UB grad appointed to Obama Administration post

Deborah A. Oppenheimer was named this week by President Barack Obama as an appointee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Oppenheimer, executive vice president of NBCUniversal International Television Production, created and produced the critically-acclaimed documentary, “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport,” for which she won an Academy Award in 2000.

She co-authored the film’s companion book and oversaw the writing of the teachers’ study guide. She has judged documentaries for the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and the Producers Guild of America. In addition, Oppenheimer has volunteered in various capacities with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Hollygrove Orphans Home Society and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

She is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors who received a bachelor’s degree and an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from SUNY at Buffalo.