November 2021

As a continuation of our intriguing series ‘Spies, Lies and Secret Missions: The Unsung Jewish Heroes of World War Two’, organised in partnership with Jewish Renaissance and the Lyons Learning Project, we are pleased to announce the following events, all taking place on Thursdays at 8pm:
On 4 November, Dr Leah Garrett will talk about her inspiring new book, X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II, the incredible saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit – but whose story has gone untold until now.

Image: X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II, Leah Garrett, bookcover
On 11 November, Dr Helen Fry will tell us more about the 10,000 German and Austrian Jews who fought for Britain during World War Two, with a special focus on the extraordinary story of the ‘secret listeners’ who spied on German POWs.

Image: The Walls Have Ears, Helen Fry, bookcover
On 18 November, Professor Charmian Brinson will talk about her fascinating and wide-ranging new book, Working for the War Effort: German-Speaking Refugees in British Propaganda during the Second World War

Image: Working for the War Effort, Charmian Brinson, bookcover (detail)
On 25 November, there will be a discussion about Operation Mincemeat, the subject of a thrilling book by Ben Macintyre, a successful stage play and soon to appear as a film with Colin Firth. One of the brains behind this ingenious hoax that successfully disguised the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily was Jewish intelligence officer Ewen Montagu, a member of whose family will be present.

Image: The officers of HMS Seraph, the submarine selected for Operation Mincemeat, December 1943

For further details of the above events (with more to follow in December) and to book, click here.

Other Events
On Wednesday 3 November at 6pm, as part of the AJR’s Book Club programme, Daniel Snowman, author of The Hitler Emigrés: The Cultural Impact on Britain of Refugees from Nazism, will be in conversation with David Herman about Daniel’s latest book, a delightfully engaging memoir entitled Just Passing Through. Both Daniel and David are trustees of the Insiders/Outsiders Arts Foundation. To book, click here.

Image: Just Passing Through, Daniel Snowman, bookcover (detail)
On Wednesday 10 November at 6.30pm, there will be a screening at JW3, London, of Picture Stories, a new documentary about the pioneering photojournalistic magazine Picture Post, founded in 1938 by Hungarian-Jewish refugee Stefan Lorant. This will be followed by Monica Bohm-Duchen, founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, in conversation with the film’s director Rob West. To book, click here.

There will also be screenings of the film in Oxford on 4 November and at the Frontline Club, London on 8 November – see Picture Stories: Picture Post and the photography of ordinary life.

Image: Bert Hardy, Two boys in the deprived Gorbals area of Glasgow, 1948
On Friday 12 November, to complement its latest exhibition Code Name Mary: The Extraordinary Life of Muriel Gardiner, the Freud Museum, London, is hosting an online symposium called Why have there been no great (Jewish) women artists?

Revisiting art historian Linda Nochlin’s seminal question fifty years on, the symposium focusses on three seemingly unconnected Austrian-born artists – a painter (Marie-Louise von Motesiczky), a sculptor (Anna Mahler), and a potter (Lucie Rie). Their comings and goings reveal serendipitous and intriguing connections with Freud’s circles, other significant émigré figures, and with each other.

For further information and to book, click here.

Image: Anna Mahler in her studio in London (detail), 1948
On Thursday 18 November at 3pm, Julia Eisner will be talking about her remarkable great-aunt, the eminent German-born film historian, writer and curator, Lotte H. Eisner at the Wiener Holocaust Library, London. For further details and to book, click here.

Image: Lotte Eisner and a model of ‘Maria’ from Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) in the museum of the Cinémathèque française. Courtesy of Mark Horowitz.

Lastly, there is still time to catch the following two exhibitions:
Between 2 October and 13 November, the Danielle Arnaud Gallery in Kennington, London is playing host to an exhibition of new work by second generation artist Sarah Dobai entitled The Donkey Field. Based in part on her father’s account of his experiences in Budapest in 1944, the film which gives the exhibition its name focuses on the insidious impact of discrimination, persecution, and displacement on a child. The exhibition also features several new photographic works, depicting places whose pastoral qualities become shadowed by their association with dark episodes in European history.

Image: Sarah Dobai, The Donkey Field (still), 2021, single screen film work, duration: 20 mins
Between 7 October and 26 November, an exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum, London features work by the winners and shortlisted artists from The Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize 2021, which pays tribute to the late Austrian-born emigré photographer Wolf Suschitzky. For further information, click here.

Image: Wolf Suschitzky © Gerard Malanga

Looking Ahead
On Wednesday 1 and Thursday 2 December, Insiders/Outsiders, in partnership with the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, University of London, is hosting a free online conference called ‘Innocence and Experience: Childhood and the 1930s Refugees’.

Child psychology and therapy were disciplines developed in pre-war Germany and Austria, and Britain benefitted hugely from the refugees’ expertise in the area. Many of the children who came to the UK as refugees or Holocaust survivors were themselves of course in need of support.

This online conference brings together expertise in the field from the UK, Europe and Israel, and presentations deal with diverse aspects of childhood amongst the refugees from Nazism, including education, therapy, literature, art, photography, and play. For full details and to book, click here.

Image: from Wolf Suschitzky and Liselotte Frankl, That Baby. The Story of Peter and his new Brother. Adprint, 1946 © Estate of Wolf Suschitzky.

Recordings on YouTube

Don’t forget that recordings of virtually all our online events – including our recent series focussing on aspects of internment and the conference about the refugees who ended up in Australia – are available on the Insiders/Outsiders YouTube channel.