Keynote Lecture as part of the “Space and Place in the German-Jewish Experience of the 1930s”- Workshop.
12 May 2022 – 18:00-19:30 - Hörsaal 218, Universitätsplatz 1
Marion Kaplan (New York)
The Emotional Dissonance of Spaces: German Jewish Refugees in Portugal
As part of the workshop “Space and Place in the German-Jewish Experience of the 1930s” (12-13 May 2022, University of Rostock)
Informationen und Kontakt: david.juenger@uni-rostock.de
One would think that once out of Germany, Jewish refugees might breathe a sigh of relief. Not so. Each step of the way brought fear, but also expectation. Whether escaping by train or on foot, whether crossing borders carrying proper papers or missing most, refugees approached each step with the terror of being apprehended or with hopes of success—often both. Spaces that once had signified a vacation or adventure, such as consulates, travel agencies, entries into neighboring lands, or sun drenched cafes, transformed into frightening or liberating experiences, ambivalent sites with no clear future ahead.
Marion Kaplan is the Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at NYU. She is a three-time National Jewish Book Award winner for The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany (1991), Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (1998), and Gender and Jewish History (with Deborah Dash Moore, 2011) as well as a finalist for Dominican Haven: The Jewish Refugee Settlement in Sosua (2008). Her other publications include: The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945 (ed.), and Jüdische Welten: Juden in Deutschland vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart (with Beate Meyer, 2005). Her newest book, Hitler’s Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal, 1940-45 was published by Yale University Press in 2020.