![]() ![]() An emotional history of Jewish refugees biding their time in Portugal may offer us a glimpse into their feelings then and also into feelings that many refugees on the streets of Paris, in cafes in Berlin, or under tents in Jordan may share today, no matter how widely divergent their original circumstances. Then I started wondering, since so many Sosuan Jews had transmigrated from Portugal: How did they get there? What did they do there? Most importantly, how did Jews react emotionally to the sites they encountered during their frightening odysseys and their fearful wait in an oddly peaceful purgatory. I first wrote a book about Jewish refugees in the small settlement of Sosua, in the Dominican Republic. The daughter of German-Jewish refugees myself, I began to think about those mostly German and Austrian Jews who had struggled and managed to get out - but not to their final destination. Today there are 80 million displaced people (not including Venezuelans) and 26 million refugees, defined as people forced to leave their countries because of persecution, war or violence. What is new is the refugee crisis that has had global resonance for all of us in the last several decades. I have been writing about the history of German Jews for many years, so that is not new. I’d like to start with how I came to this topic. The full transcript of Professor Kaplan’s lecture can be read below: You can view the full lecture via the Gresham College website, and read our Director Dr Toby Simpson’s response to this fascinating material via our blog. ![]() Listening to their voices may help us to understand Jewish heartbreak and perseverance in the 1940s and encourage us to listen compassionately to refugees’ stories today. It described how they were treated, how they attempted to escape Europe, and how they struggled in a “no-man’s land” between a painful past and an unknown future. ![]() Our special guest speaker, Professor Marion Kaplan, discussed the experiences of Jewish refugees fleeing from antisemitic persecution and from the Second World War to Portugal. We were delighted that so many attended in-person or tuned in to watch this lecture. On Wednesday 23 November the Library hosted the Third Annual Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture at Gresham College. Professor Marion Kaplan speaks at the 3rd Annual Alfred Wiener Lecture at Gresham College, London ![]()
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