Come join EURO as we welcome Vesna Drapac, Associate Professor of History at the University of Adelaide (Australia), for a talk entitled "A New History of Catholics in the Second World War: Beyond Resistance and Collaboration." The talk will be held on Monday, April 23, at noon (GISB room 3067), and an abstract can be found below. Everyone is welcome to attend!
The history of the Church in the Second World War is a vast and controversial topic. Historians are often categorised according to whether they appear to defend the Church or to criticise it. This is largely because they apply the dominant resistance/collaboration paradigm. Drawing on new archival sources, my paper calls into question this polarised approach. I argue that by focusing on how Catholics saw themselves 'as Catholics' and by incorporating women fully into the narrative, a different perspective emerges. I also suggest that my findings have implications for the general study of non-combatants in the war.