Special International Holocaust Remembrance Day Program
LESSANS FAMILY LITERARY SERIES Presents: A Conversation with Michael Dobbs
The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught In Between
Monday, January 27, 2020
Reception 6:30 PM
Conversation 7:00 PM

A Holocaust story that is both German and American, Dobbs describes the deportation of German Jews to France in October 1940, along with their continuing quest for American visas.

Drawing on previously unpublished letters, diaries, interviews, and visa records, Michael Dobbs provides an illuminating account of America’s response to the refugee crisis of the 1930s and 1940s. He describes the deportation of German Jews to France in October 1940, along with their continuing quest for American visas. And he re-creates the heated debates among U.S. officials over whether or not to admit refugees amid growing concerns about “fifth columnists,” at a time when the American public was deeply isolationist, xenophobic, and antisemitic.

Michael Dobbs was born and educated in Britain, but is now a U.S. citizen. He was a long-time reporter for The Washington Post, covering the collapse of communism as a foreign correspondent. He has taught at leading American universities, including Princeton, the University of Michigan, and Georgetown. He is currently on the staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“A heartbreaking and timely read…. With a reporter’s eye for narrative and a historian’s attention to detail and context, Dobbs…follows these Jewish families through harrowing cycles of deportation and desperation as they attempt to flee to safety.”–The Washington Post

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