Lectures, Readings, & Conferences

*CANCELLED* The Pogrom at a Displaced Person's Camp: Intra-Jewish Violence in the Shadow of the Holocaust

Devin E. Naar, PhD - Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies and Chair of the Sephardic Studies Program at the University of Washington, Seattle

*Due to issues surrounding health concerns related to COVID-19, this event has been CANCELLED.  Plans to reschedule this event are in consideration for the spring semester of 2021.*

 

In the wake of the Holocaust, survivors of the Nazi camps and refugees of all types found their way to displaced persons camps in Germany, Italy, North Africa and elsewhere. At Feldafing, near Munich, the U.S. army established the first exclusively Jewish DP camp in 1945. This presentation explores a previously unknown incident at Feldafing in which a group of Polish Jews attacked and burned down the encampment of Greek Jews leading to total chaos. How could this unprecedented "pogrom" perpetrated by one group of Jews against another in the wake of the Holocaust come about? Why has it been largely excised from the historical record? What does it tell us about the impact of trauma, intra-Jewish violence, and the relationships between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews then--and now?

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DEVIN NAAR graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and received his PhD at Stanford University. He has also served as a Fulbright Fellow to Greece. His book, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece, won the 2016 National Jewish Book Award for Writing Based on Archival Material and was named a finalist for Sephardic Culture. It also won the 2017 Edmund Keeley Prize for best book in Modern Greek Studies awarded by the Modern Greek Studies Association.

As the Chair of the new Sephardic Studies Program of the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, Naar has spearheaded a project to collect, preserve, and disseminate the rich Sephardic and Ladino historical, literary, and cultural heritage. Along with Sephardic Studies research coordinator, Ty Alhadeff, Dr. Naar has created the first major online Sephardic Studies Digital Library and Archive comprised of more than 1,500 artifacts, books, and letters collected from residents of the Seattle area and across the country.

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This lecture is free and open to the public.