5:00 pm Reception  |  6:00 pm Presentation and Q&A  |  7:00 pm Book Signing

Year of Remembrance Series Special Presentation

In the 1930s, as Nazi persecution against Jews intensified and fascist movements across Europe gained steam, a strange consensus developed among anti-Semites, Zionists, humanitarian activists, and Western diplomats alike: millions of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe would need to be resettled elsewhere. Schemes for resettling Jews—in Palestine, but also Angola, the Dominican Republic, Guiana, and Madagascar—were the talk of the international community as well as Jewish organizations and political parties. The motivations behind and goals of these resettlement projects varied dramatically, but they all reflected longer histories of emigration policies and politics in east-central Europe, as well as the history of European colonial fantasies. The lines between emigration, ethnic cleansing, and humanitarian rescue ultimately blurred as many became convinced that the resettlement of East European Jews would create a more peaceful and prosperous world.

Tara Zahra is Professor of East European History at the University of Chicago. Her work focuses on the transnational history of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, and she is the author of Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948 and The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe's Families after World War II. She's currently working on a book scheduled to be published in 2016 called The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World. In 2014, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

This program is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Ensure your spot by RSVPing online or over the phone at 504-528-1944 x 412.

In partnership with University of New Orleans Department of History

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