CHAT Displacement Lecture Series Presents:

Avinoam Patt

Judaic Studies | University of Hartford

The Jewish Displaced Persons, or She'erit Hapletah (Surviving Remnant), emerged from the catastrophe of the Holocaust to form a vibrant, active, and fiercely independent community while living in transition on the blood-soaked soil of Germany. Although the Jewish DPs constituted a small minority of the postwar refugee population, they would come to play a disproportionately large role in postwar diplomatic negotiations. By the beginning of 1947, 250,000 Jewish DPs crowded the liberated zones of Germany, Italy, and Austria - displaced and stateless, with no home to return to and nowhere to resettle. Avinoam Patt will examine the appeal of Zionism for survivors, international relief organizations, the US Army, and the United Nations in the aftermath of the Shoah, and the relationship between the Holocaust, the postwar refugee crisis, and the creation of the state of Israel.

Co-sponsored with the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History

Co-sponsored with with the Global Studies Program