The Locked Safe is Miriam David’s family memoir. After her mother died in 1996, a locked safe with five Nazi era passports was found. The book examines how her parents were able to flee Germany in 1936 and the diasporic nature of her family, as some family members were interned in Japanese internment camps in China, as well as British internment camps.In this lunchtime talk, Miriam will discuss the process of researching the materials for the book and focus particularly on the impact of war and internment on her parents separately and together. She and her daughter Charlotte will also speak about how their family’s history has affected them as ‘second’ and ‘third’ generation Holocaust survivors.
About the speakers:
Miriam E. David is professor emerita of sociology of education at University College London (UCL) Institute of Education (IOE). She has been a teacher, researcher, and head of department in various universities in England and the USA. Her research is on education, family, feminism, and gender. She edited (with Merilyn Moos) Debating the Zeitgeist and Being Second Generation (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2021).
Charlotte Reiner is a graduate of the University of Cambridge in Modern and Medieval Languages. She also holds Masters’ degrees from the University of Durham and University College London. She is an experienced teacher and has taught in a range of both primary and secondary schools. She is currently working as a freelance private tutor for both schools and individual families.
