The Judaic Studies Program and the Department of History present “The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust,” a lecture book-signing by
Lisa Moses Leff, PhD, Associate Professor of History, American University.
Lisa Moses Leff joins us to talk about her recent book, "The Archive Thief" (Oxford University Press). Come and hear the thrilling, yet tragic story of Zosa Szajkowski, Polish-born Jewish historian and longtime staff member of YIVO, who took tens of thousands of Jewish documents from Europe in the 1940s and 50s and moved them, illicitly, to New York, and eventually sold them to Jewish research libraries in the United States and Israel. Was this a heroic act of salvage or simply theft? In exploring this question, Leff raises questions about where the material remnants of the Jewish past are best kept and who owns them.
Free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Books will be sold by the Pennsylvania Book Center. Support for this event comes from The Yiddish Studies Fund of the Judaic Studies Program, the Louis and Bessie Stein Foundation, The Milton and Miriam Handler Foundation, and the Friends of Judaic Studies.
Info: judaicstudies@drexel.edu, 215.895.6388.
