Jewish Book Series: Milena and Margarete with Gwen Strauss

Please join us at the JCC on **Tuesday, April 7** from **5-6:30 PM** for an
in-person visit from Gwen Strauss, author of _Milena and Margarete: A Love
Story in Ravensbrück._

**_Book Blurb_**

From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena
Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was
Kafka’s first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed to
fascism. A non-conformist, bi-sexual feminist, she was way ahead of her time.
With the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, her home became a central
meeting place for Jewish refugees. German Margarete, born to a middle-class
family, married the son of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. But soon swept
up in the fervor of the Bolshevik Revolution, she met her second partner, the
Communist Heinz Neumann. Called to Moscow for his “political deviations,” he
fell victim to Stalin’s purges while Margarete was exiled to the hell of the
Soviet gulag. Two years later, traded by Stalin to Hitler, she ended up
outside Berlin in Ravensbrück, the only concentration camp built for women.

Milena and Margarete loved each other at the risk of their lives. But in the
post-war survivors’ accounts, lesbians were stigmatized, and survivors kept
silent. This book explores those silences, and finally celebrates two strong
women who never gave up and continue to inspire. As Margaret wrote: “I was
thankful for having been sent to Ravensbrück, because it was there I met
Milena.”

_JCC community events and programs are open to all regardless of faith or
background. All are welcome._

Organized by: JCC of Greater Ann Arbor

View event on Jlive: https://jlive.app/events/14347