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Hi everyone, thank you for coming to the 2019 George. S higher distinguished lecture ship. The lectureship was established to honor George S Higher Junior Professor emeritus of the history of doctrine for his 30 years as

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a value member of the Austin Seminary faculty. The purpose of those annual lecture is to symbolize in advance the important relationship between the academy and the church. To recall the long lasting cooperation between U. T

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. Austin and the seminary and also to encourage the positive relationship between faith and knowledge. Today we welcome as our lecture, dr Tatiana elections time. Did I pronounce that right close? She'll do the official

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pronunciation in a minute. Doctor Legend. Stein holds degrees from the University of Toronto BRANDEIS University and the University of Copenhagen. She currently serves as associate professor and as director of the Schusterman Center for jewish studies

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here at U. T. Austin, where she teaches classes on the holocaust and the Western wars in eastern europe. Her research focuses on minorities nationalism, state building war and genocide in Eastern Europe in the

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20th century. Her monograph, Sinus and interwar Czechoslovakia , minority nationalism and the politics of belonging was published by Indiana University Press in 2016. Presently, dr Liechtenstein is working on a new book project titled intimacy

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and persecution jews non jews in the holocaust in the bohemian lands it explores in the experiences of interim entry , jewish and non jewish families during the Second World War, the topic that she will be talking to

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us about today. We look forward to hearing from her. Please help me in welcoming dr religion. Stein, thank you, thank you so much and thank you for having me here today and for being

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here and I want to just plug a new initiative . This feels really loud. Is it too loud ? Okay. Um, that the seminary and the system incentive for jewish studies um is working to develop

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courses. I'm programming in christian jewish relations And one of the upcoming events in this effort is a February 17 vector by a J. Levine who are bringing to Austin for Thursday evening talk and then she's coming

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here to the seminary Friday morning for workshop. Um , she might be in Austin all of that weekend as a visiting scholar at Agoura became uh, Dell jewish community campus. So we'll keep you posted on

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how that all develops. Um, so we're really excited to be partners in the initiative that was spearheaded by David johnson and I knew you'd appreciate that, right? And Rabbi Neil bloomer from Agudath Achim uh

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, here in Austin. So, um, I'd like to start this talk with a photograph that I'm hoping you can see from where you're sitting and with the lighting conditions. Um, this is an image

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that's taking in downtown Prague on a summer day, It shows two couple, 1 with a young child in a fashionable stroller. The young men and women are smiling at the camera. It could be a

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very ordinary picture of young families on a stroke, but it's not. If you look close to, you can see that the men are branded with the yellow stop. Indeed, this is no ordinary time

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. This is June 1943, the height of Nazi Germany's power and the end of the deadliest face of the holocaust. By now, Germans have killed more than 75% of all the Jewish victims of the Holocaust

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, including tens of thousands of Jews from Bohemia and Moravia among them family members of the couples. In this picture. Yet there is a certain ordinary ness about the image the parents strolling with a young child

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enjoying a summer day and their desire to document this moment, but there's also no escaping the threat. The men are branded. After all this photographs offers a small glimpse into the world of intermarriage, jewish

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christian families. During the war, it was a world shaped on the one hand by degradation, dispossession and isolation, same uh, conditions that hit. So called full jewish families. On the other,

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the intermarriage families inhabited a position of relative privilege vis a vis so called full jewish families. If the couple didn't divorce, the inter married couple didn't divorce , then the jewish spouse was protected from the most

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dangerous anti jewish policy, namely deportation. Their life was restricted, but he went on In this region . Families like this, like the ones here were among 2700 Jews that remained at the end of the

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war, remained in Bohemia Arabia. At the end of the war, this is out of a pre war population of about 118,000. These last jews would make up the majority of survivors. And they have

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shaped jewish society and culture in central europe. Since then, my talk today is about the book project I'm working on that explores the experience of intermarriage families and I'm going to spend a little bit of time

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today talking about definitions about the big picture, how this fits into holocaust studies generally what I think we can learn about the holocaust from from looking at these particular experiences and then give you some kind of concrete

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example of uh, some of the fates that family histories that I'm studying. Um, and I'm gonna be using a lot of terminologies such as mixed marriage and arian and jewish and so on. And obviously

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these are highly problematic categories. But they are the Nazi categories and they because they became legislation, they really shaped people's lives, but just I don't I don't need to do this every time you're right,

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you know that this is a problematic categories and we all know that. Um so when I talk about intermarriage families as they were known, then mixed marriages , um these are families that are considered to be

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racially mixed. What we are talking about are people that the german authorities defined as jews or non jews in terms of the non jews as arians, that's the best definition of an area is not a jew

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. Um, so people who are married from that were considered different races. While this often meant christians and jews, sometimes there were christians who were considered of jewish race and even a smaller number of jews

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who were considered racially arian. So people who had converted to judicial a person's racial status was ultimately decided by the Nazi regime, using family histories of religious affiliation as a marker of race. For the Nazis

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, the inter married constituted a particularly dangerous group race . Mixing was seen by them as a potential internal source of potential internal dissolution of the Aryan race. Yet the families in practice proved very difficult for the

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Nazis to isolate and remove precisely because of their bonds to the non jewish world. It remained a complex problem for the Nazi regime from the beginning to the very end, my research focuses on central europe and

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what is today, the Czech Republic after the First World War. Hope you can see this is a 19 men from 1939. So, after the changes the Nazi Germany undertook after the First World War,

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um bohemia moravia, the bohemian lands, which is what constitutes Czech Republic today, there were part of the western part of a multinational state known as Czechoslovakia . Um The Bohemian Arabia was annexed by Nazi Germany

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1st in October 1938, and completely by March 1939 . It remained under Nazi occupation until the very end of the war, May nine, is the last place the German military surrenders. During the german occupation

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, the area was known as the protectorate of bohemia and moravia. It was a region that the Germans ran both as part of nazi Germany and treated as a colony. And in terms of the Holocaust.

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What that means is that the same anti Jewish laws that passed had been passed in Germany since 1933 came into effect overnight in this territory in the spring of 1939, these were laws that were meant to economically

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isolate and dispossessed jews forced them to emigrate, and several. The ties between jews and non jews through social exclusion and general degradation. Until the fall of 1941. The authorities here did not force Jews into

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segregated quarters. The way you might know from Poland , for instance, where there was a ghetto in Warsaw in Bhuj and many other places. Instead, the authorities created what a historian has called a ghetto

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without walls. A complex set of regulations intended to isolate jews from non jews in every way possible. At the same time, the authorities keen not to lose public support and public acceptance of their policies and

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not just the anti jewish policies, but a range of policies. They filed the sounds for the problem of him to deal with. These intermarriage families, so called full jewish families were relatively easy to isolate

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, given that most of their relatives were jews, intermarriage families, of course, have social, economic and kinship ties that reach deep into the non jewish society and throughout the war, the Nazi authorities,

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both in Nazi Germany itself and in the protectorate, debated how to deal with this group. Their hesitation ultimately saved many of the intermarriage families and their Children in central europe by delaying their deportation to the killing

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centers. Yeah, so I'd like to do next is to situate the research within the field of holocaust studies before I turn to some of the uh more specific questions that the study can illuminate. Mhm.

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So historians have paid relatively limited attention to the experiences of intermarry families. And I'd like to suggest three reasons why that is first intermarriage families and the Children , So Children who were considered to be of mixed

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race in german middling. Um the intermarriage and the Children of um didn't see themselves as holocaust survivors. And it was primarily because they were deported very late or not at all. When you are listening to

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the testimonies are reading the testimonies that often begin their testimonies by stating things like quote, nothing much happened to us or quote, we were the lucky ones or we did not get deported. So another statements

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and in some ways questions the legitimacy of survivors. The second reason is that aside from scholars working specifically in Nazi Germany, most historians have been preoccupied with understanding macro policies and processes. They focused on large

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ghettos and camps unless on everyday life and relations between jews and non jews. You know quite a lot about the role of german non jews in enforcing participating and benefiting from Nazi policies, but in territories that

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were occupied by the Germans, particularly in eastern europe , this topic, the role of local non jews has until recently been a taboo and I'm going to return to this point a little bit later. The

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third reason for the neglect is the methodological difficulties that a study of these families kind of present the historian with if one wants to get an ordinary people's experiences , their responses and strategies. In the face of

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this sudden and intensifying persecution, one needs to rely on source materials that are both complex and rare. These are Postwar testimonies, diaries, letters, police archives that would include lots of denunciation letters and arrest

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records, court cases and other materials. In short , once his stories have decided that ordinary people matter finding the documentation is difficult and sometimes impossible. You decide from the ethical obligation of uncovering the experiences of

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people who were marginalized and silenced the micro studies. And this is one of what I sort of see my own my own work as um what they can do is deep in our understanding of war and genocide

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in in three particular ways. Um they're more, but I think these are the three main ones. First of all, the topic allows us to focus on victims responses to persecution. Why does this matter

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? Since the war has been a widespread off repeated narrative that depicted jews as passive as unwilling to see the writing on the wall and in the most extreme forms almost willing victims, needless to say. I

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and most scholars disagree with this kind of narrative, historians of everyday life have shown that people deployed a range of strategies as they sought to alleviate the effects of changing Nazi policies. Be their restrictions on work

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, education, food medicine, movement, displacement, and eventually murder. In some marriage families and their Children were in a unique position. They lived in between the jewish and non jewish world. At times

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they had more agency the possibility of making choices even if terrible ones than jewish families and individuals. It's my hope that the research that sort of the micro studies focusing closely on individual families and their strategies that

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that's gonna help humanize the people of the past rather than projecting onto them behaviors and attitudes that we either idealized or reject. History really does allow us to view others with empathy and to learn how people actually

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respond interface to persecution. The second perspective that I think the study of the inter mary helps illuminate is the role of ordinary non jews in the holocaust, as I mentioned earlier, this has generated a lot

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of debate in recent years, especially in Poland. Some of you might have followed the debates of the so called it was called the death camp law, the holocaust law, but what, what do we

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call the death camps that the Germans established in Poland ? Um, and there's been a lot of incredibly important, I would even say revolutionary scholarship wanted taken by polish historians uh, about the war and about

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relations between Poles and jews, jews and non jews in Poland. But it's hugely politicized issue and there's a lot of debate about it, so it's sort of a best scholarship is happening there and at the

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same time, the most outrageous kind of claims are also being made there, especially by the current government . Um, but in Poland because it's a territory occupied by Germany and the scene itself traditionally as a

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victim of course of german atrocities, but territories that are occupied by the Germans, especially in Eastern europe , where the occupations were horrendous and uh, where the civilian populations generally suffered a lot. Um,

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this is something that really hasn't been studied. It was a taboo during the Communist period and it actually remains taboo in many places such as the Czech Republic until this day. It's really not something that is

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systematically studied yet. The individual people who are undertaken it, but it's not forceful the way it is in Poland, in areas with jews continue to live among non jews, so not in Poland, but

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not in ghettos, but in Germany and in the protector of bohemia and Arabia. There weren't these ghettos at first, um, the authorities don't didn't have the capacity to enforce the boundaries between jews and non

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jews for that they depend on non jews participation. It could take many forms. This participation, it could be friends who stopped attending a card game and a book club with jewish friends that they had previously

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attended, sort of enforcing isolation. Non jews reporting jews seem to be progressing rules buying them from public spaces, reporting jews and non jews who socializing. Some people denounced use for personal reason, personal grudges

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. Others took advantage, financial and otherwise of families , desperation isolation. So in short, by studying the intermarriage families and individuals that lived among non jews from the very beginning of war to the very end

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, you can gain a much deeper understanding of neighbors role in persecution and induce survival. You can also see how that how the behavior of non jews affected the ways in which jews try to respond to the

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persecution. It allows us also to move away from the comfortable notion. And this is again, especially for the East, european societies that jews and non jews alike were terrorized, a pathetic and powerless.

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They were not, they did make choices and while those choices that did not matter on a macro level , they sometimes did on a Micro one. What I'm trying to say is that neighbors could not stop

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the holocaust. Individual, non jews could not stop the holocaust, but their actions and choices could affect jews, chances of evading death, how they acted and why are they have a really important questions to

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answer? Okay. The 3rd perspective that I think the study of the interamerican enrich is to expand our notion of who is a holocaust survivor and then my thereby more accurately assess people's experiences. In recent years

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, historians have gained a much better understanding of the ways in which the holocaust developed gradually and through ideologies , policies and actions that targeted a range of victim groups. For example, the Nazis developed the techniques

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of social control and mass murder when targeting Germans with disabilities. Beginning in 1938, even before the war came under way, they killed at least a quarter million disabled people over the next eight years. Not

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in Germany alone, and but that's where it started , Roma and Sinti and Soviet POWs are other victims that have received increasing attention. Holocaust education now incorporates these other groups. This is not merely to acknowledge

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victimization. Rather, it affords us a deeper understanding of the chain of complicity that made the mass murder as possible. It also allows us to see the persecution is rarely contained. It was carried out by

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a range of perpetrators and enablers, the effects of the violence and discrimination spread like ripples across the border . So what I hope to show in the next section, um is that the experience of the inter

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married families were much more than lucky or and invent for um their lives during the holocaust were profoundly shaped by their wartime victimization. And before we go to the macro, I'm just gonna give you a few

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more things for the context just to make sure that we all kind of know the area that we're talking about. Historians believe that in the 1920s and 30s , Bohemian Arabia was the region in the world,

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with the highest percentage of Jews living in intermarry families . In 1933, Interfaith Union comprised unions, comprised 44% of all marriages involving a jew In Moravia, it was about 30%. The real number is much

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likely a good deal higher. As these data only reflect interfaith unions, not ones where parties declared no religious affiliation or involved converts. So, intermarriage in other words, was very common and jews and christian

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had deep bonds of kinship in this region. The estimated number of Jews in the Bohemian lands before the war was about 118,000 May, 1945, 14,000 are still alive in camps, Ghettos in the east in

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hiding or living with false papers. According to German statistics. In 1943, there were 6000 Jews in the protectorate, married to Arians. By the end of the war, only 2700 Jews. All members

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of inter married families remains in that area. In all, 85% of the Jews and the protectorate were murdered by the Germans. The last years remaining and many of the ones who stayed after the war were

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members of Inter Mary families. So how and why did intermarriage? Uh the intermediate survive in greater numbers . And the short answer is by staying together by no means a simple choice and by having a lot

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of luck in the intermarriage families. One of the most significant decisions in the face of the german attack was whether to divorce or not, an Aryan spouse afforded the jewish partner and their Children some protection.

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The nazi authorities placed enormous pressures on non jews to divorce their spouses, the jewish houses and thousands dead . Okay. At the time. And in much subsequent scholarship, divorce has been seen as an act

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of betrayal. It's a way to get rid of a spouse, but that's not the whole story. When one looks carefully, it becomes clear that the wars was a strategy to preserve family or could be

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a strategy to preserve family, hold it together as an economic and social unit. Indeed, at times , divorce could be an expression of love and commitment , the complex and involved in legislation directed intermarry families

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deliberately pitted spouse us against each other and parents against their Children, divorce returned a non jewish by spouse to normal status, lifting the burden, so to speak, of being related to a jew divorce.

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Also temporarily protected adolescent Children of mixed ancestry from deportation . Some managed to avoid anti jewish legislation altogether for the jewish spouse. However, divorce removed any protection that that marriage had afforded the person were now subject

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to the full range of anti jewish legislation and the consequences would be dire. One survivor who was a young girl at the time, her name's Yana. She described how soon after the german occupation, her

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jewish father and non jewish mother decided to divorce. So quote, there would not be trouble. Yana was five at the time her mother moved with the couple's Children from Prague to a hometown in Pacific in

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Southern Bohemia. And there she continued to work as an elementary school teacher. Did. The boss was only uh check you say no closer to the I was sort of a formal divorce because Jonah's father would

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come down to pieces from Prague and visit and stay with the family and then go back to Prague. Once judas were no longer allowed to travel, mother and daughter would go see him in Prague where he

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lived with his sister and her family. Mm Yet the divorce was disastrous for the family. Having rescinded the protection afforded by his non jewish wife in order to avoid trouble In August of 1942 young, his

00:24:15.140 - 00:24:27.610

father was deported to Tyrosine, as was the entire extended Jewish family. While he was in the Terezin ghetto, yannas mother, her maternal grandmother. We're on a constant quest for extra food that they would

00:24:27.620 - 00:24:42.770

then deliver themselves to the ghetto. Um, so they could supply the family with more food. Her father was sent to Auschwitz Birkenau in September 1943 when he was murdered. Unable to predict the consequences of

00:24:42.770 - 00:24:59.210

their desire to protect their Children from persecution. The divorce deprived Jana's father of lifesaving protection. While Yonas mother was tormented by the decision. Yana recalled that she cried the entire war. It is by no

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means clear that keeping the family together was a better choice. The difficulties become more apparent when we look at Children with adolescent Children. Okay, let me show you because you might be familiar with this family

00:25:11.900 - 00:25:25.440

. Just against family. In Prague the fate of the gin's family. It is a pre war picture . The illustrations impossible dilemma that these intermarry families would face outside. Americans did not divorce. He was

00:25:25.440 - 00:25:38.180

jewish. She wasn't. The case has had two Children all the better and the younger ever. Um , they were not slated for deportation initially also. And the Children was subject though to a whole host

00:25:38.180 - 00:25:51.540

of anti jewish elation legislation, including forced labor exclusion from public spaces and having to wear the yellow star in public. And this has to do with the Children being members of the jewish community from before the

00:25:51.540 - 00:26:03.400

war. I'm not gonna get into that right now . We can do that in the question and answer because the whole category, nazi categorization of thing is extremely complicated. Um, yeah, Through the spring

00:26:03.400 - 00:26:21.570

and summer of 1942 begins family watched as their relatives and friends were deported to tear easy In late September 1942, the family son better who had turned 14 a few months earlier received his transportation notification. Art

00:26:21.580 - 00:26:33.840

begins who accompanied his son to the collection port in Prague recalled I went with him as far as the , as relatives could go and I hugged better. We kissed and he went through the entrance. He

00:26:33.840 - 00:26:48.570

looked back several times. We waved at each other and he disappeared inside the gate. I don't know how I managed to get home while keeping the family intact afforded out against the father, temporary protection from

00:26:48.570 - 00:27:07.890

deportation. He's adolescent Children were deported at different times and alone Ever was deported to tears in the following year, 1943, Followed by Otto himself. In 1944, americans remained alone in Prague. Peter Against

00:27:07.890 - 00:27:22.250

was a very talented artist. Um Some of you might have seen this picture, moon landscape. Um some of his drawings that one of the Israeli astronauts took up when they were, where were they going

00:27:22.250 - 00:27:33.060

to the moon? Maybe? I don't know where they were going. They went in a shuttle. Um It was destroyed on re entry. Um and this was an image that the astronaut had chosen to

00:27:33.070 - 00:27:44.060

bring with him. It's peter gins drawing. Uh , we have a lot of his drawings actually that was preserved. Some artwork of the young Children. Uh, Children and young people in Jersey were preserved

00:27:44.740 - 00:27:59.770

. Um, He did not survive. He was deported to our ship. It to the sun was deported to Auschwitz Birkenau in the fall of 1944 was murdered. His parents and his sister survived the war

00:28:00.040 - 00:28:14.250

. As these two example shows the intermarriage families inhabited a privileged position relative to other jews, but their plight was nevertheless devastating. The trauma and pain suffered by the non jewish box. This is obvious in

00:28:14.250 - 00:28:36.510

these two cases. The choice is the families had to make were often impossible and their conference consequences unpredictable . Mm hmm. What time authorities, german and Czech authorities, they get distinguished between full juice and

00:28:36.510 - 00:28:52.590

mixed families and mixed race Children. But often neighbors . Local non jews did not as these intermarriage families remained behind in their home communities. They became the last jews. The isolation that both adults and Children

00:28:52.590 - 00:29:06.050

experience was severe. In this last case, I want to focus on the experience of a young child . Many of you are probably familiar with this collection of children's drawings and poetry entitled I never saw another

00:29:06.050 - 00:29:18.570

butterfly which is artwork from the terrorism. Ghetto was first published in 1959. Has been issued many, many times since in many languages. The woman behind this book is the art historian, a museum director

00:29:18.570 - 00:29:37.070

, Hannah moravcova and it's her family. I want to use an example and turn to now john wall after on the right was the son of Hannah who is jewish and boy Check Alaska. Boy Check was

00:29:37.080 - 00:29:52.330

a practicing catholic and Hannah was, she would probably agree a non practicing jew. Um yeah, and was baptized as a catholic and he was five years old when the occupation began early in the german occupation

00:29:52.610 - 00:30:03.850

, the couple formally divorced so that voice could keep his job and thereby the family could keep the apartment they lived in which belonged to the gallery. That boy check directed, he was also an art historian

00:30:04.340 - 00:30:21.370

. Yeah, they continue to live together in their home. Jan's mother, Hannah now felt the full force of german prosecution. Those first two years she was increasingly restricted from public spaces is now a full

00:30:21.370 - 00:30:37.560

jew with no protection. She couldn't find employment and by September 41 she was branded with the Yellow Star . She increasingly isolated herself at home. In January 1942, Hannah received deportation orders for the Terezin Ghetto

00:30:38.240 - 00:30:53.900

. The couple promptly remarried by doing so, Hannah was protected from deportation But the marriage have consequences. Wojciech lost his job and thus their home. The war Africa has now moved into a so called jewish

00:30:53.900 - 00:31:08.560

flat that they share with another jewish family. The green fields. Yeah. The isolation and violence that the families young son would experience during the war was deeply traumatic. School was one particularly difficult place for

00:31:08.560 - 00:31:26.530

him as it was for other missing Children In 1940 , when the authorities expelled full Jewish Children from regular schools, the Jewish community really mobilized to find spaces schools for these thousands of Jewish Children that now needed

00:31:26.540 - 00:31:41.410

special schools to be educated in. And these Children became isolated from non jewish Children. But they did so collectively and they often formed new friendships, new communities of young people in these schools and they didn't

00:31:41.410 - 00:31:56.230

experience the kind of our degradation that students who remain in these public schools did. And Children from intermarriage families were not expelled from regular public schools. Suddenly they were the only jews left among them on jewish

00:31:56.230 - 00:32:08.790

students. And I, I mean jews in this sense, right? They're perceived as jews even though they might or might not be themselves like their parents . The isolation they felt was intense. They were

00:32:08.790 - 00:32:21.350

neither part of the jewish world nor the non jewish world. And this was the case for young who remained as an old school. He remembers that early on parents ensured that their sons of sons and daughters

00:32:21.350 - 00:32:35.500

did not mix with the jewish child neighborhood. Children quickly identify yen as a jew and before long, there were not many other jewish Children to pick on . He remembers being tormented regularly and at times subjected

00:32:35.500 - 00:32:50.250

to horrendous violence by these young neighbors. Uh, when I interviewed him over the phone, um, he's lived for many years in the United States and he uh described a horrific incident where he Children with

00:32:50.260 - 00:33:02.820

had I guess painted across on the sidewalk chalk and forced him to lie down and lick the chalk off the sidewalk, click the cross off the sidewalk, why they were kicking him. Um It was a

00:33:02.820 - 00:33:15.740

deeply traumatic, he was deeply traumatized created by this still today in recounting his story, but for him isolating himself at home, the way his mother did was simply not an option. First of all,

00:33:15.740 - 00:33:30.430

he had to attend school. Second because his mother had to wear the yellow star Boychuk and young took care of the families many public tasks, grocery shopping , going to the post office, they went to

00:33:30.430 - 00:33:44.800

the post office often because they were sending parcels parcels to relatives who were in the ghetto and terrorism. Mhm Yang did seek out what he considered to be safe spaces, namely jewish ones. The proud jewish

00:33:44.810 - 00:33:58.970

sports club huggy bore was a welcoming place for john . He formed a close friendship with thomas Grunfeld, the teenage son of the family with which they shared an apartment, But by 1943 these safe zones disappeared

00:33:58.980 - 00:34:12.350

, Thomas and his parents were deported and the mass deportation of Jews and after the mass deportation of Jews were entered in 1942, the Germans transformed hardly bore into a labor camp, the target of violence in

00:34:12.350 - 00:34:30.210

his neighborhood, not marked yet identified as a jew Johns four time experience affected him for years. He became much more isolated than his mother. When the Germans changed policies in 1944 and began separating and deporting

00:34:30.220 - 00:34:45.860

in some marriage families. The Val Africa's approach friends , acquaintances and the catholic church for help. In 4, 1944, Wojciech was sent along with thousands of other Aryan husbands and men of mixed racial ancestry

00:34:45.340 - 00:34:59.480

to labour camps. Anna knew that her deportation was imminent and she was desperate to find a place for the young son to stay for the rest of the war. The war of cars that had a wide

00:34:59.490 - 00:35:09.750

network of non jewish friends, acquaintances and colleagues in the city Again, this is late 1944. So everybody knows that it's a matter of time before the Germans are going to lose the war. Okay.

00:35:10.540 - 00:35:23.460

Yet no one is ready to assist by taking in this young child. On her husband's suggestion, she appeals to the catholic church for the head of the straw of monastery Trento away. In the end,

00:35:23.470 - 00:35:39.200

Hannah's former university roommate and close friend mrs kocurova stepped up. She sheltered john for the remainder of the war, although she was jewish, she had false papers and was passing as an Aryan Yeah. And

00:35:39.200 - 00:35:52.120

spent the rest of the war with this couple in their home near Prague. So while most people saw this boy as a ticking time bomb, a family that had already taken considerable risks to stay safe,

00:35:52.130 - 00:36:02.360

they were the only ones that we're now ready to ready to ready to lend a helping hand. In January 45, Hannah was sent to the Terezin Ghetto when the war ends A few months later, the

00:36:02.360 - 00:36:15.150

family reunites in Prague aside from an inter married sister , the german had murdered Hannah's entire family and along with them, almost all her colleagues at the jewish museum in Prague which he had worked during the war

00:36:16.230 - 00:36:31.300

soon thereafter. Boy check and Hannah divorce Or take one custody of young and Hannah now devoted herself completely to directing the private jewish museum. The post war experience for young Velasco was very difficult. He remembers

00:36:31.300 - 00:36:46.000

being tormented by self hatred and a sense of inferiority internalized through this internalized anti Semitism and degradation he had experienced as a young person. He did find a sense of belonging about Boy Scouts. He was an

00:36:46.010 - 00:37:00.400

avid skier after the war, but he was profoundly marked by this wartime experience. For example, he recounted how at the mere mention of the word jew jewish in a social context, he would experience debilitating

00:37:00.400 - 00:37:15.140

panic attacks Yonville loft, as I mentioned, was has a long distinguished career in the US, He's a psychiatrist and he described himself as suffering from PTSD year after the war. In his testimony, his

00:37:15.140 - 00:37:29.850

parents absence towards the end of the war blends with the post World War divorce. Excuse me. The inter married family that had taken this jewish boy in really became his surrogate family even after the war.

00:37:30.930 - 00:37:43.960

So in this case highlights is that even if authorities place these families in a special category, sometimes the neighbors didn't as one of the few jews left hand was isolated and exposed to violent attacks in public.

00:37:44.540 - 00:37:54.750

In fact, even very late in the war, in a region where the german occupation was relatively mild , non jews were not ready to assist an endangered jewish child. In the course of the war,

00:37:55.230 - 00:38:10.780

jews have been excluded from their neighbors community of moral obligation. So let me just conclude by saying a little bit about the categories of holocaust survivors and how we might expand that watchable africa was deported a few

00:38:10.780 - 00:38:23.010

months before his jewish wife and spent almost a year in a forced labor camp. Before that he had endured the degradation and dispossession that came with being married to a jewish person. You have this job and

00:38:23.010 - 00:38:37.220

home witnessed the deportation of the jewish family and then the small family the wall of scar, shared a home with also were deported. He was socially isolated and took desperate action to keep his son saif only

00:38:37.220 - 00:38:50.510

to end up in a gestapo prison for almost a year. He had no news of his wife and son. My ring against Peter's mother lost her oldest child and was separated from her daughter and husband by

00:38:50.510 - 00:39:06.540

not divorcing Otter. She protected him but made her Children vulnerable. She shared the deprivation, humiliation, isolation and the departure of her extended family and many friends, whatever, and also returned home better didn't

00:39:07.120 - 00:39:21.240

. After the war, the family left for Palestine , deeply scarred by their wartime experience. The impact of the holocaust and the non jewish spouses is reflected in um their inability to cope after the war was

00:39:21.240 - 00:39:35.180

over, they're in between status often continued, and I have a colleague working on Vienna's jews where there were also a lot of intermarriage families and she documents how in several of her cases, non jewish spouses

00:39:35.180 - 00:39:47.750

commits suicide after the war, they simply not able to recover from their experiences. Um, I would say the suicides are also more probably more common among jewish survivors than we actually tend to think. Um

00:39:49.220 - 00:40:01.020

, in short, the war wasn't over for them in many ways, even though the country had been liberated popular memory, including the intermarry, its own memory as well as many scholars have treated these families

00:40:01.020 - 00:40:15.220

as the quote lucky ones, someone to whom not much happened. State authorities after the war excluded many from restitution and reparation claims, which was of course key for them to rebuild their life, especially in

00:40:15.220 - 00:40:29.390

the west, since this was not extended to Eastern europe. However, when studying these families very up close, it's clear that the experience of loss, harassment, humiliation, and displacement, while different from

00:40:29.400 - 00:40:45.730

jewish victims, it parallels parallels those are the holocaust victims. So what I hope to have shown here is that the inter married inhabited position of privilege, but it was kind of a position that is for

00:40:45.730 - 00:40:58.550

the contradiction and pitfalls, the choice whether to divorce . And now it was an example of this for some of the wartime experience was painfully paradoxical. The young mother and the image later in life remember the

00:40:58.550 - 00:41:09.890

war as opposed the darkest and the best year of her life. She was newly married at the time of the war. She had two Children. During the war. Her and her husband lived very intense

00:41:09.890 - 00:41:25.560

social lives surrounded by other young inter married couples who became close friends and remained lifelong friends. Yet at the same time for these families to fear and uncertainty was a condition of everyday life and living for years

00:41:25.570 - 00:41:47.150

. And the agent of abyss took its toll. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I'd love to take questions. I was hoping you had some. I'll keep standing in this position. I've been told

00:41:47.160 - 00:42:07.790

it's better. Yes, dude, Thank you personally . This is amazing. Thank you very much for your presentation. Um I'm on. Okay. I'm curious about the relative degrees of observance in these inter

00:42:07.800 - 00:42:28.120

faith marriages. Were there um you know, closet observances of the high holy days? Or were these jews who had just, what degree of observance of Judaism existed in these families in the 19 thirties.

00:42:28.120 - 00:42:42.060

One of the prominent Prague rabbis claimed that bohemia is the most d Judah has the most d Judah. Ized jewish population in all of the world because he was of course very upset that no one observed anything

00:42:42.070 - 00:42:58.740

. Um It was a very culturally community. Um Mhm Bohemia especially had a century tradition of Jews living in tiny tiny village communities. There were some big centres, but there was something like in the late

00:42:58.740 - 00:43:12.460

1700s, locations in Bohemia where Jews lived, sometimes just individual families. So there was kind of a lot of flexibility in terms of observance, Meridia was more traditional, hence also the 15% difference in intermarriage

00:43:12.460 - 00:43:29.150

rates. That's probably something to do with that. Um It was very acculturated reform ish communities some people were, but I would say that the christian population is the same in the cities. It was kind

00:43:29.150 - 00:43:42.990

of famously um lacks in terms of religious observance, even though, for instance, the catholic party, both in the Czech and german populations, one of the strongest parties um and the countryside again is different

00:43:42.990 - 00:43:55.650

than the cities, but in terms of observance, it was it was laid back, but with differences , radio was more traditional. There was always pockets of Orthodoxy, but very much the kind of a

00:43:55.660 - 00:44:07.810

couple of holidays a year type thing. But in Slovakia and so occupation within you at the scene was completely different. Slovakia was one of the strongholds of Orthodox Judaism. There was quite a lot of traveling

00:44:07.820 - 00:44:22.000

back and forth. For instance, this gentleman right here on the left is actually from Slovakia originally, But he moved to Prague the capital for jobs and education and there's a lot of that. Um but

00:44:22.000 - 00:44:35.510

progress very much a secular city and many of the bigger towns were. And by the by the 20th century in Bohemia, most Jews live in large cities . They've abandoned the villages. Yes. What about

00:44:37.990 - 00:44:54.160

? Mhm, jewish. The jewish people who married christians, did they practice christian? Um So some some did uh many talk about having christmas, but even full jewish families had christmas because that was seen

00:44:54.160 - 00:45:07.840

a sort of a cheque holiday. Um So so they had christmas, they had relatives. Um This family here, well not as good as my grandparents , my grandparents. Um they were completely sort of

00:45:07.840 - 00:45:23.900

secular. Uh My grandmother was in the Czechoslovak protestant church that was established after World War One. And but when they married, she was sent down to the sort of more traditional uh mother in law to

00:45:23.900 - 00:45:37.900

learn how to cook kosher. I don't know why , because they did not keep kosher. Um But it was sort of a eclectic in some ways for the for these people, but it really differs where

00:45:37.900 - 00:45:52.500

they're from. Um And there was really a very rich jewish life. 40% of Bohemians Jews lived in Prague. Um So it was a very um culture rated german and Czech speaking very mixed, right?

00:45:52.500 - 00:46:09.810

But also just socially integrated. Yeah. A good trip, isn't it? Mhm. Yes, it matters hugely. So the question is, does it matter whether it's the husband of the wife who is

00:46:09.810 - 00:46:30.100

jewish? So um the couples like this where the husband is jewish were considered to be non privileged mixed marriages. So they suffered much greater. Uhh that stricter rules against them. The laws were applied stricter

00:46:30.380 - 00:46:44.880

families where their husband was Aryan, such as Hannah bollocks, Gonzalez. He was, this is another complication. There was check areas and german areas. This is a very complicated region, but in Germany

00:46:44.880 - 00:46:57.690

itself, if the husband was Aryan. Um it was much milder in terms of the persecution at first . So these were called privileged marriages and non privileged marriages. What also mattered here was the age of

00:46:57.690 - 00:47:06.660

the Children, whether there was any affiliation with the jewish community, if the inter married carbon, even in an area and husband, if the mother, for instance, was still a member of the jewish

00:47:06.660 - 00:47:20.340

community or if the Children had been members before 1935 people could, you know, basically trying to gauge how jewish they were before the Nuremberg laws came into effect. And these laws, by the way,

00:47:20.340 - 00:47:30.950

were applied going back to 1935 in this new territory as well. So that's how they determined the pit against and his sister recalled, there were the non privileged marriage, Children, non privileged marriage, and

00:47:30.950 - 00:47:43.680

they're deported, right, and they have a much greater persecution before they're deported, so that it matters hugely what it is this the man or the woman who is the jew, both in Germany Austria and

00:47:43.680 - 00:47:52.160

protectorate and the rest of Eastern europe. The Germans did not care about intermarry families. They treated them as everybody else. It's a non jew wanted to go to the ghetto. They would let them like

00:47:52.160 - 00:48:08.370

they didn't care about public opinion in that area. Um It was much fewer mixed marriages after. They were quite a few in the soviet union. Um but they, nazi authorities care whether uh um whether

00:48:08.370 - 00:48:20.770

it would have mattered or not, we don't know , but they cared about public opinion. And there was consistent debate among Nazi authorities with some groups saying , let's fix this after the war, we cannot

00:48:20.780 - 00:48:30.800

alienate the public by beginning to deport their cousins and uncles and husband's at a time of war, we need to wait. And of course, the Germans assumed they were going to win the war so they

00:48:30.800 - 00:48:43.280

could fix this later, right. They can deal with this problem later. Um, so those delays and disagreements means the Jews eventually 44, These intermarry families are deported, but so late that many of

00:48:43.280 - 00:49:01.740

them survived. Yes, because it was a relatively high level of the true marriage in because there was relatively high marriage levels of intermarriage in bohemia and moravia , was it also the case that there were people

00:49:01.740 - 00:49:16.940

who were gentiles, uh who may not have agreed with the Nazi policies and engaged in foot dragging and kind of helping someone get false papers at a different level than other parts of the right. You know

00:49:16.950 - 00:49:25.840

, this is a great question and I don't know the answer to that, but that's part of what I want to examine. And because, you know , as you know, you're working on an area

00:49:25.840 - 00:49:38.620

like this, you always have lots of anecdotes but it's very hard to gauge what's the extent of this , right? How true are the anecdotes? Also people really have funny memories. Um they're very convincing

00:49:38.620 - 00:49:51.630

at first, but once you start digging into it because this doesn't make any sense. Um So so that there are absolutely, we know false papers, We know people who lived out the war in hiding

00:49:51.630 - 00:50:05.600

in this area, but that was much more prevalent in Poland, much larger area, much more rule . And the german presence became, although it was harsh, it did they were pushed back right.

00:50:05.610 - 00:50:20.170

The Germans were extremely strong in the protectorate and there was no tradition despite the checks always talking about killing of Heidrick, which is the one episode that happens right of Czech resistance. The Czech resistance was extremely

00:50:20.170 - 00:50:36.690

weak and did not see the jews as a priority at all. Um so these are mostly communist circles , socialist circles who or inter married families that they will engage in this. Um his first image.

00:50:37.360 - 00:50:50.630

Mm Yeah, this is a famous Czech Jewish writer , usually vile. He's actually one of the last people to marry a non jew. Um in the spring of 1942. It's extremely late. He was

00:50:50.630 - 00:51:00.400

a Czech arian. So soon after that, the Germans changed the rules to check areas could no longer marry, so that the Nuremberg laws also counted for them. Before that it was only german speaking areas

00:51:01.160 - 00:51:15.940

and he faked his own suicide and went into hiding and survived the board and hiding in Prague. Um but it is a very, very complicated in a city right to go into hiding. Um mm So

00:51:15.950 - 00:51:29.350

we just don't know again, people in Eastern europe Poland, we know a lot more. But for the Czech Republic, we know very little about how many people actually weren't hiding. These are all estimates

00:51:29.360 - 00:51:39.810

, but no one has really studied it and no one has really look deep at, at the history is now that is, I would say, a great new generation of scholars, both american and Czech

00:51:39.810 - 00:51:51.180

scholars who are working, but you're kind of isolated . Um, and there's not really institutional support for instance, at this point. So in some ways , a lot of the stuff that's happening is it's

00:51:51.180 - 00:52:02.910

kind of documenting where the materials might be right that we could use. And so, but these are all questions that I'm hoping to get at least a look at with this study to, to see,

00:52:02.920 - 00:52:15.960

um, uh, you know, what people did . I will say that just because I know this family history also. Uh so this is my father actually, the stroller. Um and him and his

00:52:15.960 - 00:52:34.030

brother that was born two years later. But this my grandparents had a child in 42 and 44 and 46. The two brothers, my father and his his brother um late 1944, early 1945 were sent

00:52:34.030 - 00:52:45.180

out to the in laws. My grandmother's parents in a town pretty close too proud. They weren't exactly in hiding, but they hung out there until the end of the war. Uh They were sort of

00:52:45.190 - 00:52:55.530

off the radar in some ways, right? Um So there was some of that as well that happened the same way in rural africa, right? He went to that family, not in hiding, but

00:52:55.530 - 00:53:15.000

he was like a kid that hung out, right ? And it's just no one denounced him clearly. If they did, they didn't have any consequences. I want to. Yeah, you're right. Oh

00:53:15.000 - 00:53:30.970

yeah. Uh, in one of those DNA things that divide it up and I came back as a percentage Ashkenazy. Uh, this is this the area where the Ashkenazy, So Ashkenazy, Yeah, so

00:53:30.980 - 00:53:46.140

Ashkenazy sort of originates in uh, what kind of borderlands between France and Germany today. But all of east european jury is, Ashkenazi is the largest european population. So Poland soviet, sorry, Russia soviet

00:53:46.140 - 00:54:04.120

union. Um, this area here, Germany is all our technology with the sephardic jews from India Iberian peninsula and then migrated to Britain small community in Denmark . The Netherlands very strong there as well. But

00:54:04.130 - 00:54:16.580

the sephardic jews really a mediterranean mostly. And then immigration from the Iberian peninsula. So north America too . The first jews here are Sephardi jews, but Ashkenazi is by far the largest and it's really the

00:54:16.590 - 00:54:32.300

dominant cultural kind of stream. It's the Yiddish, it's the modern jewish culture that people are more familiar with. That's Ashkenazi interesting. Thank you so much