Attached you will find a flyer for a film screening by Karl Pfeifer on Tuesday, March 29th at 6:00pm. Please bring it to the attention of interested colleagues. KarlPfeifer flyer.pdf
Emily Janisch, Center for Austrian Studies
Date: 03/29/2011
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Location: 710 Twin Cities,Social Sciences
Cost: Free
Description:
Karl Pfeifer was born in 1928 in Baden bei Wien, Lower Austria. He fled with his parents to Hungary in 1938, shortly after the Nazis took over Austria. By 1943 he was fleeing again, this time with the help of the Hashomer Hatzair, a leftist Zionist youth organization involved with getting Jewish children out of Europe. Pfeifer reached what was then Palestine, where he lived on a kibbutz with orphan children from throughout Europe. During his early adulthood he fought in the Israeli War of Independence.
In the early 1950s he returned to Austria - a move he describes as "probably the biggest mistake in my whole life." Despite a life spent in travel, he regularly returns to Austria. Why? He complains that he suffers from low blood pressure, and in Austria,"I get upset at least once a day and my pressure goes up. It's good for my health."
Pfeifer joined Amnesty International in 1974. He has worked with the Hungarian democratic opposition since 1979. At the age of 81, he continues to write for Hungarian, Austrian, Italian, British, German and Israeli newspapers.
Work on the film began in 2005 , when five founders of the "Society for Critical Research on Antisemitism," set out to produce a documentary film that shows the diverse experiences of Karl Pfeifer and the role anti-semitism played in shaping his life.
Mr. Pfeifer and one of the film collaborators, Thomas Schmidinger, will be present to discuss Pfeifer's life and the making of the film.
The Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, has generously sponsored Mr. Pfeifer's travel in the U.S.
