Historical Context

The Nazi party introduced antisemitic exclusionary laws shortly after Adolf Hitler was appointed German Chancellor in January 1933. While Jews were the primary target of persecution and murder, those who did not fit the “Aryan” ideal espoused by the Nazis were also persecuted under exclusionary regulations, including gay men, Black people, and Sinti and Roma in Germany.

About the Lecture

Lecture Title: Preserving Shared History: Art in Internment During the Holocaust

This year’s Meyerhoff Annual Lecture will explore work produced by Jewish and Black artists interned during the Holocaust and World War II. Paying special attention to Friedl Dicker-Brandeis’s work with children in the Theresienstadt Ghetto and Josef Nassy’s visual diary of his life in the Laufen and Tittmoning internment camps for enemy aliens, the speakers will discuss the importance of art in documenting persecution and murder while bearing witness to the atrocities and preserving the stories of those who endured the Holocaust–including the stories of victim groups othered in society. They will also analyze how, in some cases, creating art in internment was therapeutic and empowering, acted as a form of “spiritual resistance,” and served as a means of preserving a sense of normalcy or connection with a prewar past.

Speakers

• Sarah Phillips Casteel: Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Carleton University
• Elizabeth Otto: Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History, University at Buffalo

Moderator

Danielle Battisti, Department Chair, Associate Professor of History, University of Nebraska at Omaha

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"Physical and Social Spaces of Exclusion: Nazi Germany and the Great Plains"

This event is part of "Physical and Social Spaces of Exclusion: Nazi Germany and the Great Plains," a regional partnership co-organized with the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy. View the full schedule of events.