On Wednesday, April 18 at 4:00 PM (GISB room 2067), EURO will host Shannon Fogg, Associate Professor of History at Missouri University of Science and Technology, who will present a talk entitled "Reconstructing Jewish Lives in Twentieth-Century France: Restitution, Republicanism, and the Meaning of Home." An abstract for the talk can be found below. All attendees are welcome!
During the Furniture Operation, more than 38,000 Jewish apartments in Paris were looted between 1942 and 1944. This was just one program that politicized private spaces during the war, a tendency that did not end with the Liberation and the re-institution of republicanism. The return of personal possessions represented an opportunity for the French provisional government to include Jews in the national community following years of exclusion. The postwar restitution process exposes the manner in which the restoration of republicanism also required a renegotiation of ideas about equality and inclusion, gender relations, and the public nature of private homes.