Department of Sociology
Pittsburgh Social Movements Forum
Politics and Culture Concentration
present
Uncovering an Anti-Fascist Political Culture:
Resistance in the Minsk Ghetto
In the World War Two Minsk ghetto, a political culture of resistance was created under the noses of the German occupiers, on the basis of a Communist underground intertwined with networks of non-Communists, both involving links between the ghetto and the surrounding city. The inter-ethnic solidarity that flourished in Minsk during the war stood in contrast to the widespread abandonment of Jews elsewhere by local populations. In this talk Barbara Epstein will describe the networks of resistance that flourished in wartime Minsk and address the question of why solidarity was so much stronger in Minsk than elsewhere in German-occupied Eastern Europe. She will also describe what it was like to reconstruct an oppositional political culture, of which virtually no trace remained but the memories of survivors.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Noon – 1:30 p.m.
4606 Posvar Hall
