Echoes of Exile: A Family’s Odyssey through the Holocaust and Cold War

  Join us for a compelling evening with historian and anthropologist Daniela Grollová Spenser, as she discusses her new book Echoes of Exile: A Family’s Odyssey through the Holocaust and Cold War. Blending personal history with political insight, Spenser traces three generations of her family across some of the most turbulent chapters of the 20th century: from the devastation of the Holocaust and wartime imprisonment, through the vibrant intellectual and political life of 1960s Czechoslovakia, to the trauma of exile after the 1968 Soviet invasion. At the heart of the story are her mother, translator Ruth Tosková, and her stepfather, editor and journalist Vladimír Tosek, whose lives intertwined with prominent figures such as Jiří Pelikán and the émigré journal Listy. The book—published in Czech by Argo (2025) and in English by the University of Alabama Press (2025)—offers a deeply human perspective on survival, displacement, and the shifting relationship between political exiles and Czech society after 1989. The conversation will be chaired by Jana Burešová and will open a window into how private lives intersect with history on a global scale. About the author: Daniela Spenser is a fellow at CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social) in Mexico City. She is also the author of The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920sand Stumbling Its Way Through Mexico: The Early Years of the Communist International. Supported by the BCSA.

• Admission: 5 (+ Eventbrite fee)