Lives in Limbo: Jewish Refugees in Portugal, 1940–1945

In this lec­ture, historian Marion Kaplan (NYU) will describe the expe­ri­ence of Jew­ish refugees, most­ly from Ger­many and Aus­tria, as they escaped from Hitler to live in lim­bo in Por­tu­gal. Jew­ish refugees suf­fered anx­i­ety and fear, but also evinced courage and resilience. Helpers includ­ed the very poor and very gen­er­ous Por­tuguese peo­ple, the reluc­tant Por­tuguese govern­ment, and social wel­fare agen­cies, includ­ing the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Joint Dis­tri­b­u­tion Com­mit­tee which sub­si­dized needy refugees, found them shel­ter, and helped them reach safer havens.

The lecture will be based on her new book, Hitler’s Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal, available in 2020 from Yale University Press.

With an introduction by Alex P. Jassen, Chair of the Skirball Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Ethel and Irvin Edelman Associate Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.