This Monday, Jan. 27, the world will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day — a day to honor the six million Jewish lives lost and countless others persecuted under the Nazi regime. Cornell, a university that prides itself on intellectual engagement and social responsibility, should also take a moment to ask a pressing question: How can we preserve memory in a world driven by immediacy and fractured by noise and division? At a time when the power of listening has never been more urgent, this day calls on all of us to respond to the voices of history and conscience.

As a historian at Cornell, I grapple with the challenge of listening every day. This spring, I am teaching a course titled “The Past and Future of Holocaust Survivor Testimony,” where we explore the profound responsibility of keeping survivor voices alive in a rapidly changing world. In our weekly discussions, we examine how digital archives and other technologies are reshaping how we interact with memory, challenging us to reflect on what it means to “bear witness” in the 21st century. The rise in Holocaust distortion, combined with broader societal shifts toward polarization, amnesia and nationalist whitewashing in Eastern Europe, makes this work all the more vital. At its core, this course is about more than history — it is about the transformative power of active, ethical listening and its relevance to the challenges we face in today’s society.

Listening, in this context, is not passive. It is an ethical choice........

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