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E-book
Author Meade, Teresa A., 1948- author.

Title We don't become refugees by choice : Mia Truskier, survival, and activism from occupied Poland to California, 1920-2014 / Teresa A. Meade
Published Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2021

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Description 1 online resource
Series Palgrave studies in oral history
Palgrave studies in oral history.
Contents 1. Mia Truskier: The "Oldest Refugee" -- 2. The Making of Mias World: Warsaw and Zurich, 18901939 -- 3. Fleeing Poland, 19391940 -- 4. Hiding in Plain Sight: Italy, 19401945 -- 5. The War Years in Warsaw and the Soviet Union, 19391945 -- 6. Poland: In the Warsaw Ghetto and on the Aryan Side, 19391945 -- 7. The Aftermath of War in Europe, 19451949 -- 8. Mias American World: From Nebraska Immigrant to California Activist, 19491970 -- 9. "Dont Give In, Dont Give Up!" Refugees and the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, 19682014
Summary This book traces the life of Maria Mia Truskier, who fled the Nazis as a young Polish Jew in early 1940 and once safely resettled in the United States, became an activist for other refugees, earning renown in the Bay Area as "the oldest refugee" of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant. Mia worked for decades assisting those fleeing from war, violence and hardship, mainly from Central America and Haiti. Based on extensive interviews with Truskier before she passed away, as well as memorabilia from her own lifetime, including coded letters, newspaper clippings, and old photographs, this book results in a complex and multi-layered oral history. As Mia drew on memories of her life in Europe and World War II, she was situating and constructing those memories while re-reading and discovering these artifacts alongside the author of this book, and ultimately relating the ways that she and her family years later sought to make a difference for other refugees, drawing a connection between two major eras of human displacement: the end of World War II and today. Teresa Meade is the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture at Union College in Schenectady, NY, USA
Notes Includes index
Print version record
Subject Truskier, Mia
World War, 1939-1945 -- Refugees -- Poland
Refugees -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area
Social work with refugees -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area
Refugees
Social work with refugees
California -- San Francisco Bay Area
Poland
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9783030845254
3030845257