Karel Fracapane, Head of International Relations, Mémorial de la Shoah; former Executive Secretary of the Holocaust Task Force

Karel Fracapane studied literature and political science at Bordeaux, focusing on genocide studies; he later went on to the Institute of Political Studies of Paris to study political thought. He joined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 2002 became a fellow for the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. In that capacity he worked for the governments of the United States, Italy, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. He was appointed Executive Secretary of the Holocaust Task Force in 2005. In 2007, he joined Mémorial de la Shoah as the head of its newly-founded International Relations Department.

Alain Goldschläger, Conference Chair; Director, Holocaust Literature Research Institute, University of Western Ontario

Alain Goldschläger studied French Literature at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and received his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. He is a Professor of French Literature at the University of Western Ontario, where he also directs the Holocaust Literature Research Institute, which contains one of the largest collections of Holocaust survivors’ published accounts. He was president of the Canadian Semiotic Association, president of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association, and National Director of the Canada-Israel Foundation for Academic Exchanges.  He is currently Ontario chair of the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada. A prolific writer and author, he has published Judaïsme et Laïcité (1988), Le Mensonge (1993), Scientific Discourse as Prejudice-carrier (1998), La Shoah: témoignage impossible?(1998), Antisémitisme après la Shoah (2002) and Le complot judéo-maçonnique (2005), set to come out in English translation in 2009. His most recent book is L’Imaginaire juif, on Jewish ethos.

Toni Silberman, Board of Directors, Canadian Race Relations Foundation; National Chair, Commission on Holocaust Education, B’nai Brith Canada

Toni Silberman is a child of Holocaust survivors, and was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany.  Trained as an educator and psychotherapist, she received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Toronto.  She has taught at the high school, community college, and university levels, and had an independent consulting practice in industrial and human relations, and human rights for a number of years.  She worked in a management capcity for the Ontario Human Rights Commission for 16 years, and over the last 10 years, has indulged her passion for and commitment to human-rights advocacy, Holocaust education, and community involvement.  She sits on the Board/Advisory Councils of several governmental, private and public sector organizations, and is the recipient of numerous awards and citations for her work. Ms. Silberman is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, and is National Chair, Commission on Holocaust Education for B’nai Brith Canada.

Margaret Wells, Instructor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto; Chair, Facing History and Ourselves Canada Board of Directors

Margaret Wells has been an instructor in the Initial Teacher Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto for ten years. Prior to that, she worked as a secondary school history and English teacher, as a consultant on equity issues with the Toronto Board of Education, and as an instructor in the Faculty of Education at York University. Her Master’s thesis focused on the extent to which historians of the Holocaust paid attention to gender issues in their writing and in their analysis of oral testimonies. She is currently the Chair of the Facing History and Ourselves Canada Board of Directors.