Refugees and the Persecuted:
The past and present through the lens of one family’s history
Presented by Ann M. Altman Ph.D.
Event description:
With the frightening re-emergence of the racist and antisemitic far right and the strengthening of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment in the USA and Europe, our thoughts inevitably turn to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In this context, Dr. Altman will discuss her family’s history and her Czech parents’ escape, in 1939, from certain death. Much of the information that she will discuss has only recently become widely available, via the internet. Growing up knowing only that her mother and fatherwere survivors, she has been able to piece together their story, with its happy outcome, and her grandparents’ stories, four tragedies among six million. The parallels with the present day struggles of refugees and would-be immigrants are all too clear and they demand our attention.
About Dr. Altman:
Ann Altman received her undergraduate education at the University of Cambridge and her doctoral degree, in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, from Yale University. After a decade of research at Yale, during which she received the Swibelius Award for Cancer Research, she left academia to establish her own business, Bioscript, providing in-depth editorial services to Japanese scientists and others. She has authored four books for young Japanese scientists and translated two books on Easter Island, from the French, for the Easter Island Foundation. She served three terms on the Legislative Council of the Town of Hamden and was twice elected Chair of Hamden’s Planning and Zoning Commission. For her work promoting public participation in democratic processes in Mongolia and her role in the repatriation, to Mongolia, of a stolen fossilized skeleton of Tyrannosaurus bataar, she received a variety of medals and awards from the President of Mongolia and other Mongolian political bodies.
Dinner followed for CAAS members and guests. (Dinner fee is $40/person)