Evacuation and Escape of Soviet Jews during World War II
Monday, November 2 @ 12:30 PM
Lunch and Learn with Professor Anna Shternshis
University of Colorado at Boulder
Gates Woodruff Women’s Studies Cottage
Campus Map
Free and open to the public
Bring a brown bag lunch and join Anna Shternshis, professor of History at the University of Toronto and author of Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939, for a lunch and learn presentation of her recent research on Soviet Jews during WWII. This lecture examines wartime activities of Jewish culture makers to suggest that Jewish nationalism in the Soviet Union during WWII was a form of radicalism.
During WWII, the majority of Soviet Jews went through one or more of these four experiences: service in combat or participation in the partisan movement; ghetto or concentration camp imprisonment; contention in the Gulag, or escape in the country’s rear (Siberia or Central Asia), which in Soviet historiography is referred to as “evacuation.” The possibility of evacuation or escape is one of the features that make the Soviet Jewish experience during WWII unique among European Jewry. Professor Shternshis’ paper is based on archival sources and on extensive in-depth interviews with survivors, escapees and their families. Beverages provided.
Reading for the event: Working paper WWII, Jews and Evacuation by Anna Shtnershis (pdf)
**Events require an RSVP as seating is limited due to fire code restrictions. Attending an event without an RSVP may require waiting until all those who have RSVP'd are seated or being turned away if the room has reached capacity. **