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Dr. Secher will review and discuss his latest book, Left Behind in Nazi Vienna: Letters of a Jewish Family Caught in the Holocaust, 1939-1941, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2004.
When Hitler annexed Austria in March, 1938, it took only weeks to apply racially discriminatory policies against Jews that had been years in development in Germany proper. Restrictive immigration laws in the U. S. and nearly universal rejection of Jewish immigrants by other countries made escape from Germany a frantic struggle to beat the odds against abandonment once WWII had started. The Secher letters tell the poignant story of the vain efforts by members of Dr. Secher's family to be rescued before the gates were closed completely. Four of the individuals who contributed to this correspondence failed in that effort and were deported never to be heard from again. The fifth one died of starvation, a "natural death," according to the authorities. The chronicle of events laid bare in these letters has been said by critics to be an "Anne Frank Diary for Adults."
H. Pierre Secher, Ph. D., is Professor Emeritus, Political Science, The University of Memphis, and former Chairman of the Department of Political Science. He has held appointments as Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, Social Science Research Council Faculty Scholar, and Fulbright Professor at the University of Vienna. He is the author of Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of Austria: A Political Biography, Dorrance Publishing Co., 1993.
The public is invited to attend this important lecture without admission fee. Refreshments will not be served.
For more information, contact Tom Mendina, University Libraries, The University of Memphis at 901-678-4310.
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