Lecture by Stanley Payne: Spanish Diplomats and the salvation of the Jewish people in World War II April 2, 2009

Lecture by Stanley Payne: Spanish Diplomats and the salvation of the Jewish people in World War II

Thursday, April 2nd at 6:30pm
Instituto Cervantes auditorium
Free Admission
The lecture is organized in collaboration with the Consulate General of Spain in Chicago

Stanley G. Payne is Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author or co-author of 21 books, most of which deal with modern Spanish history. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and corresponding member of the Real Academia Española de la Historia. In his lecture, Professor Payne will talk about how the Franco regime claimed credit for rescuing thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, but research has revealed that the primary initiative in German-controlled territory stemmed from individual Spanish diplomats. Spain served as an escape route in 1940 for thousands with transit papers, while another thousand or so Sephardic Jews could claim Spanish nationality, but individual diplomatic initiatives were largely responsible for rescuing 4-5,000 Jews in Greece and Hungary in 1943-45.