‘I did not want to die without having kissed a woman’

Thursday, March 28, 2024, 11:00 AM PDT | 2:00 PM EDT

Very little has been recorded about same-sex desire and relationships in concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust, leaving us with questions about how queer relationships were viewed and what stories may have been erased. 

On March 28, Dr. Anna Hájková, a scholar of Jewish Holocaust history and pioneer of queer Holocaust history, will discuss why including queer perspectives helps us develop a more inclusive history of the Holocaust.

She Smuggled Love, Hope, and Dynamite Over the Ghetto Walls

By: Julie Gruenbaum Fax

Not long after Feigele (Vladka) Peltel’s father died of pneumonia in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, the 17-year-old found herself at a lecture about Yiddish author I.L. Peretz hosted by her social democratic youth group, Tsukunft (The Future). She doesn’t precisely remember the talk, but she does recall the energy in the room.

Julie Gruenbaum Fax
Julie Gruenbaum Fax is a content strategist and writer for the USC Shoah Foundation. She was a senior writer and editor at the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles and has co-authored six personal history books. She is currently writing a book about her grandmother’s Holocaust experience.

USC Shoah Foundation Partners with National Library of Israel

The USC Shoah Foundation has partnered with the National Library of Israel to provide Israelis with the first countrywide access to the Institute's entire Visual History Archive, including testimonies from more than 52,000 Holocaust survivors and hundreds of survivors of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

Remembering Kia Hays

When one works in the field of Holocaust memory, you tend to find that your colleagues are a mission driven, self-effacing, highly dedicated bunch. We work with hard subjects, care deeply and build strong bonds with one another as we cope with the challenging, yet abundantly meaningful work. We were blessed here at USC Shoah Foundation to have formed those strong bonds with the brilliant and compassionate Kia Hays.

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