Former Roanoke resident Professor Melvin Macklin instructs Holocaust courses at Ferrum College
Associate Professor of English Melvin Macklin’s proposal for a faculty Holocaust research project received a $30,000 professional development grant from Appalachian College Association.
His project, “Jewish Children Survivors of the Holocaust: Devastation, Rehumanization, and Recovery,” will gather research on Jewish children who suffered the hostility of the Nazi war on East European Jews and compile that research into a textbook for secondary education and college freshmen students.
They will then explore the ways these children became unwilling victims of terrible acts but still managed to live fulfilled and successful lives.
“It will explicate how campaigns of human aggression affected youth survivors both physically and mentally,” explained Macklin, who has been co-teaching Holocaust courses at Ferrum College for the past decade.
The idea for his project bloomed from what Macklin sees as a need for more educational works tailored to secondary education and college freshmen on the re-humanization and recovery of Jewish children victims. Macklin will conduct his research at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, and at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
“I see beyond merely informing students about the horrors of what happened to Eastern European Jews and other ethnic groups,” Macklin said. “There is a broader message to alert individuals to the dangers of hatred and bigotry. This grant will enable me to accomplish two major goals: to add to the literature on how Jewish children were able to cope with and recover from the indescribable suffering inflicted upon them under Nazi rule; and to allow people to understand that if preceding generations cease to pass down their notions of preeminence to successive ones, dehumanization and extermination of our fellow man will also cease.”
Dr. Macklin was born in Carbondale, IL. He moved to Roanoke with his mother, the late Ernell Green Glasby and sister, Sherlene Green Bowles at an early age. Though he attended Roanoke City Schools, he returned to Carbondale and completed high school. He furthered his education earning an undergraduate degree from Prairie View, Texas A&M U and his post-graduate degree from the University of Texas, Dallas. He is a self-published author of five books on the community of Carbondale.
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