Book Launch: Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953

Join us for a presentation of Prof. Jonathan Zatlin's new book, Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953, which has just been published by University of Michigan Press. Zatlin, Associate Professor of History at Boston University, and his co-editor Christoph Kreutzmüller, a Senior Historian of the House of the Wannsee-Conference, Berlin, will both participate. They will be joined by Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History, New York University; Julie Keresztes, PhD candidate in History; and Ana Maria Reyes, Associate Professor of Art History, both at Boston University. This collection of essays by a range of international, multidisciplinary scholars explores the financial history, social significance, and cultural meanings of the theft, starting in 1933, of assets owned by German Jews. Despite the fraught topic and the ongoing legal discussions, the subject has not received much scholarly attention until now. This volume offers a much needed contribution to our understanding of the history of the period and the acts. The essays examine the confiscatory taxation of Jewish property, the looting of art and confiscation of gold, the role of German freight forwarders in property theft, salesmen and dispossession in the retail world, theft from the elderly, and the complicity of the banking industry, as well as the reach of the practice beyond German borders.

When 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm on Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Contact Name Elizabeth Amrien
Phone 617-358-0919
Contact Organization Center for the Study of Europe
Fees Free
Speakers Jonathan Zatlin, Christoph Kreutzmüller, Ana Maria Reyes, Julie Keresztes, Marion Kaplan