How do people at risk of persecution find the courage to resist? And how do we remember them today? This presentation will recount the life of surrealist artist turned anti-Nazi resistor Claude Cahun, who fled France for the Channel Islands in 1937 only to see Jersey occupied by the Nazis a few years later. Queer, Jewish, antifascist, and publicly critical of the ideas of gender that dominated their life, Cahun (born Lucy Schwob) and their partner Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe) fought against Nazism through artistic counterpropaganda. The lecture will also cover the unfolding of the Holocaust in France and the Channel Islands, and highlight some of the contemporary sources bringing attention to Cahun and Moore’s story.

Dr. Melissa Karp joined MCHE as a content specialist in August. She received her Ph.D. in Literature from Duke University, where she wrote her dissertation on World War II memory media across Europe and East Asia.