A group of Jewish children rescued from Vienna look at the Statue of Liberty as they pull into New York harbor in June 1939. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Steven Pressman
How did German Jewish refugees recall their past? Centered on those who fled their homes before the mass deportations began and resettled in the United States before the end of the war, Dr. Judith Gerson considers how people collectively remembered their lives in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Relying on memoirs, testimonies, diaries, and letters as evidence, and based on a recently completed book manuscript by the same title, this Ina Levine Annual Lecture analyzes the myriad of complex ways these refugees grapple with the enduring legacies of a catastrophic past even as many recognize their good fortune.
Dr. Judith Gerson is on the faculties of Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University where she is an affiliate faculty in Jewish Studies. She is the 2018 Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.
This event is made possible through the generous support of the William S. and Ina Levine Foundation.