Lecture: Exploring European Jewish Children and Childhoods in the 20th Century: the Case of Two Sisters?

This lecture will discuss the particular case of Jewish children in the aftermath of the Holocaust through the history of two orphans, who happen to be sisters. The lecture will highlight the importance of children in the postwar reconstruction of Jewish life and point out the complex dynamics of children’s care in the aftermath of genocide. Family reunion, while a goal of Jewish childcare organizations, proved elusive. Children thus struggled to reconstruct family bonds and make sense of their pasts.

Laura Hobson Faure is professor of Modern Jewish history at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University-Paris 1 and member of the Center for Social History (UMR 8058). Her research focuses on the intersections between French and American Jewish life, during and after the Holocaust. She is the author of Un « Plan Marshall Juif »: la présence juive américaine en France après la Shoah (2013 ; 2018, forthcoming in English, The Modern Jewish Experience, Indiana University Press) and co-editor of L’Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants et les populations juives au XXème siècle. Prévenir et Guérir dans un siècle de violences (Armand Colin, 2014).