The Jews in the Band: Anders Army's Special Troupes

From: Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies

This event is co-organised with the UCL Institute of Jewish Studies

With Prof Beth Holmgren, Speaker,
Prof Antony Polonsky, Respondent, and
with Prof François Guesnet, Chair

Tuesday, 9 March 2021, 6:00pm GMT on Zoom

Beth Holmgren shares fascinating insights about Jews in the entertainment troupes of the Anders Army. She will focus on the history of the most enduring product of a cooperation between Alfred Schütz, a Jewish composer, and Feliks Konarski, a writer, who together created the iconic 'Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino' (The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino), memorializing Polish losses in the taking of the monastery of this fortress held by German troops.

Beth Holmgren, Professor of Polish Studies and Russian Studies, Duke University, has published widely on Polish literature, theatre, popular culture, and film; Russian literature, film, and women's studies; and Russian and Polish artists and performers in the North American diaspora. Her recent scholarship focuses on Polish Jewish cultural history of the interwar period and post-communist Polish film.

Antony Polonsky is Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University and Chief Historian of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. He was a founder and is now vice-president of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and the co-chair of the editorial board of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry.

François Guesnet is Professor in Modern Jewish History in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. He is also the Chair of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, and the co-chair of the editorial board of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry.

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