The conversion of Jewish children to Catholicism has a long and troubling history. Its occurrence during the Holocaust raises urgent questions, especially in connection with children in hiding. In German-occupied countries like France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, priests and nuns rescued Jewish children from almost certain death, but this rescue came at a price. How did Jewish children experience life in monasteries, convents, and church schools? Lauren Rossi’s presentation draws on testimonies in the Visual History Archive of the Shoah Foundation as well as separate testimony archives to explore the roles played by religion and spirituality in the daily lives of Jewish children in hiding during the Shoah and the complex motivations of their “saviors.”

Lauren Rossi received her PhD from Brown University and is currently an assistant professor of Holocaust and Genocide History at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. Her publications include her first book, “Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation” (2015), and academic articles in the fields of European history, Holocaust history, and contemporary genocide studies.

This event is generously sponsored by July Galper.

About the Series

The Holocaust Living History Workshop (HLHW) series is an education and outreach program co-sponsored by the UC San Diego Library and the Jewish Studies Program. It aims to preserve the memories of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust by offering public events involving witnesses, descendants and scholars and through the use of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive. Past HLHW workshops are now part of the Library’s digital collections and can be accessed online.