Innocence and Experience: Childhood and the 1930s Refugees. Children in Education, Art and Play

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 brought together expertise in the field from the UK, Europe and Israel, and presentations which dealt with diverse aspects of childhood amongst the refugees from Nazism, including education, therapy, literature, art, photography, and play. In this recording, Anthony Grenville and Charmian Brinson (both from the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies at the Institute of Modern Languages Research), speak about the depiction of trauma in literature by Jewish Refugee writers in British exile and the work of refugee youth organisations in wartime Britain.

Chairs: Anna Nyburg (Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies, IMLR); Monica Bohm-Duchen (Insiders/Outsiders, London)
1. Julia Winckler (Brighton): That Baby, The Story of Peter and his New Brother: Wolf Suschitzky and Liselotte Frankl’s Child-Centred, Educational Photography Book (Adprint, 1946)
2. Rolf Laven (Vienna): Pioneer of ‘Child Art’ Education Franz Cižek and his Ground-Breaking Influence in the UK
3. Rachel Dickson (Ben Uri/Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies, IMLR):  ‘Their innocence will inevitably be lost’: An Introduction to Renate Meyer (1930-2014), Forgotten Children’s Author and Illustrator, and her Creative Life in Exile

Author: Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies

Speaker(s): Julia Winckler (Brighton); Rolf Laven (Vienna); Rachel Dickson (Ben Uri/RCGAES, London); Chairs: Anna Nyburg (RCGAES, London); Monica Bohm-Duchen (Insiders/Outsiders, London)

Organisations: Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies

Event date: Thursday, 2 December 2021 - 2:05pm