Einspruch Lecture Explores Academy Award-Winning Holocaust Film

The star of the Academy Award-winning film "Son of Saul" will present two lectures Sunday and Monday for the annual Burton C. Einspruch Lecture Series, hosted by the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at UT Dallas.

Hungarian actor Géza Röhrig’s first lecture, at 2 p.m. Sunday, will touch on his experience playing the titular character in the film, a Hungarian drama set in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

“To play Saul in this movie, it helps if a person had, so to speak, some losses in his life,” the actor said in an interview with The Times of Israel. “It creates certain acoustics. When you don’t have something, that creates a void. It leaves room for things to echo in that room.”

Röhrig — who was raised in Budapest by his adoptive family since the age of 12 — is also a poet and a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. His published poetry collections include two volumes examing the Shoah.

Upon its release in 2015, "Son of Saul" received critical acclaim, winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe, and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Immediately after the lecture, the Ackerman Center will host a short reception in Arts and Technology Building lobby.

His Sunday talk will be preceded by a screening of the film Saturday, Nov. 5, at 8 p.m. in the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building Lecture Hall.  

“'Son of Saul' has moved me to the core,” said Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, the Leah and Paul Lewis Professor of Holocaust Studies. “Different from most movies on the Holocaust, it reveals something about Auschwitz that brings us closer to understanding what happened there. With the murder out of focus but the events clearly recognizable, it is partly director László Nemes and the main character, Géza Röhrig’s Saul, that reveal the heretofore unimaginably brutal attacks on human beings. In fact, Mr. Röhrig’s acting in "Son of Saul" may be described as one of the most important performances in the history of film.”

On Monday at 9 a.m., Röhrig will give a second lecture on the theme of forgiveness. Both talks will take place in the ATEC Lecture Hall.

For more information about the lectures, call (972) 883-2100 or email holocauststudies@utdallas.edu.

About the Burton C. Einspruch Lecture Series

The endowment of the Burton C. Einspruch Holocaust Lecture Series sponsors annual lectures and is part of the Holocaust Studies Program in the School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas. It brings world-famous scholars in the field of Holocaust research to the UT Dallas campus where they share and discuss their latest findings with general audiences as well as with students and faculty. The series’ purpose is to help others understand the crisis the Holocaust created in the world and to study its relevance and meaning for humanity in the 21st century.