Religious Studies

Location

Part of the Brown-Bag Lunch Series, a discussion with Professor Maggie Fraser Kirsh. In our world today, one out of every 113 people on this planet is displaced: they are asylum seekers, internally displaced, or refugees. Child refugees - survivors of the Holocaust - has been my area of research for the past 15 years. So much has been written and recorded about the industrial murder of Jews that took place in ghettos and killing centers throughout Europe. Comparatively little has been said about what came next for survivors of the Holocaust. Where did they go? How did they begin their lives again? After surviving a genocide, what comes next? Using early post-war writings of educators, relief workers, administrators, and social workers, my project analyzes “outsiders’” perspectives and portrayals of child survivors and calls into question traditional narratives of the reception and perception of communities who opened their doors to child survivors.