Pick up any Jewish magazine or newspaper, and many mainstream publications, and you’ll see rave reviews of Deborah Lipstadt’s new book, “The Eichmann Trial.” Published in March, the book is already in its fifth printing.

Lipstadt, Dorot professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., will be talking about her newest book at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 29, at the Kansas City Public Library’s Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St. There will be a reception at 6 p.m. The program is free and open to the public. RSVP online to http://www.kclibrary.org/event/deborah-e-lipstadt-eichmann-trial or call (816) 701-3407. The author will sign books after the program. Books will be available for sale at the event.

In a telephone interview with The Chronicle, Lipstadt said she will tell the story of the capture of Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents in Argentina in May 1960, then talk specifically about the impact of the trial on survivors.

“The point I’m going to stress and the point I stress in the book is the impact it has had on the voice of the survivor, the voice of the person who can speak in the first person singular about what happened to them. That wasn’t something people had heard at Nuremberg,” she said.

Seminal event of 20th century

The Eichmann trial changed the notion of war crimes trials, Lipstadt said. At the Nuremberg trials, held from November 1945 to October 1946, defendants were tried mainly on documents, with very few victims actually testifying. But the case against Eichmann was built mainly on testimony from survivors, which seared into memory actual faces and names of victims of the Holocaust.

For 15 years, survivors had been speaking about their experiences, “but never in this intensity and never in this public and high profile a setting,” Lipstadt explained. “There was no such a thing as survivors’ rights or victims’ rights then. And that has an impact to today.”

Although Lipstadt has written three other books, all with Holocaust themes, her interest in the Holocaust is not personal — she is not a child of survivors and had no immediate family members perish.

“I just think it’s a crucial event in Jewish history, a crucial event in world history, the seminal event certainly of the 20th century, and possibly lots of other centuries,” she said. “It was just unprecedented and something I really wanted to understand, and I felt it important that my students understand it as well.”

Lipstadt said her intent is not to continue the message, “Never again.” She sees herself simply as an educator whose role it is to educate people about what happened.

“I have no agenda in terms of what (people) should think or how they should think or what they should do, or what actions my teachings might lead them to,” she said. “My sense is, you have to know the history, you have to know what happened and understand it.”

She said she had just received a “very moving” letter from a non-Jewish man in Hong Kong, in his early 60s, who had just read the book. He said he had heard much about the Holocaust, but never really learned all the nuances of it.

“What’s important about this book is not just to learn about the trial, but to give you a sense of different aspects of the Holocaust you really didn’t know. A lot of people know the word, but they don’t know the details,” she noted. “They know, oh, yeah, that was when 6 million Jews were killed. But they’re not really quite sure about how it happened, how it proceeded, how it evolved, and I think that’s really important. Or they’re not quite sure about the response of the Jews, etc.”

Gloria P. Gershun Memorial Lecture

Deborah Lipstadt’s speaking event at the Kansas City Plaza Library is the first of, hopefully, many book and author events of the Gloria P. Gershun Memorial Lecture, made possible in part by funding from Lawrence and Donna Gould Cohen and Martha Gershun and Don Goldman, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Center and the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

Gloria Gershun died in May 2010. Her daughter, Martha Gershun, said her mother was a professional librarian and a passionate booklover, with deep ties to the Jewish community. She co-founded the Kansas City Jewish Book Fair in 1994 and was active in its growth and support for many years.

The JCC wanted to do something with books to honor Gloria’s memory. So, with the help of Donna Cohen and Martha, the Gloria P. Gershun Memorial Lecture was born.

“We are planning several author events in Mom’s honor,” Martha said. “We expect more events at the library and also future events at the Jewish Community Center in the coming years.”