Thursday, November 16, 20234:00 PM - 5:30 PM
UCLA California NanoSystems Institute
Drawing on twelve years of research in dozens of archives in Austria, Germany, Israel, and the United States, this lecture tells the story of Jewish women and men who bravely resisted persecution and defended themselves in Nazi Germany. By expanding the concept of resistance, different categories of individual resistance emerge.
The Center for European and Russian Studies (CERS) in co-sponsorship with the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA Department of History, and the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies invite you to a book talk with Professor Wolf Gruner, the author of Resisters. How Ordinary Jews fought Hitler’s Persecution. The event will take place at California Nano Systems Institute (UCLA) on Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 4pm. Register today!
Abstract
Drawing on twelve years of research in dozens of archives in Austria, Germany, Israel, and the United States, this lecture tells the story of Jewish women and men who bravely resisted persecution and defended themselves in Nazi Germany. By expanding the concept of resistance, different categories of individual resistance emerge: written opposition, oral protest, contestation of Nazi propaganda, defiance of anti-Jewish laws and measures, and self-defense against physical attacks. Many of these courageous acts resulted in the resisters of all ages being prosecuted and put on trial; often receiving harsh punishments in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1943. These stories have not been told until now, and each case is one of many. Taken together, these accounts reframe our understanding of German Jewish attitudes during the Holocaust, challenging the traditional portrayal of Jewish passivity.
Speaker
Wolf Gruner (PhD, Technical University Berlin) is the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History atthe University of Southern California, Los Angeles since 2008, and Founding Director of the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research since 2014. He is an appointed member of the Academic Committee at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum since 2017. He is the author of eleven books, among them Jewish Forced Labor under the Nazis. Economic Needs and Nazi Racial Aims with Cambridge University Press (2006), Parias de la Patria. El mito de la liberación de los indígenas en la República de Bolivia 1825-1890 (2015), and the prizewinning The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia. Czech Initiatives, German Policies, Jewish Responses (2019). He coedited four books, including Resisting Persecution. Jews and Their Petitions during the Holocaust (2020), and New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison (2019). His new book is called: Resisters. How Ordinary Jews fought Hitler’s Persecution, Yale University Press 2023.
Venue
CNSI is located on UCLA's campus in the south-west corner of the Court of Sciences. The main entrance is at courtyard level and faces out onto Court of Sciences. The doorway opens directly across from the Bombshelter Eatery Reconstruction Site. You can also reach the CNSI building from Parking Lot 9. The entrance is at rooftop level of the parking lot, so go to the lot roof and use the walkway/bridge on the far left side to make your way around to the front entrance.
Parking
The closest pay station lots to CNSI are Parking Structure 2 and Parking Structure 8. Parking at UCLA requires a valid permit at all times. Campus parking is available 24-hours a day at varying prices. Visit UCLA Visitor Parking for information about where to park and how to pay.
Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, Department of History, Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies