Join the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on February 20 for a fireside chat with Professor Amos N. Guiora on Communist Crimes of Complicity: Collaborators, Bystanders, and Enablers in Communist Countries.
Communist regimes enhance their control over people’s lives by encouraging collaboration, pitting citizens against one another. Moreover, the threat of punishment for standing up against lies and injustice can be so great as to render many people as passive bystanders.
Professor Amos Guiora, a professor at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, where he directs the Bystander Initiative, has written extensively on his own family’s experiences during the Holocaust and in Eastern Europe. In this special conversation at the VOC Museum, Professor Guiora will focus on collaboration and enablement of communism’s crimes. This topic is of historical interest, when one thinks about the unresolved crimes of the Cold War era, but it is also of interest to those who yearn for democratic transitions in Cuba, China, North Korea, Venezuela, and elsewhere. How should collaboration be dealt with after the fall of a communist regime?
The conversation will be moderated by VOC President and CEO Dr. Eric Patterson.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Amos N. Guiora is a professor at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah where he directs the Bystander Initiative.
Guiora is a Distinguished Fellow and Counselor at the International Center for Conflict Resolution at University of Pittsburgh; a non-Resident Fellow, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism; a Distinguished Fellow, Chicago Kent College of Law’s Consortium on Research on the Study of the Holocaust and the Law; a member of the Board of Advisors for S.E.S.A.M.E.; a member of the Advisory Committee of the Lauren McClusky Foundation, (previously a Board Member); Member Consultant Group, Holocaust Claims Commission; was the inaugural chair of the University of Utah Independent Review Committee; and chaired the Gymnastics Canada Task Force on Assault.
Professor Guiora scholarship focuses on the question of bystanders and enablers, resulting in a number of books including The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust, Armies of Enablers: Survivor Stories of Complicity and Betrayal in Sexual Assaults, The Complicity of Silence: Confronting Ecosystems of Child Sexual Abuse in Schools, and Enablers: Normalizing the Unimaginable (forthcoming, American Bar Association Series: Guiora on Enablers, Bystanders, and Institutional Complicity).
In addition, Guiora has authored numerous law review articles on this issue, is widely interviewed by local, national, and international media, and has testified on this issue both in the U.S. and abroad, calling for the criminalization of bystanders and enablers.
In 2023, Guiora received the University of Utah’s Bennion Center Distinguished Faculty Service Award for his work on enablers and bystanders and in 2024 was voted Outstanding Professor by the S.J. Quinney College of Law 2024 graduating class.
