Teacher and Daughter of Wenli Xu

Jin Xu is the daughter of a Chinese human rights prisoner, Wenli Xu. Jin has found political asylum in the USA, where she teaches art. She supports her mother's efforts to gain freedom for ailing Wenli Xu on humanitarian grounds.





Greater LafayetteHolocaust Remembrance Committee
448 Littleton, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906 mkengel@juno.com