Terezín, as it was known in Czech, or Theresienstadt as it was known in German, was operated by the Nazi Germany between November 1941 and May 1945 as a transit ghetto for Central and Western European Jews before their deportation for murder in the East. Terezín was the last ghetto to be liberated, one day after the end of World War II. The
Last Ghettois the first in-depth analytical history of a prison society during the Holocaust. Rather than depict the prison society which existed within the ghetto as an exceptional one, unique in kind and not understandable by normal analytical methods, Anna Hájková argues that such prison societies that developed during the Holocaust are best understood as simply other instances of the societies human beings create under normal circumstances. Challenging conventional claims of Holocaust exceptionalism, Hájková insists instead that we ought to view the Holocaust with the same analytical tools as other historical events.
The prison society of Terezín produced its own social hierarchies under which seemingly small differences among prisoners (of age, ethnicity, or previous occupation) could determine whether one ultimately lived or died. During the three and a half years of the camp's existence, prisoners created their own culture and habits, bonded, fell in love, and forged new families. Based on extensive archival research in nine languages and on empathetic reading of victim testimonies, The Last Ghetto is a transnational, cultural, social, gender, and organizational history of Terezín, revealing how human society works in extremis and highlighting the key issues of responsibility, agency and its boundaries, and belonging.
Dr Anna Hájková is Reader of modern European continental history at the University of Warwick. She is the author of the celebrated new study The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt (2020) and People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust (2021), forthcoming in expanded English translation with the University of Toronto Press. She is the pioneer of queer Holocaust history and her work has been recognized with the Catharine Stimpson Prize for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship (2013) and Orfeo Iris Prize (2020).
Dr. Hájková will be joined in conversation by Maestro James Conlon of the LA Opera.
James Conlon, one of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. Since his 1974 debut with the New York Philharmonic, he has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and videography, numerous essays and commentaries, frequent television appearances and guest speaking engagements, Mr. Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized interpreters. He spearheaded the LA Opera's Recovered Voices project, which focuses on music that was suppressed by the Nazis and/or created by composers who died in the Holocaust. Maestro Conlon has a particular interest in the history of Theresienstadt.
THE LAST GHETTO:
AN EVERYDAY HISTORY
OF THERESIENSTADT
Los Angeles Holocaust Museum
20
Join historian Dr. Anna Hajkova in Holocaust Museum Los Angeles for a conversation about her book, the first in-depth analytical history of a prison society during the Holocaust.
November 21, 2024, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM