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Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, Executive Director

Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel is the founder and executive director of the Remember the Women Institute, a not-for-profit organization based in New York City that carries out and encourages research and cultural projects that integrate women into history. Her own focus is on Jewish women, especially women during the Holocaust.

She is co-editor, with Dr. Sonja Hedgepeth, of Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, an anthology published by Brandeis University/University Press of New England in November 2010. She has also written a book entitled Mielec, Poland: From Shtetl to Nazi Concentration Camp, which will be published by Gefen Publishing House in early 2011. This book is based on her work as a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem for the fall 2006 semester.

She is also the author of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), a National Jewish Book Awards finalist in Holocaust Studies and Barbara Dobkin Women's Studies categories. The book was published in a paperback edition in 2006, and in Hebrew in Israel in 2007. A Portuguese edition was published by University of São Paulo Press, Brazil in 2009. She is also the editor of Fiorello's Sister: Gemma La Guardia Gluck's Story. This is a new expanded edition of the memoir by Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of beloved New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (Syracuse University Press, 2007). She also produced and curated an innovative exhibit and accompanying catalogue entitled Women of Ravensbrück: Portraits of Courage for the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as an exhibit about Gemma La Guardia Gluck for Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York.

Dr. Saidel is the author of Never Too Late to Remember: The Politics Behind New York City's Holocaust Museum (Holmes & Meier), which was awarded the prestigious National Foundation for Jewish Culture Musher Publication Prize, and The Outraged Conscience: Seekers of Justice for Nazi War Criminals in America (SUNY Press), as well as hundreds of published articles on the Holocaust and related subjects. She has written and lectured internationally on the Holocaust for more than thirty years.

Dr. Saidel is a senior researcher at NEMGE - The Center for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has been a an Associated Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Women and Society, The Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Philadelphia Center on the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights. She is a member of the International Steering Committee for the Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and served on that committee for the Remembering for the Future 2000 conference at Oxford University.

She received her PhD in Political Science from The Graduate School and University Center, CUNY, in New York City. She served for nine years as a special assistant to the Democratic leader of the New York State Senate, with responsibilities that included Holocaust education in the state and planning for the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. She has been a member of the National Commission for Catholic-Jewish Religious Dialogue in Brazil, the first woman appointed to the commission by the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops.

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