Lunchtime Lecture: German Jews of Persia

In August 2019, Dr. Pedram Khosronejad met some of the “children” of the German expatriate colony of Persia (Iran) – Australians who had been detained with their parents in Iran in 1941 after the country’s invasion by the British and Soviet Armies during the Second World War.

About 500 of them were sent to the Australian internment camps, while the rest of the women and children were forced to return to Germany during the war.

Of those interned, only two gave their religion as Jewish on the Service and Casualty Reports. However, based on recent research it has been discovered that there were more Jewish background internees from Persia among them.

Join us for this fascinating lecture presented by Professor Pedram Khosronejad, who obtained his PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and currently is the Curator of Persian Art at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, an Adjunct Professor in the Religion and Society Research Cluster at Western Sydney University, and a Fellow of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University.

Image: Inside the hut. Loveday war internment camp. Linoleum print on paper by internee Carl von Brandenstein (R36413), 1943. Wulff Collection. © Curator: P. Khosronejad.