Holocaust Living History Workshop Returns, Illuminating Untold Holocaust Stories

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• Nikki Kolupailo- [email protected]

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• UC San Diego Library
• Holocaust Living History Workshop

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The UC San Diego Library, in partnership with the Jewish Studies Program, announces the return of its Holocaust Living History Workshop (HLHW) for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Now in its 17th year, the theme of this year's series is The Holocaust Between Worlds, focusing on the "in-between" spaces of the Holocaust - the lives of those who navigated the boundaries between persecution and refuge, trauma and resilience, and destruction and survival. Through scholarly research, testimony and historical memory, the program brings forward perspectives that have often remained on the margins of Holocaust history.

"The concept of being between worlds is at the heart of this year's series," said Deborah Hertz, the Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies at UC San Diego. "Whether it was intermarried families, children hidden in monasteries and convents, or survivors who rebuilt their destroyed communities through memorial books, these stories reveal the complex terrain of navigating life at the edge of catastrophe while striving for resilience and continuity."

This year's distinguished lineup of scholars, writers and educators will shed new light on how individuals and communities experienced persecution, displacement and survival. Drawing on archival records, memorial books, literature, and oral testimony, the series deepens our understanding of the Holocaust's many dimensions.

Each lecture will be held in person at Geisel Library and/or online from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. PT. All events are free and open to the public, and registration is required.

2025-2026 Public/Calendar of Events

The Precarity of "Privilege": Intermarried Families in Prague during the Holocaust, Featuring Tatjana Lichtenstein

October 16, 2025 | In Person and Virtual
Lou Dunst Memorial Lecture

Until recently, historians have paid little attention to the experiences of intermarried families and their children during the Holocaust. This was in part a result of the unprecedented scale of the Holocaust as well as an unchallenged popular and scholarly understanding that these were families to whom "not much happened." In this talk, historian Tatjana Lichtenstein, professor of Modern Eastern Europe in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin, draws on her research on wartime Prague to challenge this view. Exploring the diverse, complex experiences of these parents and children, she argues that their stories provide new perspectives on the Holocaust and its legacies.

Conversion and Catastrophe: Jews Choosing Christianity in Times of Crisis, Featuring Abraham Rubin

November 13, 2025 | Virtual-Only
Sponsored by Joel and Nancy Dimsdale

How does genre both enable and hinder self-understanding? This is the question at the heart of Abraham Rubin's talk on Jewish conversion in a time of crisis. "Conversion and Catastrophe in German-Jewish Émigré Autobiography" illuminates the spiritual journeys of four German-Jewish converts, including the prominent writer Alfred Döblin. Applying psychoanalysis, disability studies and autobiographical theory to the life writing of the four men, Rubin offers new avenues for conceptualizing the Jewishness of historical subjects who disavowed their ties to Judaism against the backdrop of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Rubin is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton.

Religion as Camouflage? Hidden Children During the Holocaust, Featuring Lauren Rossi

January 22, 2026 | In Person and Virtual
Sponsored by July Galper

The conversion of Jewish children to Catholicism has a long and troubling history. Its occurrence during the Holocaust raises urgent questions, especially in connection with children in hiding. In German-occupied countries like France, Belgium and the Netherlands, priests and nuns rescued Jewish children from almost certain death, but this rescue came at a price. How did Jewish children experience life in monasteries, convents and church schools? Lauren Rossi, assistant professor of Holocaust and Genocide History at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, draws on testimonies in the Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive and other testimony archives to explore the roles played by religion and spirituality in the daily lives of Jewish children in hiding during the Shoah and the complex motivations of their "saviors."

Palaces of Memory: Polish Jewish Post-Holocaust Memorial Books, Featuring Eliyana Adler

March 5, 2026 | Virtual-Only

In the decades following World War II, refugees and survivors residing around the world worked collectively to create commemorative volumes (yizker bikher) dedicated to their shared hometown communities. Each yizker bukh represented a particular village, town or city and included testimonies, remembrances, poetry, photographs, artwork, folklore and many other contributions. Eliyana Adler, professor of East European Jewish History at SUNY Binghamton, will introduce this unique genre and its emergence and development in the postwar years.

Write Us Long Letters: Trauma and Isolation in Jewish Refugee Letters from Nazi Germany to America, 1937-1941, Featuring Barry Trachtenberg

April 16, 2026 | In Person and Virtual
Sponsored by Judi Gottschalk

For too long, refugees from Nazi Germany have been little more than a footnote in the history of the Holocaust. Over the last two decades, this general disregard has finally begun to change, yet significant gaps remain. This lecture examines a recently discovered collection of 50 letters written to Kurt David Baum, a Jewish teenager who fled Nazi Germany for America in 1937. Through close analysis of these personal documents - kept secret until Baum's death in 2004 - Barry Trachtenberg's research challenges prevailing narratives about Jewish refugee experiences in America. While emigration to the United States is often portrayed as a clear path to safety, the Baum letters reveal a more complex reality marked by continued trauma, isolation and powerlessness on both sides of the Atlantic. Trachtenberg is the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University.

Bitter Sweet: Daily Life in Occupied France, Featuring Kitty Morse

May 14, 2026 | Virtual-Only

In the wake of her mother's passing, Kitty Morse made a serendipitous discovery. In the attic of her Southern California home, she discovered a small suitcase containing the journal of her great-grandfather, Prosper Lévy-Neymarck, which documented daily life in Occupied France. A recipe book written by her great-grandmother, Blanche, accompanied the journal. Tragically, Prosper and Blanche would fall victim to the Nazi genocide, but their writings survived and have now found a broader audience through the labors of their great-granddaughter. Both an invaluable primary source and a heartfelt homage to daily life in dark times, "Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal and Heirloom Recipes from Occupied France" reclaims their experiences and culinary acumen for posterity. Morse is the author of two memoirs with recipes and nine cookbooks, and a former food columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

In addition to the lecture series, HLHW connects students, teachers and the community with the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive - the world's largest online database of Holocaust survivor testimonies.

To learn more about the series, visit the HLHW website. If you are interested in sponsoring the series, contact Jennifer Brown at [email protected]. For questions or to register by phone, email [email protected] or call (858) 534-1183.