12:30PM – 1:00PM: Come early for the traveling library and IAJGS conference materials available for viewing.  Refreshments will be served.

1:00PM - 1:30PM: Film: “Word Travels: Lithuania – Digging Up Roots."

Follow the adventures of two young "extreme travel" writers, South African freelance writer Robin Esrock and Canadian columnist Julia Dimon, as they journey to Lithuania to seek out unusual stories. After discovering modern Vilnius, Julia heads off to the quirky, Soviet-era theme park, Stalin World, where the harsh history meets Communist kitsch.  Researching the rise of genealogical travel, writer, Robin Esrock, traces his roots to the small town of Kupiskis, where his grandfather was born and the horror of the Holocaust remains thick in the air. As Robin traces the steps of his ancestors, he also comes face to face with the tragic past. Beautifully filmed with stunning images of the country, this episode will appeal to anyone interested in a personal, somewhat offbeat visit to this Eastern European country.

1:30PM - 2:00PM: Warren Blatt, Managing Director of JewishGen, will review where JewishGen has been and where they are going, outlining their expanding databases, new tools and services.  He will also elaborate on JewishGen's new agreement with Ancestry.com.

2:00PM - 2:30PM: Film: "A Torah Returns to Poland"

Narrated by Theodore Bikel, “A Torah Returns to Poland” is a half-hour story tracing the journey of one particular Torah that had its origins in Alsace, France in 1876. Nourishing its healthy Jewish population for  decades, World War II tragically altered the Torah’s fate. When the Alsatian Jewish community was deported to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, they brought their Torah with them; it was found intact in Poland after the war, a survivor of the Holocaust that had consumed almost all of the community it had once served. From the ruins, the Torah somehow found its way to New York's Lower East Side. There it was obtained by a Manhattan family who brought it full circle back to Poland in June 2005, contributing it to the Polish Jewish community in honor of their daughter becoming a Bat Mitzvah. This is a story that celebrates the continuity of Jewish life, manifested both by the survival of the Torah itself as well as the rebirth of Jewish life in Poland today.

2:30PM - 3:00PM: Gesher Galicia Cadastral Map & Landowner Records Project Update, H-SIG Update (Pamela Weisberger) and South American programs and IAJGS elections (Sandy Malek)

3:00PM - 4:00PM: Film: Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good

Nicholas Winton was a successful 29-year-old stockbroker from London who "had an intuition" about the fate of the Jews when he visited Prague in 1939. He quietly, but decisively, got down to the business of saving lives. We learn how only two countries, Sweden and Britain, answered his call to harbor the young refugees; how documents had to be forged ("We didn't bring anybody in illegally, we just, er, speeded up the process a little") and how once foster parents signed for the children on delivery that was the last he saw of them. "You had to treat it like a business," says Winton. Between March 13 and August 2, 1939, Nicholas Winton organized eight transports (one airplane and seven trains) to take 669 children from Prague to new homes and kept quiet about it until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988. Winton, now 99 years old, is an immensely compelling symbol of how a caring person can truly make a difference. International Emmy Award, 2002.

LOCATION: University Synagogue; Klein Hall, 11960 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.  Program is free to members. $5 fee for guests.

Directions: From the San Fernando Valley, take the 405 south and exit at Sunset. Turn left from the off-ramp, then right on to Sunset. Drive one mile on Sunset going west, then turn left on Saltair, and left into the parking lot. From the south, take the 405 north, exit on Sunset, turn left on Sunset, and turn left on Saltair.