1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910510537203321

Autore

Meade Teresa A. <1948->

Titolo

We Don't Become Refugees by Choice : Mia Truskier, Survival, and Activism from Occupied Poland to California, 1920-2014 / / by Teresa A. Meade

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2021

ISBN

3-030-84525-7

Edizione

[1st ed. 2021.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (286 pages)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in Oral History, , 2731-5681

Disciplina

362.87

305.906914092

Soggetti

Oral history

World War, 1939-1945

Europe, Central - History

America - History

World history

Oral History

History of World War II and the Holocaust

History of Germany and Central Europe

History of the Americas

World History, Global and Transnational History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

1. Mia Truskier: The “Oldest Refugee” -- 2. The Making of Mia’s World: Warsaw and Zurich, 1890–1939 -- 3. Fleeing Poland, 1939–1940 -- 4. Hiding in Plain Sight: Italy, 1940–1945 -- 5. The War Years in Warsaw and the Soviet Union, 1939–1945 -- 6. Poland: In the Warsaw Ghetto and on the Aryan Side, 1939–1945 -- 7. The Aftermath of War in Europe, 1945–1949 -- 8. Mia’s American World: From Nebraska Immigrant to California Activist, 1949–1970 -- 9. “Don’t Give In, Don’t Give Up!” Refugees and the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, 1968–2014.

Sommario/riassunto

“A riveting biography of an unstoppable woman that takes us from Warsaw through Italy to settle in California, where she was a Sanctuary



activist until her death at 93.” —Linda Gordon, Florence Kelley Professor of History, New York University, USA “Meade vividly weaves together the personal and the political, and memory and history, in this gripping page-turner about Mia Truskier’s remarkable life and the global twentieth century.” —Aviva Chomsky, Salem State University, USA "One of the joys of first-person testimony is the uncovering of the many layers of history and the historical narrative. Meade's conversations with Mia Truskier reveal the complexity of individual identity within a larger group. This is a life story drawn from testimony and the voice of the past -- thoughtful and imaginative." —Ronald J. Grele, Former Director, Columbia University Oral History Research Office, US This book traces the life of Maria Mia Truskier, who fled the Nazis as a young Polish Jew in early 1940 and once safely resettled in the United States, became an activist for other refugees, earning renown in the Bay Area as “the oldest refugee” of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant. Mia worked for decades assisting those fleeing from war, violence and hardship, mainly from Central America and Haiti. Based on extensive interviews with Truskier before she passed away, as well as memorabilia from her own lifetime, including coded letters, newspaper clippings, and old photographs, this book results in a complex and multi-layered oral history. As Mia drew on memories of her life in Europe and World War II, she was situating and constructing those memories while re-reading and discovering these artifacts alongside the author of this book, and ultimately relating the ways that she and her family years later sought to make a difference for other refugees, drawing a connection between two major eras of human displacement: the end of World War II and today. Teresa Meade is the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture at Union College in Schenectady, NY, USA.