S26-17 Investigating, discovering and memorializing the history of my Czech Jewish family
Class | Registration opens 3/2/2026 9:00 AM EST
The goal of my lectures is to share the results of my research into the 20th century history of my Czech family and the methods that yielded fruit during this research. I will talk about my mother’s family - an affluent and sophisticated family in a small town 90 km from Vienna - and about the lives and sad fates of many family members. The history of my father’s family is also fascinating - his father knew Trotsky in Vienna and he, himself, was a first cousin of the so-called Norwegian Anne Frank. The story of his escape to England is remarkable. Finally, I shall discuss how I am memorializing the members of my family who perished in the Holocaust so that they will be remembered in the towns in which they lived and by the world at large. These lectures are more about life than death but death looms large, of course.
Ann Altman
Ann M. Altman was born in Bristol UK. She studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and received her doctorate in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale in 1974. After a career in research, she became a scientific writer and editor, working predominantly for the Japanese. She served for six years on Hamden’s Legislative Council and, later, was a member and twice-elected chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission. She has lectured in Mongolia on public participation in democratic processes and more recently, in Czechia, about her family history.