Talks

Professor Judit Gervai, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and a Member of the Second Generation, will be returning via Zoom to speak to the Network about recent developments in her research into Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma. Professor Gervai, will be introduced by her son, Network Committee Member Professor Gabor Csanyi.  Professor Gervai will review genetic and gene-environment interaction effects on developing early attachment relationships. Studies investigating the interaction of genes of monoamine neurotransmission with the parenting environment in the course of early relationship development suggest that children’s differential susceptibility to the rearing environment depends partly on genetic differences. A short account of the most important methodological problems to be overcome in molecular genetic studies of psychological and psychiatric phenotypes will also be given. Start time 6.20pm for 6.30pm GMT to give everyone time to set up and check their Zoom connection.

The registration link is https://transgenerational-trauma-transmission.eventbrite.co.uk

Meriel Schindler will be in conversation with Network Member Nik Pollinger discussing the process of researching, writing and publishing The Lost Cafe Schindler. Nik Pollinger, who shares an Austrian Holocaust heritage with Meriel, has recently contributed a chapter to the Second Generation anthology,The Journey Home — Emerging Out of the Shadow of the Past. This interview with Meriel (which had to be rescheduled) will now take place as a hybrid event, in person at the Wiener Holocaust Library, with the option to attend via Zoom.
Start time 6.30pm BST. Booking details to follow.

We are delighted to be sponsoring this event as part of Jewish Book Week. Simon May, visiting Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, will be interviewed by Kavita Puri, award-winning journalist and radio broadcaster, about his recently published book How to Be a Refugee.

His powerful and moving memoir takes on questions of home and belonging that continue to be asked today. Most Jews living in Hitler’s Germany faced emigration or deportation but there was also the more unusual route of self-concealment in the shadow of the Third Reich: denial of one’s origins to the extent of erasing almost all consciousness of it, and refusing to believe one was Jewish. Simon, who was forbidden to identify as Jewish, German or British, reveals the very different trajectories taken by his mother and two aunts as they grappled with what they felt to be a lethal heritage.
The event will be at the St Pancras Room, Kings Place starting at 2.45pm GMT. Tickets £9.50.
For further information including booking tickets, go to: jewishbookweek.com/event/how-to-be-a-refugee/