Originally recorded at 10:45 a.m. EDT Monday, August 13, 2018, Sara J. Bloomfield's talk at the Chautauqua Amphitheater is released from our archives as we prepare to premiere "The Tehran Children: Iran's Unexpected & Suppressed Connection to the Holocaust" - a program curated for CHQ Assembly in collaboration with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Sara J. Bloomfield is director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a global institution that raises Holocaust awareness, deepens understanding of the lessons of the Holocaust, confronts denial, and advances genocide prevention.

Bloomfield joined the museum in 1986 when it was a project in development. She served in a number of positions before becoming director in 1999. Bloomfield established the museum’s Institute for Holocaust Documentation; the Levine Institute for Holocaust Education; the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies; and the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. In 2007, the museum’s diplomatic efforts led to the opening of the International Tracing Service Archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany. For the museum’s 10th Anniversary, Bloomfield obtained the first-ever loan of Anne Frank’s original writings. During the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Bloomfield negotiated an understanding to rescue endangered artifacts and archives that document the Holocaust in Croatia.

She serves on the International Auschwitz Council, has been a member of the board of the International Council of Museums/USA, and is a recipient of the Officers Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. She was also the first recipient of the Jan Karski Award of the Anti-Defamation League, Washington Chapter.

Bloomfield holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Northwestern University, and a Master’s in education from John Carroll University.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.