lecture

In the Children's Best Interests: Unaccompanied Refugee Children in Germany, 1945-1952

Misty Matthews-Roper — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:53:55 +0000

In the Children's Best Interests: Unaccompanied Refugee Children in Germany, 1945-1952 Misty Matthews-Roper Wed, 07/31/2019 - 13:53

WCGS invites one and all to a talk by Lynne Taylor, University of ��ݮ��Ƶ professor of History. Dr. Taylor will discuss her latest book, In the Children's Best Interests: Unaccompanied Refugee Children in Germany, 1945-1952.

About the talk: After the dust settled at the end of WWII, 700,000 displaced persons remained in the American occupation zone in Germany. Among them were 40,000 unaccompanied children - children orphaned or separated from their families by the war. Without legal guardians, these children had no one to protect or advocate for them. For the agencies responsible for their care, they were a complex problem which took years to sort out. Their story still resonates today.

The ��ݮ��Ƶ Campus Book Store will be on site with copies of Prof. Taylor's book for purchase.

Learn more about Prof. Taylor's book from the publisher - In the Children's Best Interests: Unaccompanied Refugee Children in Germany, 1945-1952

Here is an article written about her book by the Faculty of Arts - The Impacts of War: ��ݮ��Ƶ professor dedicates years of research to civilians and children displaced following WWII

Thank you to all who attended. Here are some pictures of the event:

Event Details

When: Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 7pm

Where: Knox Presbyterian Church 50 Erb St W, ��ݮ��Ƶ, ON N2L 1T1

Parking: Knox Presbyterian has free parking and there is overflow parking at the following municipal lots (before 5pm municipal parking is by permit only).

1) ��ݮ��Ƶ Town Square - there is parking available on the north and south sides of the ��ݮ��Ƶ Town Square.

2) Dupont Street Lot - On the corner of Dupont St. W and Caroline St. N

Please visit the Uptown ��ݮ��Ƶ Parking website for more details:https://uptownwaterloobia.com/uptown-parking/

The Buried Raging Sermons of the Warsaw Ghetto Rabbi

Misty Matthews-Roper — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 18:43:18 +0000

The Buried Raging Sermons of the Warsaw Ghetto Rabbi Misty Matthews-Roper Mon, 07/22/2019 - 14:43

Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto are led to a deportation point sometime between April 19 and May 16, 1943 (Wikimedia Commons)

Join WCGS as professor James Diamond, Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ, gives his talk The Buried Raging Sermons of the Warsaw Ghetto Rabbi.

Short description of the talk: During World War II, a group of poets, artists, and historians in the Warsaw Ghetto buried thousands of documents attesting to their suffering and resistance as Jews under Nazi rule. Among those recovered was a manuscript of weekly sermons delivered in the Ghetto by a Hasidic rabbi desperately trying to preserve his faith in the face of unimaginable loss and pain. It is a rare testament to one human being’s struggle with the incomprehensible evil of the Holocaust.

Presented in cooperation with the Department of Religious Studies, the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies and Hillel ��ݮ��Ƶ.

Read more about Dr. Diamond's research here.

Printable poster of all WCGS Fall 2019 events

Thank you to all who attended this event. It was an informative evening!

Event Details

When: Tuesday, November 5th, 2019 at 7pm

Where: Balsillie school of International Affairs in the multi-purpose room 142 (67 Erb St W, ��ݮ��Ƶ, ON N2L 6C2 )

Parking:

There is free parking in lots near Balsillie School (before 5pm municipal parking is by permit only).

1) Museum Lot - located directly across from the CIGI building on the corner of Father David Bauer and Erb st W.

2) ��ݮ��Ƶ Town Square - there is parking available on the north and south sides of the ��ݮ��Ƶ Town Square. Please visit the Uptown ��ݮ��Ƶ Parking website for more details.

3) At the rear of the CIGI building, directly off Father David Bauer Dr. The entrance to the building is located off Erb St. W., and is connected to the parking lot via a walkway on the east side of the building (Parking at CIGI will open at 6:15pm).

2016 Grimm Lecture: Democracy in Disappearing Ink: The Politics of Exclusion in Germany before Hitler

Lori Straus — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 17:55:00 +0000

2016 Grimm Lecture: Democracy in Disappearing Ink: The Politics of Exclusion in Germany before Hitler Lori Straus Mon, 08/29/2016 - 13:55

Election battles were fought ferociously in pre-World War One Germany, when most middle-class Germans still opposed formal democracy. Anti-democrats deployed many exclusionary strategies that flew in the face of electoral fairness. They battled socialists, liberals, and Jews at election time, and they repeatedly rewrote the rules of the electoral game. With a regional case study, Retallack explores why so many Germans opposed the principle of “one man, one vote” and how they made it easier for Hitler and the Nazis to inter German democracy after 1933.

About James Retallack

James Retallack teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and supervises Ph.D. field preparation in European history from 1770 to 1945. After studying as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford he received his D.Phil. in 1983 and joined the University of Toronto in 1987. His research interests (1830-1918) include German regional history, nationalism, anti-semitism, electoral politics, and historiography. He has authored or edited fourteen books, including Imperial Germany 1871-1918: The Short Oxford History of Germany and, most recently, Germany's Second Reich: Portraits and Pathways. His volume of on-line documents and images on Bismarckian Germany, edited for the German Historical Institute, Washington DC, reaches a world-wide audience.

Retallack has held grants, fellowships, and research prizes from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Gerda Henkel Foundation, among others: these have allowed him to take up visiting professorships at the Free University Berlin and the University of Göttingen. He is General Editor of Oxford Studies in Modern European History. In November 2011 Retallack was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Video of "Democracy in Disappearing Ink"

View "2016 Grimm Lecture: James Retallack on Democracy in Disappearing Ink" on YouTube

More Info on Pre-WWI Germany by James Retallack

The German Right, 1860-1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian Imagination, University of Toronto Press (2006).
Germany's Second Reich: Portraits and Pathways, University of Toronto Press (2015).
“‘What is to Be Done?’ The Red Specter, Franchise Questions, and the Crisis of Conservative Hegemony in Saxony, 1896-1909,” Central European History 23 (December 1990), pp. 271-312 [published 1992].
2^nd revised edition of Forging an Empire: Bismarckian Germany (1866-1890) / Reichsgründung: Bismarcks Deutschland (1866-1890), ed. James Retallack. Published online in English and German as Volume 4 of a 10-volume project, German History in Documents and Images / Deutsche Geschichte in Dokumenten und Bildern. German Historical Institute, Washington, DC. 2^ndedition commissioned 2016, in progress.
“Ideas into Politics: Meanings of ‘Stasis’ in Wilhelmine Germany,” in Wilhelminism and Its Legacies, ed. Eley and Retallack (2003), pp. 235-252.
Imperial Germany 1871-1918. (Short Oxford History of Germany), ed. James Retallack. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Cloth and paperback. 2008. Pp. xv, 328. (Table of Contents) (Introduction) (Looking forward) “Essential” (CHOICE). (Opinion)