Dr Nancy Holland to Headline

September Meeting

Blood on the Snow: German-Russians in Siberian Exile

               Saturday,September 16

The North Star Chapter was pleased to welcome Dr Nancy Bernhardt Holland, the current Executive Director of the AHSGR to the September meeting.  Nancy who gave an expanded version of my Aussiedler report to the group.   Let’s call it “Blood on the Snow: German-Russians in Siberian Exile”. She focused on the experiences of  those persons who were dispossessed, deported, and brutalized simply for being German at a terrible time in history.  Most of the information comes from interviews I have done with Aussiedler during the past few summers and from several books and manuscripts presented to me during my research trips to Germany” she said.    

Dr. Nancy Bernhardt Holland, the current Executive Director of the AHSGR, is a charter member of the Society.  She has served as a member of the Board of Directors and as a Foundation Trustee.  For many years she edited the Journal of the AHSGR to which she has also contributed articles and translations.

Her volume of translations of memorials to and memoirs of German women in the Soviet Union who experienced the terrors of Stalinism first hand The book is presently being published by the AHSGR.  Dr. Holland traces her own heritage to the Volga villages of Frank, Norka, and Morgentau.

About the speaker: She is a graduate of Doane College, attended the University of Copenhagen, and holds graduate degrees from Washington University in Saint Louis and the University of Nebraska.  For the past thirty years she has been a professor of humanities at several colleges and universities, most recently at Trinity College and the University of Vermont.