Alabama Holocaust Education Center

The AHEC invites you to join us for our 2026 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration. We are honored to welcome Holocaust Survivor Maud Dahme, a hidden child who moved to the United States after the war and became an accomplished Holocaust educator. Maud was only four years old when the Germans invaded her homeland, the Netherlands. In 1942, to save them from deportation, Maud’s parents hid her and her sister with a member of the Dutch underground, then with a Christian family. From 1942 to 1944, Maud and her sister pretended to be the nieces of this family. When it became too unsafe for them to hide with this family, they hid with several other courageous families until the end of the war. After the war ended, Maud and her sister were reunited with their parents. In 1950, the family immigrated to the United States. There, Maud became a passionate Holocaust educator, even writing a book about her experiences. Today, she tells her story to encourage people to treat each other with kindness and compassion and to fight tirelessly for a better world.

The AHEC invites you to join us for the opening screening of our 13th annual Holocaust in Film Series: Rescue, Escape, and Liberation, sponsored by the Perlman Donor Advised Fund. On February 3rd at Sidewalk Film Center & Cinema, we will screen “The World Will Tremble,” a recent release written and directed by Academy Award-nominee Lior Geller. This film shares the powerful true story of Michal Podchlebnik and Solomon Weiner, two prisoners who became the first to escape the Chelmno extermination camp and to courageously bear witness to the horrors the Nazi regime perpetrated. Geller spent years conducting research for this film, collaborating with historians, Yad Vashem, and the families of the men who escaped to craft an authentic and poignant retelling of their remarkable escape. Following the screening, Lior Geller will join us via Zoom for an exclusive Q&A.  Tickets are $10 per person. Buy your tickets today!

The AHEC invites you to join us for the second screening of our 13th annual Holocaust in Film Series: Rescue, Escape and Liberation, sponsored by the Perlman Donor Advised Fund. On March 3rd at Sidewalk Film Center & Cinema, we will screen the award-winning classic film “Life is Beautiful.” This film explores how Jewish parents during the Holocaust struggled to shield their children from Nazi brutality and how all Jewish individuals found ways to mentally and emotionally escape the brutality and deprivations they experienced in concentration camps, labor camps, and ghettos. Following the screening, Michele Forman—a second-generation Survivor, award-winning documentarian, and UAB media studies professor—will lead a discussion about the film to deepen audience understanding of the various ways people escaped or found freedom during the Holocaust.  Tickets are $10 per person. Buy your tickets today! 

The AHEC invites you to join us for the third screening of our 13th annual Holocaust in Film Series: Rescue, Escape, and Liberation, sponsored by the Perlman Donor Advised Fund. On March 17, at Sidewalk Film Center & Cinema, we will screen the powerful and deeply moving documentary “No Place on Earth.” Based on the memoir of Holocaust survivor Esther Stermer, this documentary tells the shocking story of three Jewish families—38 people in total—who escaped the Nazis and survived the Holocaust by hiding in a cave in Ukraine. Following the screening, Michele Forman—a second-generation Survivor, award-winning documentarian, and UAB media studies professor—will lead a discussion about the film to deepen audience understanding of the extreme strength and sacrifices needed to escape the Nazi regime and survive the Holocaust, as well as the role documentaries must play in preserving Holocaust memory.  Tickets are $10 per person. Purchase your tickets today! 

The AHEC invites you to join us for the final screening of our 13th annual Holocaust in Film Series: Rescue, Escape, and Liberation, sponsored by the Perlman Donor Advised Fund. On March 31 at Sidewalk Film Center & Cinema, we will screen the emotional and thought-provoking film “Everything is Illuminated." The film follows Jonathan, whose grandfather was a Holocaust survivor, as he struggles to uncover his family’s history and learn the lessons this history has to teach him.  As Jonathan’s journey unfolds, the story asks what escape or liberation truly means to those who survived the Holocaust yet remain haunted by memories of their trauma and immense losses. Following the screening, Michele Forman—a second-generation Survivor, award-winning documentarian, and UAB media studies professor—will lead a discussion about the film to deepen audience understanding of the struggles survivors and the descendants of survivors continue to face, as well as how we can work together to build a better and brighter future.  Tickets are $10 per person. Purchase your tickets today! 

Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a solemn day of reflection observed each spring to honor the memory of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. The date follows the Hebrew calendar and marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and symbolizing Jewish resistance in the face of annihilation. Each year, the Alabama Holocaust Education Center commemorates Yom HaShoah with a powerful public program that centers on personal testimony. The event always includes descendants of Alabama Holocaust Survivors who share deeply moving stories that preserve memory and inspire future generations. These first-person narratives offer a rare and intimate window into the lived experiences of courage, survival, and loss. Stories of liberation, resistance and rescue are also featured. Through music, historical reflection, and storytelling, AHEC’s Yom HaShoah Commemoration brings our community together to remember, to educate, and to affirm our shared responsibility to stand against antisemitism, hatred, and indifference in all its forms.