Gresham College Lectures

Saints & Liars: The Stories of Americans Who Saved Endangered People from the Nazis - Debórah Dwork

Gresham College

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/Tt_xU005mik

This Lecture unveils the hidden history of Americans who risked their lives to save others during WWII. These intrepid people travelled the globe to aid victims of Nazi Germany and its allies, often staying to rescue as many as possible when the victims’ peril turned lethal. Discover the stories of these individuals, particularly women who embraced the independence and transformative impact of their relief efforts. This lecture highlights how luck, timing, and spontaneous decisions shaped their fates, urging us to reframe the way we think about, analyse, and write about the past.

This lecture was recorded by Debórah Dwork on 20th November 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.

Debórah Dwork is the Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center – City University of New York.

Recipient of the Annetje Fels-Kupferschmidt Award (2022) bestowed by the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, and the International Network of Genocide Scholars Lifetime Achievement Award (2020), Debórah Dwork has been, inter alia, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She sits on many advisory boards and serves as Scholar Advisor to The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, Department of Global Communications, United Nations. Above all, Professor Dwork is a teacher and mentor, committed to training the next generation of Holocaust scholars.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website:  https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/saints-and-liars

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