Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

A Story of Two People Who Gave Up on Democracy

Wed, October 23, 2019
Lunch Program
Julie Lindahl

In April 2010, Brazilian-born Swedish-American Julie Lindahl visited the German Federal Archives only to discover that her grandfather was in the SS and stationed in occupied Poland for the duration of WWII, leaving West Germany for Brazil in 1960 as a new wave of war crimes trials commenced. Lindahl relates her transformational journey through Germany, Poland, Brazil, and Paraguay in which she grapples with the questions of how and why her grandparents made their choices, and the consequences across generations.

Julie Lindahl is an American-Swedish author and educator living in Sweden. She writes and speaks widely about her experiences, is a contributor to WBUR Cognoscenti and has been featured on National Public Radio several times. Julie holds a BA from Wellesley College, an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Frankfurt, Germany.

Raised in ten countries on three continents, she is the founder of Stories for Society, a non-profit organization for renewing the art of storytelling for social transformation, which in 2018 launched “Voices Between: Stories Against Extremism,” an award-winning initiative aimed at creating a force for peace by building a global network of established authors demonstrating and discussing the impact of intolerance, extremism and war through their stories. In 2019 NPR’s Snap Judgment released “Quiet is Best,” a program about her relationship with her grandmother. In 2018 The American Embassy in Sweden provided a grant for the launch of her online learning program for schools and universities in tandem with the publication of “The Pendulum,” which has been critically acclaimed in the U.S. and a best-seller in Sweden.

Ms. Lindahl’s Athenaeum presentation is sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at CMC.

Photo credit: Kajsa Göransson

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Claremont McKenna College
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Claremont, CA 91711

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