The Fortune of Survival — Intermarried Jews in Nazi Germany
A lecture by Maximilian Strnad (University of Munich)
Doheny Memorial Library, Room 240
Strnad’s research provides an in-depth look in to the lives of inter-married Jews that were attempting to survive the war during its final year. By focusing on this specific time period, this lecture will provide new insights into the persecution of the Jews that remained within the German Reich.
Most of the German Jews liberated in Spring 1945 were married to non-Jewish spouses. From 1938 onwards, the fate of the intermarried Jews in some major ways differed from those of German Jews in general.
Since their deportation was suspended until shortly before the end of war, intermarriage provided Jews the chance to survive the Holocaust. So the history of German Jews in the late stages of the Holocaust is to a significant extent the history of the mixed marriages. This lecture will provide an overview of the very special situation of these intermarried Jews and their family members. By focusing on the last year of war, the lecture provides new insights into the persecution of the last remaining Jews in the German Reich and shows that regional particularities were a major factor in determining their fate.
Maximilian Strnad is a PhD candidate at the University of Munich, where he received his MA in 2007. Until 2013 he served as a research assistant first at the University of Munich and at the NS-Documentation Center in Munich. He is currently a Sosland Family Foundation Fellow at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. Among his recent publications are: "The Fortune of Survival - Intermarried German Jews in the late stage of the Shoah" (Dapim 2015); Flachs für das Reich. Das jüdische Zwangsarbeitslager 'Flachsröste Lohhof' bei München (Munich: Volk Verlag, 2013); Der Holocaust in der deutschsprachigen Geschichtswissenschaft (co-edited with Michael Brenner) (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2012); and Zwischenstation 'Judensiedlung'. Verfolgung und Deportation der jüdischen Münchner 1941-1945 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011).
Refreshments will be served.
